First Impressions: Halo Reach
So after two days of playing Halo Reach on-and-off, getting roughly halfway through the campaign as well as putting in some time with my roommate and friends in the multiplayer and firefight modes, I think I’m starting to get a pretty good handle on what this game’s “all about”.
Specifically, it’s about shooting big aliens until they’re dead.
I could almost just put a bow on this article there and walk away because, let’s be honest here, this game is so Halo it hurts. Reach is basically the distillation of everything the Halo series has come to be about; it hits all the right notes, with your bad-ass super soldier fighting against overwhelming odds in the form of technologically superior alien cultists, your mixture of cool human and alien weapons and vehicles, a couple moments of overwhelming “what the fuck that was awesome!”, and lots and lots of dying.
FYI: Shooting dudes in multiplayer - Still fun
I’m going through the campaign on Heroic mode, because I’m a manly man who does manly things like play my video games on the harder difficulties, and god damn am I suffering for it here. Maybe my skills are just wearing down with age (I’m 21 now, an old man in twitch-gaming standards), but I seem to be dying an awful lot.
It could just be that I’m not used to the sheer monstrous scale of the combat in Reach, however. You still crawl through the occasional corridor, but nearly every level I’ve played has been a big, open environment. These places all seem filled with cool little touches as well. For example? You can drive forklifts! They’re just lying around, waiting to be driven in a number of stages. Why? Because, that’s why! There have been few moments this year for me in gaming as ridiculous as charging a Covenant squad in a damn forklift, and I thank the boys over at Bungie for giving me that opportunity.
Reach isn’t perfect though, and I’ve noticed a lot of little issues that are starting to annoy the beejesus out of me. For one, the friendlyAI is still mostly retarded; they can’t drive to save your life, they can’t follow when you really need them to, and they have a nasty habit of just charging forward into battle and getting themselves killed. As well, they’ve ruined the crouch button in Reach, in that you can’t crouch while moving and have to be absolutely still in order for it to work, making it all but useless. I know that’s probably the most minor-fucking-issue possible to complain about, but it’s been nagging at me constantly.
I’ve still got a ways to go before I can put my stamp on the campaign, and I think I’ve got plenty of hours still left with my friends playing the co-op and multiplayer modes, so I’ll give a real review somewhere down the road. But if you’re looking for any kind of quick recommendation, well, if you like Halo, you should probably buy Halo Reach. If you don’t? Meh, not so much.
