It's hard to believe it's been almost three years since I was in one of my first Halo 3 matchmaking sessions thinking "you know, this is awesome, I can't even imagine what's going to happen after a Bungie three year development cycle". Outside of the fun but questionable ODST, it seems Reach is that vision, and reading Bungie's weekly blogs I've never been so hyped for a video game. From everything Bungie has been saying, Halo: Reach looks like it will once again dominate console shooters, but this time learning from the mistakes of it's predeccesors while perfecting the formula. Let's see if this is coming true.
I'll start with matchmaking and user interface, in a word, their awesome. The UI looks really slick, and is just as easy to use as it was in Halo 3, with some notable improvements. The new "active roster" system is meant to streamline everything, and I like how it displays all of your friends who are playing the beta under your current party and quickly invite them without the need to pop up their profile to send the invite. It works very well, but it would be nice in the future to have that display your friends who have played the game but aren't playing it in real time, so in case a friend is still playing modern warfare but is willing to play reach with you at the moment, you can invite him without the guide button.
Even looking at all the little things about the UI goes to show how well Bungie does at making each entry in the games different. The start button menu is basically what is like in Halo 3, except instead of having two different sections, media and settings, everything is all in one list, very welcome. The options are mostly the same from Halo 3, but the armory is the Reach equivalent of character customization, and it's a notable improvement over the last game in the trilogy. Remember how the game never told you if there was a new piece of armor unlocked or how to unlock, sometimes in obscure ways (COUGH, COUGH, mongoose mowdown), that is gone as permutations are bought with credits earned in matchmaking. Two tiny complaints, the armory doesn't tell you what you need to achieve before you can buy permutation unless you select it to display a pop up, which is a little lame, and if you are lost looking through the start menu before a game starts, there isn't enough warning to get the hell out.
Even looking at all the little things about the UI goes to show how well Bungie does at making each entry in the games different. The start button menu is basically what is like in Halo 3, except instead of having two different sections, media and settings, everything is all in one list, very welcome. The options are mostly the same from Halo 3, but the armory is the Reach equivalent of character customization, and it's a notable improvement over the last game in the trilogy. Remember how the game never told you if there was a new piece of armor unlocked or how to unlock, sometimes in obscure ways (COUGH, COUGH, mongoose mowdown), that is gone as permutations are bought with credits earned in matchmaking. Two tiny complaints, the armory doesn't tell you what you need to achieve before you can buy permutation unless you select it to display a pop up, which is a little lame, and if you are lost looking through the start menu before a game starts, there isn't enough warning to get the hell out.
Now with the actual matchmaking, it is as good as humanly possible, let alone gameplay wise. What makes it so groundbreaking is that it is the first shooter, at least from what I've seen, to pair you up with people based on how good you are, rather than rank which from my experience playing Halo 3 and Modern Warfare, paired me up with people I couldn't keep up with once I hit a certain rank. I'm not sure what the complexities of the system are, but I consistently got into games where I was neither completely obliterated nor obliterating the other team, except in one instance where I hooked up with some team mates, the system eventually paired us up people who gave me fairly low k/d spreads for a few games, but I was still having good fun. I can't say much about the new social settings, which are supposed to set you up with players whether you want them rowdy or polite, but I can't say much about it consider the XBOX Live community is filled with pre-teens, total assholes, and people who don't have their mic plugged in to avoid those pre-teens and total assholes.
Yeah, I haven't even begun explaining the gameplay, and once I got used to the slight changes I found it to be a love letter to fans who have stuck around since the beginning of the series. It finely marries the simplicity of Combat Evolved with the under the hood improvements found in later installments and then some. The gameplay is that same easy to learn, hard to master combat that has kept players addicted and renewing there Live subscription. The gunplay is as solid as ever, but now you'll notice reticule bloom to hinder spraying with certain weapons. It's not only refreshing to see the symbol in the middle of the screen animate, but it makes the firing your weapon deeper as you may want to deal death with the Jesus Pistol or the new DMR by firing it as fast as their semi-auto will allow you, but if you control your shots a bit, killing can be more efficient.
One thing that I was sceptic about was the new Armor Abilities, fearing they would make the combat awkward as it might get repetitive and stale to fire on a guy just for him to get away from the action with the use of sprint or the jetpack or go into armor lock without any strategy. I was wrong, I'm glad to see the Halo 3's equipment go by-bye because I didn't like seeing them change the combat environment, and with abilities like sprint and jetpack, it gets rid of the monotony by of finding your favorite tool of destruction in a slow manner. Or one of my personal favorites, grabbing a shotgun and going into active camo, making for an easy killing frenzy, a tactic that the generals of the world will cry N00B for.
One thing that I was sceptic about was the new Armor Abilities, fearing they would make the combat awkward as it might get repetitive and stale to fire on a guy just for him to get away from the action with the use of sprint or the jetpack or go into armor lock without any strategy. I was wrong, I'm glad to see the Halo 3's equipment go by-bye because I didn't like seeing them change the combat environment, and with abilities like sprint and jetpack, it gets rid of the monotony by of finding your favorite tool of destruction in a slow manner. Or one of my personal favorites, grabbing a shotgun and going into active camo, making for an easy killing frenzy, a tactic that the generals of the world will cry N00B for.
The control scheme is slightly different and for the better. Some in the hardcore scene will tell you that every second counts in heated combat and taking your thumb off the right stick to press the melee button wastes valuable time, so thats why melee is mapped to the right bumper, the left bumper to use armor abilities, and grenade swapping is a tap of the B button. . Otherwise it's the classic Halo set up that perfected console shooters almost a decade ago, jumping is the A button, switching weapons is Y, and reverting reloading back to the X button will have you nostalgic to the days of the original XBOX. I love it, all of the major combat functions are tied to bumpers and triggers, making killing more efficient, while the non combat functions are tied to face buttons. Once you understand the control adapt from Halo 3 to Reach's, you will find that this set up takes advantage of the 360 controllers design, its elegant, effective, negates any desire to buy a modded controller with a button on the back, and like Gears of War and the Halo games before it, it feels like it was built from the ground up for the console, but this time taking advantage of the a gamepads limitations.
Outside of the glitches that will be uncovered because of the beta, there are some small annoyances. Yes, the Assault Rifle is much more fun to use than its form in Halo 3, but its still somewhat weak, killing guy without using melee will require a buddy and often times when I roam the map lone wolf style, I'll fire on a guy only to run out of ammo and require myself to pull out my pistol the finish the sucker off with a headshot, come on baby finish what ya started. The needle rifle is a functional counterpart to the DMR, but i'd like it to fire faster than the DMR for a more exotic feel. If I'm using the big brother to the hilarious needler, outside of instances that would require more precision, I want to lay shots into dudes quickly before they aspload.
Sprint also feels kinda stiff as it unnecessarily lowers the look speed. I guess it was meant to prevent people from rushing someone just to quickly run around his target at close range and land an easy assassination, but if thats the case, that guy who's sprinting will be noticed, fired on, following up with a beat down. Otherwise I haven't noticed anything about any of the armor abilities that is utterly broken or needs major alterations, but the few neusances should be fixed as expected.
The most annoying lies with the weapon spawns, they just aren't that easy to find and feel rushed. On Powerhouse, the shotgun spawns behind the area where the blue team spawns. Lets think about this, if your playing Halo, whens the last time you spawned with your buddies and thought "oh theres most likely a power weapon in a not very obvious spot right behind me". At least on Halo 3's guardian the shotgun was located near a team spawn point, but at least that was in a brightly lit corridor. The focus rifle and grenade launcher on powerhouse are located in good areas, but placing them under a shadows probably made it difficult for players to wonder where the guy who looked weapon locations up on the internet found them. Sword Base is better, since some weapons lean on white walls but the covenant arms located on the catwalks blend into the ground's bluish shade. Team spawns also don't take full advantage of the map's design. On sword base, the start of many games tend to erupt into combat to quickly and the terrain leading up to the complex of powerhouse would've been a great team spawn and would've made it more fair for both teams to grab the power weapons.
Sprint also feels kinda stiff as it unnecessarily lowers the look speed. I guess it was meant to prevent people from rushing someone just to quickly run around his target at close range and land an easy assassination, but if thats the case, that guy who's sprinting will be noticed, fired on, following up with a beat down. Otherwise I haven't noticed anything about any of the armor abilities that is utterly broken or needs major alterations, but the few neusances should be fixed as expected.
The most annoying lies with the weapon spawns, they just aren't that easy to find and feel rushed. On Powerhouse, the shotgun spawns behind the area where the blue team spawns. Lets think about this, if your playing Halo, whens the last time you spawned with your buddies and thought "oh theres most likely a power weapon in a not very obvious spot right behind me". At least on Halo 3's guardian the shotgun was located near a team spawn point, but at least that was in a brightly lit corridor. The focus rifle and grenade launcher on powerhouse are located in good areas, but placing them under a shadows probably made it difficult for players to wonder where the guy who looked weapon locations up on the internet found them. Sword Base is better, since some weapons lean on white walls but the covenant arms located on the catwalks blend into the ground's bluish shade. Team spawns also don't take full advantage of the map's design. On sword base, the start of many games tend to erupt into combat to quickly and the terrain leading up to the complex of powerhouse would've been a great team spawn and would've made it more fair for both teams to grab the power weapons.
Overall though, I like what I am seeing, and if I'm not too addicted I will share my opinions on the new Invasion mode.
Nice review man. I don't have an Xbox, but from what I've seen, reach looks much better then the trilogy and ODST. The game play seems good but it seems to mimic other popular FPS's now, like sprinting, character customization, and the choice to spawn at your team mates exact location (Bad Company 2 much?) The melee attacks look cool, but it seems to just be a replacement for a knife kill from MW2. I think Bungie could make the series better, if they did somethings that just doesn't seem like a copies from another game.