Halo Reach Thread

[TAZMINATOR]

I got this game today. I am thinking of giving away the '2 day' gold pass that was included since I already have 12 month gold pass.

[Neo003]

I just bought the gold a month ago, can I get into this deal and add another year.

[Nerve]

worth getting then? :p

[TAZMINATOR]

I just bought the gold a month ago, can I get into this deal and add another year.

Yes you can. If your pass expires in 2011, you can buy a pass with 29.99 via xbox marketplace on your xbox screen to add another year which it will expires in 2012. Which I did.

[BajiRav]

I just bought the gold a month ago, can I get into this deal and add another year.

I am in the same boat. :)

[Neo003]

Yes you can. If your pass expires in 2011, you can buy a pass with 29.99 via xbox marketplace on your xbox screen to add another year which it will expires in 2012. Which I did.

Thanks (Y)

Now where the hell is the god damn UPS guy.

[George P Global Moderator]

Now that is a nice deal from MS. Can't complain at all with 40% off.

[Ayepecks]

I've played through the first three levels and, damn, this is what the Halos of the current generation should have been!

Halo 3 hardly did anything to advance the gameplay, and ODST was a neat experiment, but this finally feels like a current generation "killer app" so far. The graphics are dramatically improved (although they still aren't at the top of this generation, but at least they look like this generation), the gameplay is much more varied, and it's just much more fun and has nice little touches that make it far better than the previous games. The new interface is also great, as is the whole armory aspect of the game.

I've noticed so pretty bad framerate issues, but hopefully a patch can fix that. Also, this is just me being anal and nitpicky, but I wish they would've stuck with first-person only cutscenes. The third-person stuff really takes me out of the experience, and when they do the first-person scenes they look gorgeous. Also, the teammate A.I. is still absolute garbage, which is amazing considering how much better the enemy A.I. is.

I don't care what Metacritic or GameRankings says, this is so much better than Halo 3.

[WastedJoker]

I've played through the first three levels and, damn, this is what the Halos of the current generation should have been!

Halo 3 hardly did anything to advance the gameplay, and ODST was a neat experiment, but this finally feels like a current generation "killer app" so far. The graphics are dramatically improved (although they still aren't at the top of this generation, but at least they look like this generation), the gameplay is much more varied, and it's just much more fun and has nice little touches that make it far better than the previous games. The new interface is also great, as is the whole armory aspect of the game.

I've noticed so pretty bad framerate issues, but hopefully a patch can fix that. Also, this is just me being anal and nitpicky, but I wish they would've stuck with first-person only cutscenes. The third-person stuff really takes me out of the experience, and when they do the first-person scenes they look gorgeous. Also, the teammate A.I. is still absolute garbage, which is amazing considering how much better the enemy A.I. is.

I don't care what Metacritic or GameRankings says, this is so much better than Halo 3.

I liked the cut-scenes but I noticed a few oddities - I usually enable subtitles on most games (some games have horrendous sound levels which make speech hard to understand clearly) and in a few cut-scenes there were subtitles without any evident speaking :/ Bit weird - can only assume the subtitle file is slightly outdated compared to the audio.

Speaking of the audio, this game got excellent ratings for the audio but I found some of the music to be a bit off-kilter for some scenes but in-game it was excellent.

Frame-rate stutter gets a bit bad later on but there is loads happening on-screen so it's understandable. It's never unplayable though.

and yeah, the gameplay is quite varied - I love being able to pick up the turrets and mow covenant down :D

[goji]

I've played through the first three levels and, damn, this is what the Halos of the current generation should have been!

Good, I still need to pick up my copy after work and I can't wait now!

Halo 3 hardly did anything to advance the gameplay, and ODST was a neat experiment, but this finally feels like a current generation "killer app" so far. The graphics are dramatically improved (although they still aren't at the top of this generation, but at least they look like this generation), the gameplay is much more varied, and it's just much more fun and has nice little touches that make it far better than the previous games.

I've come to the conclusion that if I want graphics I'll play Crysis. There is no graphical equal. For gameplay however Halo has never been a real letdown (I agree on H3) I can only hope that Reach is released for PC right.... right? :p

Also, the teammate A.I. is still absolute garbage, which is amazing considering how much better the enemy A.I. is.

I'm okay with team A.I. being horrible. I personally want to play and experience the game while not having my hand held by the computer. My only concern is with the A.I. driving. Is it on par with 3, worse or better?

[Neo003]

Got the package , but can't play for another couple of hours . But I can giveaway the 2 day trial code, PM if anyone is interested.

P.S.

That's one huge box.

[Ayepecks]

I'm okay with team A.I. being horrible. I personally want to play and experience the game while not having my hand held by the computer. My only concern is with the A.I. driving. Is it on par with 3, worse or better?

AI driving wasn't good at all in the one level I've used it so far. I'd say it's about the same as Halo 3.

[Alladaskill17]

We picked it up about 3 hours ago and played through some of the missions, but now we're trying out all the multiplayer stuff - GREAT.

[Emn1ty]

Full review of the campaign below so please, if you don't want spoilers don't read this. I'll try to keep it fairly vague but no promises. I like to use sections so I'll be splitting it up into Graphics/Sound, Gameplay and Story.

---

Graphics/Sound

First off, the game looks gorgeous. It is easy to tell that the game isn't really trying to break any records but the reason it looks wonderful is because everything is clean, crisp and most of all well lit. The elites look more menacing than ever and the particle system, oh do I love the new particle system. In terms of backdrops, the entire game had a wonderful atmosphere. I had a hard time soaking everything in without being urged forward by the commanding voices from above or being blindsided by a new group of enemies. But I will tell you that this game has nailed the feel of Reach I got from the book and much of this game provides beautiful scenery, great cut-scenes with awesome motion capture along with some of the best lighting I have seen yet in a Halo game.

That being said, I did notice some graphical glitches. Had a few floating ration bags and one floating wall lamp, but no biggie.

In terms of sound I was a bit underwhelmed by the in-game soundtrack. Most Halo games have the soundtrack taking a front row seat. Halo CE, 2 and 3 would have a new track per sequence that signified many of the parts of the game. ODST went a step further and created a great atmosphere with its awesome round of tracks setting the tone for the entire game. In Reach, however, I felt the music was only really great in a few cutscenes and particularly (spoiler)

on the Pillar of Autumn mission.

What I find great about this game in terms of sound, however, is the wonderful array of noises that assaulted my ears as I fought off the Covenant armada. Everything had its place and many of the sounds in the game even called back to older titles. Overall I rate this part of the game 8/10. But that is subject to change upon a more closer look at the soundtrack itself.

---

Gameplay

This is Halo. I'm not talking Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3 or ODST. It is the best of all of them, and very few of the faults. Specifically in campaign I will discuss two things: Weapons/Vehicles and Enemies/AI. First off is the weapons. They are all awesome and honestly I rarely found myself sticking to one weapon. I must have used everything available to me as I played through the game at least twice (even the plasma pistol). The concussion rifle is a bit awkward but man is it terrifying in the enemy's hands. The only weapon I was disappointed with, however, was the Assault Rifle. It really wasn't near as useful as I'd hoped. Oh well, still may have a place in Multiplayer. And it sure is perty when it sparks on stuff.

The falcon is a love hate relationship for me. (Spoiler)

The mission where you wander the city in the Hornet after it was decimated by the Covenant was amazing and was literally a combination of the Two Betrayals and Halo levels from the original game.

The mission was superb and I had a lot of fun in the Falcon destroying Banshees and aiding other UNSC troops. From a gameplay standpoint it hands down beats the Hornet. Either way, I never really liked either of them cause they were a bit off from the kind of thing the Pelican established in the first and second game. The warthog is just as awesome as usual and the Banshee now has the ability to hover again (which was not true in the Beta). Everything seems to be awesome with vehicles, although I primarily destroy them :p.

Now, enemies and AI. This is gonna be a bit more spoiler heavy so I'm not gonna sensor it due to the tediousness that would involve (cause I'm a perfectionist who doesn't want to completely sensor the entire paragraph). The enemies in the game were FIERCE! And I only played on Normal. Elites were ruthless, Grunts were suicidal, Jackals were calculating and resilient while Hunters were purely brutal (four at once can be a bit overwhelming, especially INSIDE). What I was not excited about was seeing the return of Brutes and especially Buggers (most hated enemy in Halo in terms of gameplay AND canon). Still I was pleasantly surprised that even in Normal I was constantly flanked and out maneuvered when I tried to bull rush. The game offers a wonderful challenge with a great number of enemy behaviors that give the Covenant a very menacing and aggressive approach to fighting off the player.

Rating: 10/10 - The best yet.

---

Story

Alright. I loved the campaign. It was like being reminded of all the awesome Halo has brought over the years. Call backs to many Halo CE levels with tracks inspired by just those levels. Characters from past Halo games making appearances (

Keyes and Cortana

) and then the progression of the characters was nice and interesting. I really felt that I was fighting a losing battle and knowing that I wouldn't win didn't make it any less striking. The only thing I didn't like about the campaign was that it wasn't long enough, but that was all made up for with the final mission and (HUGE SPOILER!!!!)

the one after the credits. Fighting off an endless barage of Covenant as your helmet cracks, crumbling under the armada that does nothing but grows while you see Reach being glassed in all directions. That was a big hit to me, personally. That particular mission made the game for me and now I look forward to playing the campaign many more times.

Rating: 9/10 - short, but worth every second.

---

Final Rating: 10/10

In the end, the most important part of a game isn't its story or its graphics, but the gameplay. Halo Reach has nailed that completely. The game is fun to play and, better yet, feels like Halo ought to feel.

[killmaster84]

And I'm already getting tired of pulling people to victory.

[PL_ Veteran]

A friend of mine bought it today and we did the whole campaign in co-op in one sitting. Must've taken around six hours on Normal. It really was good fun,

calling in air strikes, fighting in space, those huge dinosaur things you have to fight, flying around with jetpacks

, and while it definitely wasn't as colourful as previous Halos it was still nice to look at. Didn't have enough time to play multiplayer, which is a shame as from having a quick skim through the customisation tools it looks fantastic.

I'm still divided on how I feel about the story though. It's nice how

it all came full circle with the Pillar of Autumn

, but "coming full circle" was something that Halo 3 already did pretty well with Installation 04B. Also the characters didn't really sit right with me...they were more realistic characters, yeah, but Kim was the only one I really cared about. The ending was

overly sentimental, and as I said before we already had the big sentimental ending with Halo 3

. On the other hand, I'd always thought Reach would make for a good game, and I got what I asked for, a game about Reach getting glassed.

[Hedon]

Weird. A friend of mine just finished Halo Reach in one sitting, and it took him 11 hours he said, and that was whipping through it pretty good on normal. Said he is headed to Legendary this weekend.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Went to my local Futureshop after work today around 4:30PM and they were all out of the LE 360 Console, heading to the next closest store around 6:30, they said they had 12 left, so there better be some when I get there!

Also hope that 29.99 for 12 month deal is available in Canada when I hook it up.

[Razorwing]

-snip- got it.. nvm.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

:laugh: 25% of my friends list is online, or, 25 people, and only 4 people ARE NOT playing Reach.

Yeah, that is pretty damn impressive.

Okay, 5 people signed off since I originally posted, so out of 20, looks like 17 are playing Reach (those 2 that are Away were just on, so I assume they set their status to Away)...

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

If anyone wants to get some easy multiplayer achievements, read on.

Add the Easy Firefight gametype from my file share on Bungie.net to your download list, it should download next time you load Reach.

Start a custom game and play "Easy Firefight" on Legendary difficulty (increases multiplier).

All skulls will be on (increases multiplier), you will be invincible, have unlimited ammo and weapons should do a lot more damage. Firefight will also be set to an unlimited number of rounds so you can play at your own pace.

You should be able to get the following achievements with ease:

Lucky Me

Earned a Triple Kill while Jetpacking in Campaign, Firefight or Matchmaking.

Crowd Control

Earned a Killionaire medal in Firefight

Game, Set, Match

Completed a Firefight set on Legendary without dying.

Firestarter

Scored 50,000 points in a Firefight game.

Blaze of Glory

Scored 200,000 points in a Firefight game.

Heat in the Pipe (the hard one)

Scored 1,000,000 points in a Firefight game.

Heat in the Pipe took us 4+ hours to get (including a few breaks), however we system linked this and had 4 people taking it in turns to play for 20 mins, then swap over, so it wasn't that bad... although I think everyone was fedup of going for this one in the end. We had a good time all the same.

An avatar award for 100 Firefight kills should also be unlocked as you play (I think it’s for that anyway)

You can also unlock various other achievements for a certain number of kills with various weapons and the one for using a medi pack depending on the level played.

Have fun :) - the idea for this was got from a video on IGN I can no longer find the link to.

[AJerman]

:laugh: 25% of my friends list is online, or, 25 people, and only 4 people ARE NOT playing Reach.

Yeah, that is pretty damn impressive.

Only one of my friends is playing Reach.

[raka5]

i

don't know but can any 1 tell me this game is available for pc?

f pls send me the links

thanks

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Only one of my friends is playing Reach.

FTR, 95% of my friends list are members of here. Over the years I have just accepted friend requests from here, and I have actually had to delete quite a few people, if they were inactive for 6 months, they were deleted.

And I stand corrected, I only have 99 friends, not the full 100.

The most people I have actually seen online at once was 37, and that was for, you guessed it, Halo 03.

[error404ts]

i

don't know but can any 1 tell me this game is available for pc?

f pls send me the links

thanks

It's not. Wish it was. Console controllers suck for me.