Halo: Reach (Xbox 360)
Reach. The name of this human colony established on a far off planet in the distant future has cropped up many times across the course of the Halo titles, both as an event where the war between humanity and the alien alliance known as the Covenant picked up and as the impetus for the events of the first Halo game. The Pillar of Autumn spaceship, the valuable AI Cortana, and the face of the franchise Master Chief all encounter the first Halo installation after fleeing from Reach. While a novel had touched on it around the release of the first game, for Bungie’s last title with the phenomenal first person shooter series they created, they decided to turn back the clock and show this meaningful event in a game they named Halo: Reach.
Set in the far off year of 2552, Halo: Reach follows a team of six supersoldiers known as Spartans that are called in to investigate what seems to be a rebellion on Reach, a massive colony and humanity’s major military installation away from Earth. Very quickly though the team learns that what seemed like a civilian uprising was actually a surprise attack by the alien zealots known as the Covenant, the ongoing war escalating to the point where both sides are forced to take drastic action to try and turn the conflict in their favor. The player assumes the role of Noble Six, the latest addition to the team and the one with the least to say and very little history. However, the pack of five supersoldiers you work with in the field not only provide helpful backup in a firefight, but they provide a more interesting team dynamic than Halo: ODST’s focus on exaggerated character traits. Noble Team is made up of professionals who wear the scars of their many battles and long service, but they manage to still feel distinct despite being battle-hardened soldiers. Jorge’s humanity allows him to empathize with victims of the attack and he has a close relationship with a vital VIP caught in the crossfire, Kat seems to always be concocting daring tactics for the team despite knowing it rubs the others the wrong way, while Emile seems to take pleasure in the fight more than others but lacks the social graces to do much else. With the fight to protect Reach being as desperate as it is, the ultimate fates of many characters still carries weight even if you come in with the dramatic irony of picking up details about the attack on Reach from other Halo titles.
The act of protecting and evacuating Reach as necessary is the main driving force for your travels across the planet, and while the Hungarian names for locations on the planet can make it sometimes hard to commit them to memory, the locations for battles still cement themselves in your mind because of their excellent design. Military bases and wide open battlefields come in many different flavors to allow for tight quarters combat, cover filled interior spaces, or complex arrangements of elevation and attack options that work well for the campaign missions and the multiplayer maps like Spire, Boneyard, and Countdown that are built off the ideas featured in these locations. While these locations stand out for their use in making the gameplay shine, some major setpiece chapters exist as well, such as visiting New Alexandria that not only features an urban cityscape as a place for you to navigate on foot but also one section has you climbing into the new Falcon helicopter to fight aerial battles and enter skyscrapers built for a future of more common flying vehicles. At one point you even get to fight in space, the Sabre not the cleanest vehicle to fight with due to its simple weapon options and full 3D maneuverability but still injecting an enjoyable new game type right before you hop aboard an enemy spacecraft, fight in zero gravity for a bit, and then face the Covenant in the halls of one of their own warships. Both in the story and in the multiplayer you can expect Bungie’s deft hand for providing arenas perfect for various kinds of firefights that favor different tactics, weapons, and vehicles as they vary up their sight lines, the placement of important objectives or items, and the direction action flows naturally. On top of the Forge custom map system getting even more complex to allow for wild game modes to be built out of the already strong systems, Halo: Reach’s environments are certainly going to hold up their end of defining how exciting battles unfold.
The Covenant aliens, despite having already been the main antagonist of four Halo shooters, seem to be at their most dangerous here. Even the Grunts, small aliens often used for cannon fodder, can take a bit of a beating and ones with certain tactics are placed better such as the Kamikaze Grunts who run at you with active grenades in hand being placed around corners or in large groups to catch you off-guard. Jackals, in addition to including shield-wielding gunmen who favor attacking from afar, include a more mobile variant that can take more abuse and avoid it better too. Elites and Brutes are the enemy forces more comparable to your own power, Elites requiring sustained aggression to take down and packing some strong weaponry themselves while the Brutes will go in a frenzy if worn down too much and can wield the heavy artillery. Hunters with their built-in shields and powerful unique laser weapons are fearsome additions to a battle without how long it can take down one when they often come in a small group, and the bug-like Drones come in small swarms to pester you from above as you fight more durable foes. Some enemy types like the Engineer crop up very rarely to buff enemy shields and the natural wildlife of Reach is seemingly just there for color like the ostrich-like Moas or the giant Guta monsters where there are only two in the whole game and they appear in one small area.
With the main enemy force bringing the power though, gunfights can be challenging yet thrilling, the enemy force also bringing unique vehicle types to the fray that you can steal from them or need to take down to avoid being overwhelmed. The Ghost hoverbike, zippy Banshee aircraft, and mortar-launching Wraith tank are familiar vehicle types that have strong means of attack but different weaknesses than their equivalent human vehicles like the Mongoose bike that has no built in weapons and the Scorpion tank having an instantly firing cannon but limited explosion range with that shot. Warthogs let a team pile into a jeep and play different roles in attacking or navigating while the new Revenant vehicle on the Covenant side is a two-seater that has one player fire an attached cannon while the other player hangs out to fire on foes with a regular gun. For some odd reason there are also generic trucks and a forklift you can climb in and drive to little effect as well, but it doesn’t harm the experience since it is always optional and might just be there to help you move around faster in spots. The power dynamic of many battles where combat vehicles are present depends heavily on their utilization, the players in one getting a boost to navigation and firepower at the cost of being bigger targets that other players will have direct counters to like boarding the vessel to break it open or using heavy firepower like a Rocket Launcher or Fuel Rod Cannon to blast them or flip them with ease.
Halo: Reach’s play outside of a vehicle instead relies on smart movement with options like a floaty jump to avoid fire or knowing when to pick your battles to balance the defensive shielding your character can regenerate by avoiding a firefight. If you do lose all of your shielding in a skirmish though, your health bar will start taking damage, the player wiped out if they lose it entirely but able to have that shielding buffer so they can assess the battlefield or make bold moves. There are weapons and situations that will tear right through a player who is careless like heavy duty weapons, but characters also have access to special armor abilities they can swap out and utilize to gain an edge in battle. Sprint is a useful default for letting you get places quicker, but the other options like hunkering down with Armor Lock give you brief invincibility to stall as teammates need time to reach your position or you can survive a powerful explosive weapon that could otherwise have ended you with ease. Drop Shields can be placed for instant protection, the Hologram will allow you to send out a false version of yourself to throw off enemy aim, and the Jetpack opens up a lot more potential in navigating levels to the point it might be too good for some story segments where you can just fly past a room of enemies if you hold onto it long enough. More importantly, armor abilities will be available for reuse after they’ve had time to recharge, and while dying will strip the most interesting ones away, these tools can remain a constant factor in fleshing out combat options and offer more battle variety than they do harm. Players are able to last longer in the Firefight wave survival mode because of the edge it can give against the constant incoming enemies, the Juggernaut multiplayer mode were one player is made overpowered as everyone fights to replace them has more equalizers on the regular soldiers’ side, and your ability to control or assault territory in modes like Generator Defense and Capture the Flag feels more dynamic due to the extra approach options these powers add.
Weapons are naturally an important part of all these excellent design decisions coming together wonderfully though, and Halo: Reach brings back plenty of classic options while adding in a surprisingly high amount of new firearms. The Needler that fires lightly homing plasma spikes that detonate if enough make contact has a new variation called the Needle Rifle where you need to land fewer shots for the explosion but your personal accuracy plays a greater role in the shots actually making contact. The basic Sniper Rifle is joined by the DMR that allows for quicker fire but only really packs a punch when you land a headshot. The human side finally brings a grenade launcher to the table just in time for the Covenant to bring in the Concussion Rifle whose explosive shots don’t bounce on contact with surfaces. A good spread of weapons in the middle allow for tools useful for most situations like the assault rifles, the automatic Plasma Rifles and their new Plasma Repeater variant with tweaked stats, and shotguns, but you’ll also get your hands on some very specialized equipment. The satisfying energy sword allows for near instant kills if you’re in close enough range to land a strike while the Gravity Hammer’s hefty swing is still gratifying to use despite its focus shifting to the less lethal shockwave of its swing launching enemies. The plasma grenade can be stuck to enemies and surfaces after its thrown to make it inescapable, but the Plasma Launcher allows you to fire these deadly explosives across the map if you charge it long enough. Perhaps the only major disappointment in this game’s armory would be the Focus Rifle, the impressive laser beam it fires oddly pathetic, but at least if you get a Spartan Laser in your hand you can obliterate enemies or vehicles after you build up energy for the high powered light beam. While not every weapon is exciting, you’re still looking at a mostly successful mix of armaments to back up the masterfully designed firefights of a series that has taken five games to get here, so the Focus Rifle being underwhelming is an easy thing to accept when everything else about the action gels together so well.
THE VERDICT: Bungie’s farewell to the Halo franchise is pulled off in style with Halo: Reach’s laundry list of immensely successful design choices. The Covenant forces are made more formidable foes to help bring the same kind of thrilling action to the campaign and Firefight modes as you would expect going against human players in the array of customizable multiplayer options. The weapon selection has a good spread of options that mix well with environmental design, vehicle presence, and armor abilities to make for a battle system with plenty of potential. Even though it’s a prequel to the Halo franchise, Halo: Reach has all the components that made the Halo games top notch first person shooters and even builds off familiar ideas with great success, the first game in the series’s canon having remarkably refined gameplay backing up this formative story.
And so, I give Halo: Reach for Xbox 360…
A FANTASTIC rating. While Halo: Reach does toy with a few design ideas it doesn’t see to their full potential like space battles, the important element of this Halo title is that it never dips in quality. Sure the Focus Rifle may be underpowered, but it can do the job in a pinch and there’s almost always going to be some weapon option around to let you fight with something that is satisfying to wield and plays into Halo: Reach’s excellent balancing of the power dynamics in a firefight. Almost every mechanic in play feels like it is a natural part of the action, the counters and tactical variations afforded by the plentiful options meaning a battlefield can have its own identity just by how it allows certain approaches to thrive. Armor abilities are a good evolution to Halo 3’s equipment system, most weapons and vehicles are honed to allow for enjoyable interplay between their strengths and weaknesses, and the multiplayer modes and Forge’s flexibility make it easy to never run out of unique battle experiences. The campaign is no slouch either by making its main cast a good fit for the situation and the tone of this desperate battle to salvage the falling colony of Reach, and with some orchestral music adding more emotion to the dramatic scenes, it can easily stand beside Halo 2 for some of the best storytelling by Bungie within the series even if the game assumes you understand some of the world-building going into this prequel title.
Bungie went out with a bang when it came to finishing their work on the Xbox’s biggest franchise to date. Halo would continue in new hands and with other spin-offs and Bungie would move onto a new shooting series with Destiny, but this final part of their vision for Halo brings together everything that made the series so beloved, polishes it, and even tosses in a few nice extras. All that build-up to this meaningful event, whether we mean Bungie’s last Halo game or the battle on Reach that sparked the start of the Halo story, paid off excellently.