Halo: Reach reviews starting to come in

Hah, the Gamespot video review is an absolute joke. It's not a review - it's a 10-minute commercial for the game. Even Chris Watters' tone and wording are consistent with early-morning telemarketing.

It does look like a good game as far as Halo goes, so I'm not writing it off or even disputing the 9.5 rating since I haven't played it yet...but that review really seems like it was paid for.
 
(Solely from a single player / co-op perspective)

Thought Halo 1 was extremely overrated, had many flaws, and had only a few glowing moments.

Didn't bother with Halo 2 besides watching it a bit.

Completed Halo 3 co-op and thought it was terrible.

Completed Halo Reach co-op and it was amazing. Completely surprised.
 
Completed the campaign on heroic, and it was a lot of fun the entire way through. The ending was amazing. Going to play through on legendary co-op soon, and then I'll move online this weekend. I never really liked playing Halo games in the past, but this one has me hooked. If there are any Halo games out to get, this is the one.
 
Finished sp campaign on Normal and really enjoyed it; probably the most enjoyable Halo campaign to date (just above ODST).

I've started my first-ever Halo game Legendary playthrough now. I'm mostly through mission 3 (second playable mission). It's pretty brutal, I gotta say. taking the AA battery outside sword base alone took me a little over an hour.
 
I've started my first-ever Halo game Legendary playthrough now. I'm mostly through mission 3 (second playable mission). It's pretty brutal, I gotta say. taking the AA battery outside sword base alone took me a little over an hour.

Although it's not my first time playing a Halo game on Legendary, that's exactly where I am at in Reach as well... and yeah, it's pretty rough! :)
 
You know, there is one thing I have to give the Halo series, especially ODST and Reach: When I run into Hunters, I am actually inspired with fear. Maybe I don't know how to fight them right, but those SOBs are epic.
 
You know, there is one thing I have to give the Halo series, especially ODST and Reach: When I run into Hunters, I am actually inspired with fear. Maybe I don't know how to fight them right, but those SOBs are epic.

They're not the same "dodge then shoot once in back with the pistol" guys that they were in Halo CE.

They're a friggin day job in Reach.
 
They're not the same "dodge then shoot once in back with the pistol" guys that they were in Halo CE.

They're a friggin day job in Reach.

Oh yea dude, I'm playing the campaign on heroic and those Hunters are definitely some work. I cant even imagine on ledgendary.
 
Hunters on heroic are bad enough, when I go through legendary I can only imagine the frustration they will cause me lol. Thankfully they tend to put in a powerful weapon that you can pick up when you are coming up on hunters (usually a shotgun), but even then one of the bastards can take like 10 shotgun blasts to the face before it dies.
 
Took out the two Hunters at Sword Base on Legendary over lunch (early in the game, so not really a spoiler). Once I managed to get into the shielded elevator room and take out the Elite and grunts, it took me about 20 minutes to down the two Hunters (that doesn't count the time I spent fighting my way INTO the room so I could checkpoint last night).

Honestly, I think Kat got in a few good hits, because she ended up taking down the second one.

As I said before I've never played a Halo game on Legendary before, and I don't consider myself a particularly good Halo player, but I am finding that patience is my best ally. And I do find my skill with the assorted weapons improving as I soldier on!
 
I hate Halo with a fucking passion but I bought reach and now that you can play firefight in matchmaking I've been playing every night.

Singleplayer is good also but I still have yet to get used to the 20 bullets to drop an enemy shit.
 
I have to say... as short as the campaign was.. I loved it. Multiplayer is pretty addicting like all of the rest.
 
The game is just fucking boss. I've been a halo advocate since the xbox days, I feel it's the only console shooter that feels natural with a game pad and Bungie has definitely outdone themselves and exceeded my expectations. It's just fucking plain old brutal fun and this game whipes the floor with modern warfare and again sets the bar for console fps. They did an excellent job revitalizing and separating the title from the old halo formula while staying true to it's roots.

I'd go as far as to say this is probably one of the best FPS games I've ever played across any platform. It is definitely up there with ut, quake and cs for me.
 
With so many different game types and ways to play you will get your money's worth out of Reach. I've always enjoyed the series but I wasn't a rabid fanboy until Reach :p

As for Hunters on Legendary they are not as hard as you might think. Just takes a ton of ammo fired into the weak spots and a lot of dancing to bring them down. I'd argue the purple shielded elites that can armor lock are much harder to deal with.
 
Yeah the Elites are rough on Legendary. I never thought I'd be happy to deal with Brutes, but they're cake in comparison. A few headshots and they're down.
 
Elites and Hunters on Legendary are ... the bane to my existence.
 
Yeah the Elites are rough on Legendary.

Before I started the Legendary campaign I scoured (sp?) Google for tips, and learned (yeah, I know I'm behind the times) of the strategic benefits of an overcharged plasma pistol blast! Seriously, I never messed with the plasma pistol much, in any of the Halo games.

I am finding it quite useful against Elites and Revnants in the Legendary campaign now.
 
I am in agreement with everyone regarding the plasma pistol. When playing legendary, the plasma/br combo helped me a lot, and I found myself frustrated when I ran out of ammo for one or the other.
 
i just beat the campaign on Legendary and really didn't use the plasma pistol at all. it's nice for vehicles but i wasn't a fan of using them on elites
 
How did you manage that Dome? Even in the early levels it takes me dozens of rounds to even bring down their shields...and then they run and hide to recharge.

Always interested to hear different strategies.
 
I'm almost done with the third to last level, on Legendary. A few of the levels were a real pain, but I've gotten better with it, after trying to be more patient when clearing out rooms, etc.
 
Also, dont feel the need to clear entire rooms. Sprinting past enemies to hit checkpoints will save you a lot of time.
 
How did you manage that Dome? Even in the early levels it takes me dozens of rounds to even bring down their shields...and then they run and hide to recharge.

Always interested to hear different strategies.

i used a lot of ammo, a lot of grenades, and a lot of reloads from dying. i'm sure the plasma pistol is really great, and i'll try using it next time i do co-op with my friends, but i dunno i usually liked needle rifle/battle rifle and assault rifle/needler

usually plenty of ammo for them, and once their shields get low you just charge them guns blazing. if you keep track of the enemies you can get lucky and keep them in front of you you don't get too overwhelmed.

that said i died a lot in campaign
 
ill make it quick and simple. It reminds me of Halo 2 (coming from a former MLG Semi-Pro Player). There are some kinks they need to fix, but the game is one of the top in the halo series in my opinion.
 
sites actually give games a score of 100?? honestly the only game I have ever played that I think that deserve a 100 is Half Life 1.
 
+1 for the plasma pistol/(insert fav. weapon) combo! It brings great joy when clearing a room full of Elites and not dying once.
 
Last night I finally beat the game on Legendary, by myself. It was actually the first Halo game I finished on Legendary, without doing co-op. There were quite a few tough spots, but it was cool being able to complete the game, and rack up 325 achievement points (finishing the game on heroic, finishing the game on legendary, and finishing the game on legendary by yourself).
 
I borrowed this game from our library. Didn´t expect it to show up there so soon. I have played the previous titles but it seem to me that they have ramped up the difficulty a bit for this one. I did the misstake of going heroic and it means to much camping and grinding for my taste.

The game has been progressively harder the last few missions. Nightfall mission has been an entire nightmare and I came to the point after spending 30 minutes with a couple of hunters I couldn´t down due to lack of firepower and bunny jumping skill. I got through but am now stuck in the next part. The part where you first enter a huge hangar door and then you have two sections with turrets. I managed to get passed the first turret but then there is just no way to get through the next session. Tried all tactics I could think of to compensate for my lacky aiming with gamepad. Speed running through is the one I got closest but when I get passed the turret I get no time to recover my shield.

Is there any place on the net that has savegames for each mission so I can set the difficulty. I don´t enjoy the game so much I am willing to replay one hour. Otherwise it´s good for being Halo. I haven´t gotten to the real repetitive parts yet but those will come later as usually perhaps :)
 
The multiplayer sucks. My main problem with this game is the multiplayer and how it's too slow paced, the overpowered sniper, grenades and random DMR make for a shoddy experience when compared to Halo 3/2

In Reach, you don't even have to hit the head to get a headshot with the sniper. That's just taking skill and throwing it right out the window. Yes, in Halo 2 you could do this as well, but you moved faster and jumped higher so it was harder to even get near the head in the first place. Now in Reach, any random Colonel from Halo 3 can pick up the sniper and act like a General with it. That is overpowered and broken.

The grenades eat into health when they're not really supposed to. Bungie made a point about the shields and health being different meters. You health cannot be damaged until your shields pop, which is why if someone even has a tiny bit of shield left you can't kill them in one melee. So why do the grenades chew into your health, throwing you into the red warning zone with just one grenade? It doesn't even have to be directly below you in order to do that, either. Plus, the fact that you move slower and can't jump as high in Reach makes dodging grenades a lot more difficult, and has led to the increased nade spam that is currently plaguing Reach. (Hallways in Reflection is a good example. When are they not blowing up with 5 nades at a time?). They have lost their balance from Halo 3. Instead of being used to deter people from entering a hallway or catching them with a well thrown nade (tactics), they are now blindly thrown to get easy kills. Yes, people spammed nades in Halo 3 but because of player speed and jump height you could dodge them like they were nothing, so it wasn't a big issue. The overpowered nades make the game boring. I don't want to have to throw nades every time I spawn because nobody will shoot at me and instead will just try to blow me up every single time. It's just bad gameplay.

As for the melee system, it is stupid beyond belief. In Halo 2, whoever melee'd first won every time. Granted, with network latency, this causes lag problems when one person would melee first and still end up dying. However, it worked most of the time and was a good system. I forget how the first Halo 3 system was, but it was so garbage that people complained until Bungie eventually changed it. Now, the player who has the most health when they clash will win. Sure, it's not perfect but it works and helps to stop idiots blindly rushing at someone who is calmly shooting them, preventing (most of the time) the idiot getting an easy kill. In Reach, if they have a tiny bit of shield left and players clash, they are both on even ground. Where is the sense in that? I could be shooting someone and then they charge at me, forcing us to clash. Why? Because of how quickly they can double melee me before I can finish killing them with a gun. My advantage has now been completely stripped away and the outcome of the dual can at this point be random.

I've done the bloom argument a million times but it sucks anyway. A random game mechanic which can't be controlled properly is just bad. Yes, you can attempt to control the bloom, but as it currently is, it doesn't punish spammers enough. You can be killed from mid to long range by a lucky spammer when it should never happen.

As for theatre, in Halo 3 you could watch full games with friends, just not clips. Instead of fixing this, bungie removed the feature entirely in favour of CAMPAIGN REWINDING?!

Speaking of campaign, it was pretty lackluster. Where is the connection with the characters I'm supposed to get? The only death that actually bothered me at all was Jorge's. Everyone else i just didn't care. Hell, I laughed at Kat's death. It just felt like being part of a boring story where my only thought is to just finish the level and be done with it, since the storytelling is so mundane.

Forge is good, everything else blew. :(
 
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500 matches and counting so far. I love this game. I'm not one of those gamers who scrutinizes and gets deep into the mechanics of a game. I just like to have fun and this game delivers it in so many ways. Loved Halo CE, Hated Halo 2, loved 3 and didn't think it could get any better but it did with Reach. I guess we all have different taste. For the record I don't care too much for Armor Lock or the "bloom" on the reticule either.
 
Finished the game on normal. It was so much easier to finish the nightfall mission when you had your sniper rifle. Finished it on normal though which honestly was more fun. This is the first halo title that hasn´t any sections that are just embarrasingly bad. Most Halo titles has some missions that is almost genius but then they decide to put you in identical room after identical room or spam the same enemy at you in hordes.

Halo Reach keep putting fresh stuff at you (well okay not that fresh if you played all previously HALO titles but anyway). I didn´t get boored with it.

As for the story does this game has one? I never understood any of it? What was the artifact I collected in the end. And why does the game end in pure nothing. Not a cliffhanger and not an ending? Is Halo 100 % multiplayer these days. It felt like Bungie didn´t even care for adding a story or something just tried to make each map as fun as possible to play through. HALO 2 and 3 had some fun space soap opera action going. Not a sign of it here. It´s not that the story is bad it´s just that there isn´t any story told.

Other visual doesn´t matter it´s all about gameplay... But no the visual do really enhance this title. Beautiful game both estetically and technically by 360 standards. As for sound good most of the time though voices was a bit boxy on all my systems. . Really really cool in the space mission where you weapons make no sound. Took a while before I grasped why. Nice attention to detail :)

No real Halo fan but this is a great action oriented fps. It would been a master piece with a really good story to go along with it.
 
Last night I finally beat the game on Legendary, by myself. It was actually the first Halo game I finished on Legendary, without doing co-op. There were quite a few tough spots, but it was cool being able to complete the game, and rack up 325 achievement points (finishing the game on heroic, finishing the game on legendary, and finishing the game on legendary by yourself).

Just did the same last night. Good God, that was rough.

Also did some custom firefight settings and knocked out all the high score achievements LOL. I was actually laughing while I racked up the points with a bottomless rocket launcher and invincibility.
 
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