Halo Reach Xbox 360 Review

The Halo series is known for having an enormous fanatical fan base and overly hyped games through big budget marketing. Even through all of the glitz and glamour, Halo has been a solid series that even developed a decent real-time strategy game, Halo Wars. With Halo Reach, developer Bungie creates its last game in the series with Microsoft taking over on any future games, which probably means the future is rife with crappy sequels, prequels, and whatever else Microsoft can manage to milk out of the Halo name.

Halo Reach takes place prior to the first Halo game with the player taking control of Noble 6, a member of a super soldier squad battling against the Covenant horde on the colony of Reach. Halo Reach is a solid 8-10 hours of single player campaign with varying difficulty levels from easy to legendary. Playing on easy mode disables achievements though. Cooperative local and online play is available for up to four players and is a must on legendary mode although there is an achievement for completing legendary mode alone. Graphically, Halo Reach does not look much better than Halo 3 contrary to the media hype, but that’s not a bad thing. Halo Reach single player campaign varies battle from on foot soldiering to a few short vehicle based missions, but with enough variety to keep things interesting and a few new weapons added. A new feature has been added that allows for a secondary ability to be used indefinitely until it is swapped out with another. Abilities vary from a jet pack, and the ability to sprint, to armor lock, active camouflage, drop shield, and holographic decoys. The added abilities let the player choose how they wish to strategize their playthrough offensively or defensively.

Multiplayer is where Halo Reach really shines, with enough modes to satisfy even the most fickle of online players. There are two main ways to play multiplayer, cooperatively or competitively. Cooperatively is made up of playing the campaign, variations of the classic firefight mode (fighting against waves of enemies), and score attack, in which two players battle it out against enemies for the highest score. Competitive play is made up of ranked games that consist of variations of deathmatch, control points, capture the flag, zombie infection, objective, king of the hill, and juggernaut. There is also a new mode introduced in Halo Reach called Headhunter. Headhunter pits two teams of players vying for the collection of skulls that are dropped each time an opposing player is killed. The skulls are then returned to a designated area to score points. If a player dies while carrying skulls, the skulls will drop and another player can pick them up. Headhunter is a truly fun and interesting mode to play.

Halo Reach also contains a replay theater where videos of gameplay can be recorded and saved on the hard drive or uploaded for public viewing online. Forge is also back with the ability to now edit all of the default multiplayer maps included in Halo Reach. Through playing of the single player campaign and multiplayer components, users can collect credits which are used to unlock or purchase armor pieces that allow players to customize their character aesthetically for online and offline play.

Halo Reach comes in a variety of editions just like Halo 3, with a Limited Edition and a Legendary Edition. Unfortunately, we all remember what happened with the supposedly limited quantities of the Halo 3 helmet which were produced in the quantity of millions and became worthless. The same goes for the Halo Reach statue which also is claimed to be limited, but seems to be mass produced cheaply like the Halo 3 helmet. The statue is of high quality, but the base is cheap molded plastic and the $150 price tag just does not justify the purchase.

Halo Reach is a great game that blends a solid single player campaign with a varied multiplayer experience that will keep players entertained until the next Halo release sometime in the future. The Forge component should keep multiplayer alive for a long time with all of the possible combinations and variations that players can make to maps and gameplay. Halo Reach is a definite buy for any Halo fan. As for new players, Halo Reach is an excellent buy for introducing players to the series as it takes place prior to the original Halo and for any player looking for some new multiplayer fun.