Game Review: Halo Reach

Halo Reach is the sixth Halo game in the series. It follows a small team of six genetically and technologically advanced members of the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) where you play as the unnamed sixth member, Noble Six. It is a first-person shooter and was one of the biggest games in the series. Controversially, it is one of the best Halo games out of the whole series. The game allows no ADS other than sniper rifles and DMR’s, but the accuracy on the other weapons is still enough to be able to have a decent playthrough plus the zoom in feature that resembles binoculars. Reach is a diverse game for people of all skill levels and you won’t miss a lot of the story if you jump straight into Reach because it doesn’t follow the main plot of the other games.

Although this game has been out since 2010, it is still played by hundreds of thousands of players worldwide. It won the VGX Award for Best Multiplayer Game and was one of the biggest video game hits of its time. It was produced by Bungie and the soundtrack was composed by Michael Salvatori. 98% of gamers like this game on a worldwide review and was given a 91% on Metacritic.

The multiplayer version of the game is good but not as good as the campaign. There are about 30 different maps you can choose to play on with your friends. The online multiplayer is fairly decent and playing with your friends for fun is an amazing aspect of the game. That’s not all you can do in multiplayer though. You can play soccer with deadly weapons, race Mongoose, and even play zero gravity. The Forge game allows you to create new maps and the community has been constantly been coming out with new maps every day. The maps just keep getting more and more creative.

Firefight is also a fun game mode you can play with your friends. It is an endless wave mode of Covenant that progressively gets more difficult. You have to find new weapons and survive while killing off as many as you can. You can also alter the settings to make yourself invulnerable or up to the damage multiplier to 2000%. It makes the game pointless but it sure as hell is fun. You can choose what type of Covenant you fight and if your abilities and ammo are unlimited. Overall, it is a very fun and skill challenging take on the game.

The vehicles in Reach are really fun and easy to control. They have a variety of weapons on them and make a big impact on the gameplay. The best vehicle by far is the Revenant. It has an ion cannon, is very fast, and can seat two people. It is like a mix of the Ghost and the Wraith. The worst vehicle in the Mongoose. It is slow, has no weapons, and leaves you very exposed. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been shot off of a Mongoose, it’s insane. The only good thing about it is that it has a horn.

The weapons in Reach are very fun. It goes from a sniper rifle to a sword made of pure energy. There is a wide variety of play styles you could have while playing this game. You could hang back and snipe, or you could charge up front with a sword or a shotgun. By far the worst weapon in the game is hands down the Spartan Laser. It can be pretty good when against vehicles but it is very slow and imprecise when it comes to fighting players. The best weapon is probably the DMR. It is a very good all around weapon because you can use it close range and long range. It has a good capacity magazine and does decent damage.

Reach is a Halo which is a giant ring in space that is used as a weapon by the Forerunners to defeat the Flood, a virus that infected many planets. You are a new recruit of Noble team and are replacing one of their members that probably died. In the beginning, the leader of the team, Carter, warns you that you are filling a position that the team would rather leave unfilled. Your team consists of six members including you, Carter, Emile, Kat, Jorge, and Jun. Your primary mission is to eliminate some rebel forces that are terrorizing the locals. You soon find out that the Covenant, a race of aliens, has invaded the Halo and your mission changes to a Covenant elimination task.

The most challenging mission in Reach is probably Exodus on legendary difficulty. It is the 7th level where after you fall off the ship and land in New Alexandria. It is the hardest because of all the Elites and Brutes and Jackals that make it near impossible to beat. Many reviews show that only a few percentages of gamers manage to beat this level. Most of the Covenant soldiers can kill you in very few shots, so you have to make sure to almost completely avoid all gunfire.

Some of the interesting things about the second to last mission is that in Halo 1, Master Chief boards the Autumn, the same time you board as well. You are on the Autumn the same time as the most revolutionary character in Halo. You also at the beginning of the game get a shot of a helmet in the dirt, which you later find out is your helmet from the last mission. You are the person who would be the first domino in defeating the Covenant in a long line of different disastrous events for them.

After the discovery of the Covenant led to the death of, sadly, your entire team. Jorge died to save the ring after having to manually detonate a bomb to destroy an enemy ship. Then Kat gets shot in the head by a sniper as you drag her into an elevator to escape. Carter dies while saving you from a Scara (giant beetle looking war machine) by flying a Pelican into it. Jun goes MIA while on a solo mission, and Emile dies very heroically to a General Elite after single-handedly killing three of them. You are the last left alive. You are alone, dust blowing around you. The orchestral music starts to creep in, and you see the first Grunt. You kill him with ease and then the entire might of the Covenant charges at you as you are bound to die. You are the Lone Wolf. The final spartan on Reach. The last hero, but forgotten.