HighWire: [Game Review] Halo: Reach

Well, this is a little late, but I suppose that's just as well. To say I missed Halo as a global gaming "pioneer" wouldn't exactly be right, it's more like I never really registered it in the first place. Oh, I played the games a couple times but it was never really something I ever got into. Hell, ask me now what the story of Halo 1-5 is; I really can't give you an answer because I never payed enough attention to the games to pick it up as it went and I never cared enough to find it out on my own. This introduction might be sounding a little biased now, and I say to that... you're absolutely right.

Halo falls into the category of games that I've sort of decided just aren't for me, but then again, I can't seem to conjure up in my mind what kind of people would really enjoy it. I admit it, I fail to see what generic-first-person shooters can possibly give to gaming as a medium. The only thing that I could see that separated Halo from your typical Call of Duty game was that instead of shooting persons of varying ethnic origin on the ground for a few hours dragged from cut-scene to cut-scene, you instead spent that time shooting aliens of varying size in space dragged from cut-scene to cut-scene. And while space usually does make everything better, I hardly care where the story takes place if all you're doing is the same damn thing.
All of that said, when I saw that Halo: Reach was available to play for free on my Xbox, I ended up downloading the game simply because it was the only Halo game that I remember had ever made me pause and take a second look. After completion, I can't say I was particularly thrilled, but neither can I say it was entirely awful. So, I guess I'll talk about.
Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, I hope your day was been superb, and welcome to a brand new game review of Halo Reach. It's been awhile, but I fully intend to get back into the habit of reviewing other mediums besides anime, starting right now. Let's get started.

The story of Halo: Reach acts as a sort of prequel to the original trilogy of games, depicting an escalating situation on the UNSC's(basically the result of every military in the world teaming up to fight aliens) fortress world of Reach as it is attacked by The Covenant(said army of aliens who apparently have nothing to do then to wreck Earth's sh*t(and yes, I did have to look half of this stuff up)). At first, the situation is as simple as the loss of transmission from one of Reach's communications outposts, and to investigate, the UNSC sends a team of six Spartans(basically Captain America-style space marine super-soldiers). The team, known as Noble Team Six, includes you the player, Carter: the gruff leader, Kat: the girl, Emile: the guy with the skull mask, Jorge: the gentle giant, and Jun: the ethnic spice. However, it soon becomes clear that the situation is much more dire than previously thought, as now Noble Team Six must fend off an entire planet-wide invasion by the Covenant, who now only have Reach in the way of their final goal: Earth. Which makes it all the more tragic, because if you've played the original Halo trilogy... you know exactly how this is going to end up.

See, I don't want to spoil the ending but... the game kind of already
does that in the first few minutes, so...

I'd usually have more to say on the terms of the story than that, but that's really it. All the narrative basically consists of is Noble Team Six fighting an increasingly one-sided war against the waves of the Covenant, as they are slowly killed off one by one trying to protect the planet and its citizens. I'll get to back to talking about the narrative in a moment, but for now, let's talk game-play.
If you have ever played a Halo game before, you probably know the drill by now. Press trigger, make gun shoot. Press other trigger, throw grenade. The game-play is extremely samey since it mostly consists of shooting aliens and hiding behind big rocks waiting for your health to recharge, and honestly, I was pretty sick of it an hour in. Now repetition isn't always a bad thing if the game-play is enticing enough, but the core of Halo's game-play has never really done it for me, and all the sequels really ever did was grind that core into a fine dust, so, basically what I'm trying to say is that the game-play issues are ones that carried from the first game, and will likely carry to new installments. Thankfully, Reach does throw in a couple of new spices into that dust. You can now assassinate enemies if you sneak up behind them all sneaky-like before impaling them, which is admittedly pretty satisfying, but you'll hardly ever get to use it besides from very specific situations the game hands to you on a silver platter; the new function hardly adds any sort of new strategy or viewpoint to the repetitive shooty-shooty game-play. The new function to switch out your sprint ability for others is nice, but again, besides from the maybe the jet-pack(which at least is fun to use) the only times those functions would be useful is at very odd-occurring times, so you're probably just better to stick with the sprint. Oh, before I forget, there's also some space-combat, which is always awesome and seems like it would add some flavor to the bland game-play, but just like all of the other new additions, it's way too fleeting. There's literally one mission where you take on some Covenant ships in zero gravity, and then you have your new toy pulled away from you like you're some sort of misbehaving child. Before long, it's right back to shooting endless waves of enemies in forest/mountain environments. Thankfully, do you get to fight in an urban environment once or twice, but these compliments are merely little improvements in the face of the huge issue that is the game-play. My problem isn't actually that the game-play is non-functional, it is certainty that if nothing else, my problem that it is just boring, and hardly any sort of fun unless you have a buddy to trudge through it with.
Look, there was a couple of things about the single-player campaign that I liked. I like the characterization of the team of Spartans, because even if the little personality they do get is incredibly cliche and one-note, at least the game makes an effort to make you care about them before they start dropping around you like the cast of Akame ga Kill, which is more than can be said for most shooters. I like some of the new weapons, which at least attempt to add variety to the combat. But most of all, I like the ending; a potent mixture of game-play and narrative that has your character, in the final mission of the game, fighting a never-ending wave of Covenant forces until you are inevitably overwhelmed, dying all alone impossibly far from home and the loved ones you fought for.

At world's end.

I don't have much to particularly say about the game's graphics. Not because they are by any means bad, it's just that I don't have much to particularly talk about in regards to them. There's no special stylistic choices to talk about, it's simply the best realistic graphics that generation was capable of at the time. If I were to say one thing stands out, it would be the breath-taking backgrounds and scenery; it's clear that the game designers Bungie put a lot of effort into making Reach feel like a living breathing planet, it's just a shame that we don't get to see more of it besides mountains, forests and more mountains.

If there is one thing that I have always been able to give the Halo franchise credit for, it's this next part: the soundtrack. Composed by Martin O'Donnell, the Halo: Reach OST is funnily enough one the only parts of the entire game that shows real regards to subtly and depth of emotion. It's a somewhat melancholic soundtrack, that has plenty of highs and lows throughout the various tracks, but maintains a sort of somber tone throughout both, like the music itself knows that no matter what emotions it wants to convey, in terms of the story, none of it will matter in the end. I actually quite love it, and took the time to listen to it while I was writing this review. I'll post the whole thing below here, because it really does deserve recognition in a game that has so few real moments of clarity and depth.

Full OST

Maybe it is unfair of me, but I really can't find a reason to get excited about Halo as a franchise. As I said in the intro, what does this series have to offer me as a gamer? I mean, if I want to shoot up aliens in space, there's a grand selection of games to choose from, and if I want slick functional shooting controls, well, that's even easier. The reason why I chose Halo: Reach to review specifically though for this return to game reviews is because it's one of the only entries of the series that I can say with confidence actually tried. Tried to have an emotional, character-driven story, and even if it failed quite spectacularly because the writing is tripe, it still attempted it, and for that, I thank it. When paired with the controls that have hovered over the Halo franchise since the beginning, I'd actually say at the end of the day it's likely the best Halo game out there. Not that that is saying much, just because something is better than a bad thing doesn't make it inherently a good thing, but still, I suppose that is still a victory of a sort. And praise I'll give it. But that doesn't mean I need to like it. Goodbye for now guys.

Final Verdict: 5.5/10

P.S: He loved pointy things too much, I guess.

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