Halo: Reach

Good day, ladies and gents! It's that time: Time for the second review of The Game Cave! Today, we're taking a look at Halo: Reach.

Halo: Reach is the prequel to the award winning Halo saga. It depicts a squad of elite Spartan warriors on the human-colonized world of Reach. Why they named it Reach, I will never know. The name doesn't seem all that creative to me. Anyway, the planet is now under siege by a malicious alliance of aliens called the Covenant. I guess they ran out of better named planets to terrorize. Regardless, Reach is under attack, the humans appear screwed, so they go for broke and fight back while getting all the citizens off-planet. So, Noble Team sets out to participate in the biggest evacuation attempt in human history. Next to Katrina of course. Oh wait, Bush didn't do crap for those people. Well then yes, the biggest evacuation attempt in human history. Now, if you're one of the fanboys out there such as myself, you all know how Reach ends. I guess Noble Six's helmet lying discarded in the sand in the middle of a plasma-glassed wasteland isn't indication enough. What, you thought Noble Six heroically and climactically goes to the beach? Well, I won't spoil it, but I get the feeling I already did.

So, the story's pretty solid. Let's discuss gameplay and some of the issues I have with the game. If you've ever played Halo 3 or Halo 3: ODST, then you've played Reach. But here's the letdown. The engine is obviously Halo 3, the tech looks more advanced than Halo 3, everything seems improved upon as far as Reach goes. BUT, it's a PREQUEL to Halo: Combat Evolved! Why does everything look shinier and more technologically advanced when it happened BEFORE Halo One?! They even have the Mjolnir Mk VI helmet as an unlock when you reach a certain level. If the Mk VI existed before Halo: Combat Evolved, then why bother having Master Chief running around in the Mk V until Halo 2? It makes no sense! And the ODSTs didn't even exist until Halo 2, yet you see them running around in Reach, and even get to play a mission with them! Where's the logic here?! Answer: It's Halo. It doesn't need logic to justify itself.


Ok, so I got the issues rant out of my system. Let's discuss the multiplayer. I will admit, I have been playing the multiplayer religiously for weeks now. However, Halo has jumped on the bandwagon of class-based multiplayer. Team Fortress 2 began this trend, and many games since have mimicked them and created classes for their multiplayer. Halo has however taken a different approach. Where most games feature classes with different weapon loadouts, Halo has opted for different equippables, such as the bubble shield or sprint. So, in that sense, it strayed slightly from the common version of class-based multiplayer.


All-in-all, Halo: Reach is another great game Bungie has pumped out. It's fun, it's exactly the same as what we know and love, and it expands upon the Halo universe and makes us more knowledgeable about a world we love to learn more about. With that said, if you're anything like me, you want Bungie to stop beating around the bush and continue the story of the freaking Master Chief! For God's sake, you last see him drifting through space in cryogenic stasis in half of a ship! I want to know what happens to him! So hop on it, Bungie.