Halo: Reach Review

Halo: Reach Beginning Screenshot
Halo: Reach is a single-player shooter game exclusively released for the Xbox 360.

System: Xbox 360
Genre: Shooter
Release date: September 14, 2010 in North America, Australia, and Europe.
Players: 1 to 16 multiplayer, 2 to 4 co-op
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Origin: America
Rating: Mature

Have no time to read the full review? Watch our video review of Halo: Reach.



Halo Reach Storyline:
The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the alien Covenant on the human colony of Reach weeks prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Players control Noble 6, a member of an elite supersoldier squad, during the battle for the world of Reach. As the Covenant begins their assault on the planet, the UNSC begin their heroic yet ultimate futile effort to halt the brutal alien invaders.

This is the last Halo game being developed by Bungie. 343 Industries will be taking over for any future Halo games.

If you have played any of the previous Halo games before, then you will feel at home in Reach. Bungie has definitely added a lot to Reach to help differentiate it from the others and make it one-of-a-kind. One of the most noticeable additions to the game is you now have the ability to select different classes, otherwise known as loadouts, to utilize in campaign, multiplayer and firefight. There are 5 loadouts and they range from being able to jetpack into the air to get a bird’s eye view to being able to sprint to get away when you’ve got low health.

When you jump into campaign, you will notice that you are not Master Chief. Instead you are assuming the role of an unnamed Spartan who is identified by the call sign Noble 6. Your team is the “Noble Team” a UNSC special operations unit comprised of supersoldiers otherwise known as Spartans.

It is the year 2552 and you are on Planet Reach, shortly before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. You are sent to Reach by Colonel Holland, the team’s commander, to investigate why a relay station on Reach went offline. Damage was suspected to be done by insurgents but instead of human rebels, Noble Team discovers it’s the Covenant.

Campaign had a lot of great moments but overall I felt that it could have been better. At times I feel that the gameplay was to get to a waypoint then defend against a firefight, then get to the next. For the length of time required to finish campaign, I was really hoping to learn more about Reach and have a great story unfold that lead to Combat Evolved. However, I think the best part of the story for Reach was the last two missions–these were probably the best within the rest and by the end of the game you felt like you were really Noble 6 feeling the need to do your team justice for the events that you had been through.

As a whole it was definitely a great experience and the addition of the loadouts definitely helped make your gameplay more crucial. Do you stay here and crouch or do you sprint to get away faster? Needless to say I definitely picked sprinting over dying quite a few times!

Firefight mode was another great addition and it is nice to see that they have made some decent upgrades to it from the firefight mode that was originally added in ODST. Spending a few hours with unlimited waves and unlimited ammo is a good way to have some fun.

Halo: Reach Multiplayer Capture The Flag Screenshot

And of course last, but not least, Reach’s multiplayer mode. Multiplayer has always been a huge aspect of Halo whether it was running LANs or just joining up with your friends on XBL to play Team Slayer or Team Snipers. I think one of the most notable updates to multiplayer has been the ability for players to choose which of the three maps and gametypes that they’d enjoy playing the most. So rather than have one map and gametype and the chance to veto and hope for something better… You can choose the best map and gametype of the three. If more votes are seen for “None of the above” then you’ve got one more chance to make a selection.

Bungie made sure to include the infamous Theater mode allowing you to either take screenshots or make clips from the films created from games you have played. Alongside that you also have Forge back into play. Forge saw some major updates to it. No more spending 30 minutes trying to get a wall piece to stand at a perfect 90 degree angle. You can now have snap to grids/degrees and more control over your forge maps. So go on, go crazy and make your Decepticon!

Halo: Reach Fallen Helmet Screenshot

As a conclusion let’s see how good Halo: Reach is on a scale from 1 to 10.

Fun Factor – 9
Halo: Reach can be non-stop fun, more so with a group of friends participating in Multiplayer or possibly Single Player as well. There may or may not be a lot of fun factor after your first playthrough or while playing online if you are playing alone.

Graphics – 10
The graphics here in this game are amazing, Bungie has always done a great job in this field and there was no disappointment this time either. The CGI cutscenes were also amazing and beautifully well done.

Audio – 7.5
Halo games have always had one amazing soundtrack, once again they have proven to do that in Reach. Although I had to deduct from the score because I was not able to configure game music or sound effects. At times I really felt the music played far too loud to hear the necessary speech from players.

Gameplay – 9.0
If you have played previous Halo games, you will be familiar with the gameplay here in Reach. But at the same time, they have added on to it and not only made it better, but with new moves and features as well.

Replay Value – 9.5
There is a lot of replay value here, rather it be you creating or participating in custom games or having fun in Forge. You can put endless amounts of hours into this game.

Overall I rate this game a score of 9 out of 10 and I feel as if you should not pass a game like this up.