Halo Reach Is No Halo 3

Halo Reach couldn’t have picked a better time to come out. After the Summer doldrums, where the only big games included StarCraft 2, Mafia II, and maybe even NHL 11, Halo Reach hits at the peak of summer/fall boredom just before the Christmas season storm.



But will it sell more than Halo 3? I initially said no… Am I wrong? Read on.



Halo 3 was a monster, selling over 11 million units through today’s date. It did most of its damage during the first four weeks out, selling more than 5.5 million units. It was a phenomenon.



Do Do, DoDoDo. Do, DoDoDo…



Phenomenon.



At the time of Halo 3′s launch, gamers were clamoring for the first new Halo on the next-gen system. There were Mountain Dew promotions, Master Chief was everywhere. I don’t feel that same vibe this time around. Sure, there’s a lot of Halo Reach commercials, but where are the Burger King tie ins? The Mountain Dew flavors? (the current promotion is very understated.) The prime time news stories?



It seems that this time around, things are different. Halo Reach seems much less marketable. There’s no Master Chief. Without the titular character from three of the previous games, people may not immediately identify with the new “Halo Game”. Furthermore, it’s a prequel to one of the most convoluted universes in gaming.



Reach is more Empire Strikes Back than Return of the Jedi. Kind of a downer in tone… Plus, it has to fight the brand fatigue of three Halo games in almost 4 years.



These are the reasons why I don’t think it will sell as well as Halo 3. On the other hand, Halo Reach couldn’t have come out at a better time. There’s really nothing to play right now. Mafia II didn’t live up to the hype and StarCraft 2 is for PC gamers… Sure Civ 5 comes out soon, but it’s more likely to cannibalize the SC2 players than the Halo Reach players. So, in the midst of essentially a quiet period of gaming, Halo Reach came out and BAM! Everybody is on it.



Another factor, in favor of Halo Reach selling more than Halo 3, is the simple fact that there’s a much larger install base of Xbox 360 owners. Plain and simple, there’s just more people to buy the product. Maybe because of that you don’t need the huge media blitz to sell consoles. I dunno, but it’s a powerful fact on the side of those that think Reach will sell more copies.



Of course what I’m saying is based on generalities. Anecdotal evidence. I’m not really basing it on anything real, other than a gut feelings…But…



First day Reach sales reported by Microsoft appear to be less than the sales for Halo 3. Read all about it.



My gut tells me that Reach won’t sell more than Halo 3. My head tells me that my heart is wrong. I just don’t see that Reach is as easily marketable, compelling or as well known of a story to drive 11 million people to purchase the game.

Remember Halo: Reach

Contrarian Corner is a feature meant to take a critical look at some recently-released games, a place for a more holistic discussion of titles which have been the recipient of either an abundance of single-minded praise, or an undue amount of criticism. Our intent is not to contradict or undercut our own reviews, but rather to expand the spectrum of discussion on some of the most important games of each year. If you're interested in joining that discussion, keep reading.



Make sure to read Erik Brudvig's Halo: Reach review for IGN's official thoughts on the game. And be forewarned -- if you haven't finished the game, massive spoilers will be discussed below.









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I didn't play Halo in full until 2006. I'd just come back to Los Angeles after two years in Madagascar. I'd moved into a spare bedroom a friend from college had at his apartment in Hollywood. I'd just quit a job at a small movie company after three days because I realized my boss was full of shit, though well-intentioned shit. I was out of money and totally unsure of what I was supposed to do next. I had slowly depleted my savings with the occasional relief of working as an extra and reading scripts for IFC. I had downloaded the Halo demo on the used iMac I'd bought to send resumes and search for job listings. After playing through the demo three times I finally decided to get a full version to catch up with the game that had so dramatically moved shooters forward.



Halo reminded me of the The Wizard of Oz. I'd shot through the feco-viscera of Quake, DOOM, Hexen, and Heretic in college, but I wasn't expecting to start a first person shooter whose main enemy was a furry midget with a conch on it's head. I thought a musical sequence might be about to come to life the first time I heard one of these grunts put his hands up and wobble away from me screaming, "He's a monster!" It was a lovely compliment to the snortling baritone of the Elites' surprised exclamations, "What, what, whaaaaat?!" With a few coordinated pirouettes the game could just as naturally become The Wiz in Space. The sense of exaggeration extended to the gameplay, requiring a literal hosing of bullets to short an enemy's shield before you could do any bodily damage. Levels were built around arenas in which you'd go from hosing to hosing rather than headshot to headshot.



It's been nine years since Bungie released the first game, and in the interim they've worked on nothing else, refining this absurd world of munchkins, purple armor, and elastic bullet streams. Halo: Reach is the end of all that. The neon theatricality has become a memento mori set against a perpetual sunset lowering itself over hardscrabble mountains. There are still moments of wonder, like the sense of scale in the launch sequence preceding the space combat mission, or the moments of jet pack platforming around the white towers of New Alexandria. But the pleasures are put in the uncomfortably tight spaces between the colony's collapsing architecture. Most of the story missions pivot on a point of failure. The fighting in New Alexandria isn't to turn back the invaders, but stall them long enough to evacuate the innocents. Likewise, the extreme gamble of going into space and docking on a Covenant ship is a strategic hail mary that succeeds but the scale of its success is quickly put into minuscule context when a new armada of Covenant ships subsequently come into orbit.



Reach likewise plays a game of Six Little Spartans with Noble Team, fingering each squad member for death as the story sinks downward. You don't play as Master Chief, but you might as well be. Noble Six isn't quite as dexterous as Johnny Halo, but the differences are marginal. You might be able to absorb one less bullet or not jump quite as high, but you've still basically wearing a super hero armor suit. Six isn't outspoken either, which is a vapid choice for the story being told. Gordon Freeman can get away with not talking because he's surrounded with spastics who react to him in such identifiable ways that you can at least begin to read personality traits into him. When Master Chief played the strong and quiet type it felt like a tactical dodge, not wanting to tempt audience disbelief by giving him the wrong voice.



Reach is specifically focused on squad personality, and appropriately so. Killing off six main characters is an utter waste if there aren't any personality traits through which their losses can be measured. Lose the funny guy and suddenly the group doesn't laugh so much any more. Lose the fearless leader and everyone squabbles about what to do next. The gang in Noble Team isn't as dramatically fanned out as that, they're more variations on the self-assured alpha gunner. And at their center is another mute. In the real world stoicism is a bad sign. Sociability is a sign of self-confidence and recognition of how vital close friendships can be. The quiet ones are, we fear, the sociopaths. The brooding poops who one day snap and go on a stabbing spree when someone says "margarine" one time too many. I suppose it's apt that you play a silent lurker given the volume of killing you'll have to do, but it still feels unnecessarily dull. Bungie had the courage to introduce lustrous purples and greens into the video game color palate, I don't understand why giving a character a powerful voice both in and out of combat remains such a risk.





It's especially conspicuous after ODST so effectively used its colorful characterizations and coupled with subtle links to gameplay. Gone is the labored wheeze that signaled damage in ODST. I'd think a subtle reinforcement of genuine pain running beneath the gunfights would enhance the power of the story and its myriad sacrifices. After a decade working on the same essential game concept, Bungie might have done more to intensify its themes in gameplay, rather than leaving them marooned to the cutscenes and the smoky orange sadness of the skybox.



There are a lot of fantastically dramatic moments in the story. Scenes of someone realizing hope is lost but deciding to stay behind and die so the group can continue a little further occur again and again. The ending scene after the credits is great as far as it goes, the game finally leaves players in an arena they won't be able to get out of. The Pillar of Autumn has Cortana's AI kernel safely cruising towards Halo and Noble Six is now officially expendable. You get control of her for another few minutes as waves of Covenant come for you. There's only enough ammo and health to prolong death, but not prevent it. Before you're completely overrun the game shows your visor cracked permanently, giving you a literally shattered view of the world as you scramble for just another few minutes.



A few missions earlier, one of your squadmates dies in a nearly identical scenario on a covenant ship. Later another character takes a plane on a suicide run into a Scarab to create a small opening. One teammate is sniped just at the moment where everything seemed like it might have been okay. If you're interested in emotional gameplay these scenarios are over-ripe. And in Reach they're all cutscenes. The lone example of theme and feeling trumping competitive interest happens after the end credits have finished. The only way this could have been a bigger cop out is if they'd reserved that five minute section for DLC. If a game is supposed to be about tragedy and loss, it ought to be about that in the moment to moment gameplay. Reach should have been built around 30 seconds of failure and pain instead of 30 seconds of fun. It's still the same 30 seconds of fun but the art team has been given a huskier color palate, which is somehow intended to transform the system into something it's not.



Reach is the most feature-rich and varied Halo game, but it's hard not to wonder if the difference between it and the original is enough to merit a decade of tinkering. There's Forge, Firefight, 4 person co-op, a leveling system that ties to character customization, and a big array of multiplayer maps and options. It makes the small list of bullet points from the first game seem tragically incomplete. Reach is as much a perpetual environment as it is an individual experience. It's not an escapist story, but an escapist world that aims to be habitable in perpetuity. It's a magical fishbowl that's always rearranging itself, rewarding loyal players with a simultaneous sense of familiarity and newness.



I finished Reach in two sittings, led from one compulsive pleasure-puzzle to the next. There were no easy places to step away, each lull put some suggestive variation of shooting just over the next ridge. When I thought about starting the game again the next day, trying a harder difficulty of dipping into one of the other modes I couldn't imagine what else there would be to get from the game. I've circle-straffed, tossed grenades and rushed enemies for a finishing melee attack, hidden nervously behind boxes waiting for my shields to regenerate. Thinking of doing it all again, in a slightly different order, and with slightly different objectives and rewards didn't seem like much of an escape. It was starting to feel constrictive, discovery was becoming repetition. Experimentation with new ideas was instead becoming confirmation that most of the old ideas still work.





More Halo: Reach Opinions



Optimism is at the heart of escapism. All great works of escapism are about self-affirmation, which is central to Halo and the idea of Master Chief. It's a big, gaudy, interactive "Yes we can." This was hypnotic when I was broke, out of work, and had no idea what I would do next in my life. It was an irresistible experience, being cut off on a strange planet, with its indifferent sprawl and inscrutable alien architecture, fighting against enemies who seemed genuinely alive and unpredictable. I knew I'd win in the end, but I didn't know how. So I kept coming back, chipping away at the story, learning a new tactic with each arena and its different arrangement of enemies, weapons, and vehicles.



I often think about what I get in return for my time with video games. I've found the most compulsively playable games are also the ones that leave me feeling the most used and hollow afterward. When I think back on what I did in Reach, it's hard to know why I did any of it. Nothing connects, the patterns that emerge from one arena to the next don't build towards a grand confrontation. Nor do they truthfully connect to an emotional idea other than the laughing gas giggle of winning at something for 30 seconds and then repeating it again in a slightly different context. The alien wonder and elastic heroism of the original have become rote, a formula of Greek symbols without a hypothesis to prove.



I hate playing games with other people. Board games, card games, word games--they all seem like a waste of time, an exploitation of our competitive distractibility. It's built into the names we have for them, they're pastimes categorized by their efficiency in distracting us. When this ethos comes in video game form, built as a persistent playroom that continually refreshes itself, it feels uncomfortably like jumping into oblivion. There's something sinister about Reach and its repetition of the now wheezing theme of heroism and self-sacrifice. It's become an elaborate delusion that makes it possible for an excitable and creative group of millions to yoke themselves into a virtual community for the primary purpose of accelerating the passage of time. It's a neon prison so perfectly constructed its prisoners come to their cells with pleasure and don't need to be locked in. And make no mistake, this prison is getting hungrier. It wants you too. One more round. One more mission. One more imperative to play the hero in a fishbowl, so you won't think about how much oxygen is left in the water. They might change the water and add a castle, but you'll eventually notice you're still swimming in circles.

Halo: Reach Noble Map Pack releases November 30

Halo Reach The Best Game of 2010

A new map pack for Halo: Reach deploys November 30. The Halo: Reach Noble Map Pack releases on Xbox Live and at retail outlets nationwide featuring new multiplayer locations for various modes such as Free for All, Team Slayer, Team Objective and Big Team Battle.



The pack contains three new maps: Tempest, Anchor 9, and Breakpoint.



Tempest offers players an abandoned shoreline facility divided between two symmetrical bases and an open sky above. Each base contains a makeshift shelter and access to strategic routes for small and large-scale skirmishes. Tempest supports 8 – 16 players and game modes such as Free for All, Team Slayer, Team Objective, and Big Team Battle. Tempest also contains a Forge palette for creating new custom maps.



Anchor 9 is set in orbital dockyards with mirrored interior hallways and an open central hangar bay. The map features close quarters combat for 2 - 8 players, and supports Free for All, Team Slayer, and Team Objective multiplayer modes.



Breakpoint is set in modular archaeological labs designed for air and ground combat. Breakpoint offers multiplayer for 8-16 players, and supports the Invasion and Big Team Battle game modes.



Developed by Bungie, the Noble Map Pack includes new Achievements worth a total of 250 Gamerscore points. It will be available for purchase for 800 Microsoft Points ($10) directly from Xbox Live or with a Microsoft Points card sold at retail locations worldwide.

There Are many lelemts about Halo Reach that I give a thumbs up to and a lot of elents that have been added that degrade the gamers enjoyability and increases your gaming anguish!! Here's A Little of Both.....:






My Pros:



1) Voting sytem - This is my favorite addition. The Veto system in 3 was so awful. None of the above will become very awesome when the full game is out.



2) Weapon Diversity - Is it completely even? No. But it is already a lot better than 3 and keep in mind this is what the beta is for. You see everyone using a cluster*expletive deleted* of weapons. A good example was my first beta game when I went +23 using Plasma Rifle for most of my kills. Its no longer BR or bust.



3) Classes - Definitely adds spice to the game. The fact that you can switch with each respawn is great. Sprinting up to someone with a Hammer, turning invis with a Sniper, and Armor Lock when Rockets come after you, make me happy.



4) Maps - The fight seems to be everywhere. One thing I haven't seen, is someone always camping one spot. This game seems to promote staying on the move. No one spot is completely easy to hold down.



5) Active Roster - Just a fun little tweek to make it easy to get a group together.



6) Playlists - They added some new challenges to the game. Headhunter can piss you off sometimes. I tend to die before I get to the goal even though I've done most of the killing. Invasion and Generator Defense are the 2 I play the most, though.







My Cons:



1) Grenades - My biggest aggravation with the game. They are completely overpowered. Something needs to be turned down. Either the radius or damage. If you see a grenade fly ANYWHERE near you, go ahead and be ready to respawn. If they want to make grenades realisitic, then guns need to be also.



2) Pistol - They paraded this as the CE pistol. Its not. Its rate of fire is great, but the damage seems to be toned down a little too much. I don't want a 2-shot, but I can unload a full clip without killing them.



3) Jetpack - Its a fun class, but it doesn't tie in with Halo at all. Where was Master Chief's jetpack? Did they forget how to build them during the times of Halo 1-3?



4) Invisibility - I don't like how it scrambles the radars of you and your teammates.



5) Voting - Reward the people that take the time to vote. If you don't vote, you don't get counted as voting option 1. If NO ONE votes, then go ahead and let it do option 1.



6) Divisions - Way too easy to get into the high ones. I'm pretty good, but I'm nowhere near pro. I made Onyx for some reason. I thought that class was supposed to be the unicorn of slayer? And you very rarely see someone in the lower 2 ranks, even when doing the other playlists.

Halo Reach Launches Three New Maps

.Want to see more of the new maps in the first DLC pack for Halo: Reach? Look no further, as Bungie has just released a new teaser for the Noble Map Pack, which takes you on a whirlwind tour through the three new multiplayer maps that will be included in the pack.





Above: A teaser for the Halo: Reach Noble Map Pack



Here are the official descriptions and multiplayer details for each map from Bungie:



Tempest – “Though we may never fully understand these devices, it is not our nature to leave ancient stones unturned.” This abandoned shoreline facility bends both sea and sky to an unnatural purpose, but the ground itself has quickly become another all too familiar battlefield. Though the two opposing symmetrical bases may never reveal their ancient purpose, both now offer makeshift shelter and access to strategic routes perfectly suited for small and large scale skirmishes alike. Tempest supports 8 – 16 players and offers a variety of modes including Free for All, Team Slayer, Team Objective and Big Team Battle. Tempest also provides players with a huge Forge palette, allowing them to create new custom map variants that can be shared with the community-at-large.



Anchor 9 – “Orbital dockyards provide rapid refuelling and repairs for a variety of UNSC vessels.” Within the confines of this low orbit dry-dock, UNSC craft undergo rapid repair and rearmament in support of the enduring war effort. But for the small squads of infantry who now fight over the mirrored interior hallways and open central hangar bay, this platform no longer provides any safe harbour – whether the close quarters combat is occurring inside or out of its artificial gravitational field. Anchor 9 allows 2-8 players to face off in game variants including Free for All, Team Slayer and Team Objective.



Breakpoint – “ONI officials believe the data buried within this artefact is key to our survival.” Atop this icy precipice, the Invasion continues. These modular archaeological labs were never intended to withstand such a large scale onslaught of Covenant military power, but the information being extracted here may prove vital to humanity’s survival. In response to the imminent Covenant threat, UNSC ground and air assets have been deployed to bolster entrenched Spartan countermeasures. This dig site must yield salvation, or it will become a grave. Breakpoint offers multiplayer mayhem for 8-16 players, and supports the Invasion and Big Team Battle game variants.



The Noble Map Pack, which will include Tempest, Anchor 9, and Breakpoint, is scheduled to release on November 30 for 800 Microsoft Points on XBLA. However, the new multiplayer content will also be sold at retail outlets.

Campaign Matchmaking goes live, level cap being raised next month.

Halo: Reach's multiplayer is getting another fresh lick of paint as campaign matchmaking finally goes live and Bungie announces the level cap is to be raised in November.



Alongside the launch of campaign matchmaking Bungie announced (via its comprehensive weekly update) a slew of tweaks in its weekly update with Team Snipers and Living Dead being added to the playlists while Rumble Pit has been streamlined.



The long-awaited raising of the level cap was also given a date of sorts, and it's due to be unlocked once the community has completed 117 million daily and weekly challenges – a feat that's due to be achieved sometime in November according to Bungie's estimates.



Halo: Reach has proved quite popular since its September release – we certainly liked it, and so it seems did some 3.3 million people in the US at last count.

Halo: Reach gets campaign matchmaking

Bungie adding series-first online ability next week; service lets players enlist help of random strangers in the fight against Covenant; MLG, Grifball playlists coming by the holidays.



The Halo series has had cooperative campaign play from the start, but it's only allowed gamers to play with friends (either offline or online). That's going to change later this month.



Bungie announced in its latest Bungie Weekly Update that a campaign matchmaking playlist--a series first--will be added to Halo: Reach on October 19 (pending final testing and review). That falls in line with what the developer announced last week when it said the online ability would be added on Oct. 12 or Oct. 19.





Halo: Reach's online capabilities grow next week.



Campaign matchmaking will afford players the luxury of being able to play through the campaign with Xbox Live users who aren't on their friends lists.



Bungie also dished details on standard matchmaking in this week's update. The developer said it plans to add MLG (Major League Gaming) and Grifball playlists in the coming months. Bungie doesn't foresee these playlists arriving by November, but said they will likely be added to the mix in time for the holidays.

Halo: Reach Tops 3 Million in Sales

According to the latest data provided by market research group NPD, sales for Halo: Reach it its launch month hit 3.3 million copies sold in the United States.



Halo: Reach was first released on September 14 in North America. The game generated over $200 million in sales in the U.S. and Europe combined in the first two days of release alone.



It's just the third game this generation to sell over three million copies in its launch month. Halo 3 was the first title to do so back in 2007. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was second in 2009.



Bungie announced this morning the Noble Map Pack, which includes three new multiplayer maps, Anchor 9, Tempest, and Breakpoint. The pack is set for release on November 30 for 800 Microsoft points.



Microsoft also said pre-orders for its Kinect motion camera coming November 4 are "selling out" at retailers nationwide. The company did not provide specific pre-order numbers.

Halo: Reach Review – “It’s Time To ‘Reach’ Reach”

   

I’ve played Halo for years and I can safely say that the series has had a huge effect on my life. I’ll never forget the LAN parties me and my friends had on half days in high school – these were truly awesome times. When I think back about Halo 2 and 3 I wonder if I was caught up in Microsoft’s hype machine. I’m not saying they we’re bad games, they we’re actually great games but like I’ve said before I feel like that with each subsequent Halo release Bungie slowly took away what made the franchise so special – Simplicity.



With Reach Bungie has changed all this, they’ve removed most of the features that over complicated the series and added new features that make the tried and true Halo formula feel fresh. Halo: Reach is the result of Bungie spending ten years perfecting the Halo franchise.





The single player campaign’s plot line is very simple, you follow Noble Team as they deal with the Covenant assault on one of the UNSC’s most important outposts, the planet Reach. The story is engaging and it is caped off by one of the best endings I have ever experienced in a video game – the final chapter is a truly moving experience and I’m very pleased that Bungie chose to keep it in the game. I’ve read interviews where Bungie’s creative director, Marcus Lehto, explained how including the ending was a subject of debate among the development team. I’m glad it wasn’t left on the cutting room floor.



The more linear plot line keeps the game focused and moving a long at a break neck pace. Every single player level is engaging and exciting, none of them cause the game to drag or get boring unlike other iterations in the Halo franchise. One particular level and my personal favorite Halo level ever, The Long Night Of Solace, is perhaps the single best level I have ever played in a first person shooter. I was quick to criticize the space combat Bungie showed off at this years E3 but it was great and definitely didn’t feel tacked on at all. Bungie managed to integrate this mini-game like feature in such a seamless fashion that it fit perfectly into the games overall feel. The anti-gravity space portion of the levels were also ridiculously fun and fresh.



The campaign is dark, realistic, fresh and most importantly a whole lot of fun – it’s an experience no Halo fan or gamer for that matter should miss.



Bungie made the right decision by creating an entirely new graphics engine for Reach, Halo 3′s was starting to look seriously dated. The result is possibly one of the best looking games on the Xbox 360. Reach does lag occasional when there are multiple enemies and vehicles on the screen, especially when your playing with multiple people on one Xbox. This is disappointing but it doesn’t really damage the game’s overall experience and it doesn’t occur that often. It would have been nice if Bungie spent a few more months polishing the game off but I imagine that’s difficult when Microsoft is probably breathing down your neck to get the game out the door. Overall the graphics have a much more realistic feel when compared to Halo 3 and this perfectly compliments the game’s darker tone.



The inclusion of new vehicles that are actually fun to drive, the Falcon, Sabre, and Revenant are also welcome additions to the franchise. Unlike past new weapons each new inclusion fits perfectly into the Halo universe and is expertly balanced.



The new armor abilities also simplify Halo 3′s item system and make the game generally much more balanced than past Halo games. The hologram ability, the only ability not included in the Reach Beta, seems rather stupid at first but it is extremely useful in sniper matches. Even though I’m a seasoned Halo veteran I often fall for this silly ploy – sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s the actual player and who’s the hologram. Fall damage has also been drastically toned down from the beta, it was difficult to avoid killing your self when jet packing across maps – I died numerous times because of this.



I’m also a fan of the new health pack system, maybe it’s just nostalgia speaking but it reminds me of Halo: CE and ads a sense of urgency to the single player. I don’t bother rushing in to a swarm of elites because I know that my health won’t fully regenerate unless I find a health kit. Martin O’Donnell’s music is once again amazing, he manages to capture the monk like Halo theme of older games but also still gives Reach’s music a fresh and engaging sound. The title music is particularly breath taking.



One of my main complaints about Reach’s multiplayer mode is the lack of map variety. A few of the multiplayer maps are remakes from Halo 3 and Halo 2 which is great for gamers looking to replay them but it’s also lazy on Bungie’s part. I would have liked to see these remakes included in the game but also a lot more new maps. A few of the remakes from matchmaking are Forge World maps so they all look very similar, this is also somewhat disappointing. I’m sure Bungie will release multiple map packs during the games life span and I can almost guarantee that one will appear on the Xbox Live marketplace very soon.



Another complaint I have about multiplayer is the game’s matchmaking mode. The removal a visible ranking system and social playlists irks me quite a bit. Rankings gave me something to work towards every time I played Halo 3 and social playlists we’re perfect for when I wanted to play games with my girlfriend who isn’t that great at Halo. I realize why bungie did this, to try to keep the community in one single playlist and decrease the amount of time it takes to find games, but that doesn’t mean I really like it. The new arena is Bungie’s new playlist for competitive ranked gaming but it’s a somewhat confusing method and is rather time consuming. Apparently you need to play three games a day for six days until you are assigned a division. Then after that you play other gamers in your division and are given the opportunity to move to a higher level. It sounds cool and gives you something to work towards on a monthly basis because it resets every season.



The inclusion of Halo: ODST’s firefight mode is also great, there’s nothing like jumping into a game with a few friends and blindly blasting away at the Covenant. The fact that it supports matchmaking now to is also great, if your down one friend you can still create a four person team. I still wish Bungie included a server list in Reach, Forge World is an amazing tool and the ability to share maps with other users is a great feature but without a server or game list you can only play your creations with people on your friends list. With all the content included in Reach I find it strange that Bungie still didn’t add this feature in their swan song to the Halo franchise.



As soon as you start playing it’s very easy to tell that Halo: Reach is culmination of 10 years of game design. As someone who’s been playing Halo since the franchise began I can safely say that this is by far the best game in the series. It even surpassed Halo: Combat evolved – for a nostalgic person like my self this is not an easy feat for a game developer to accomplish.



Game Judgment’s Christopher Goodchild will also be reviewing Reach so be on the look out for his opinion on Bungie’s latest epic over the next few days.



Pros



-Great single player experience



-Possibly one of the most content rich games ever released on the Xbox



-Great multiplayer experience



Cons



-The game lags when there are too many enemies on the screen



-Lack of multiplayer map variety



- No game or server list for custom games



Overall Rating 9.5/10



Reccomendation: Buy it!

Reach Campaign Matchmaking Incoming

Campaign Matchmaking is scheduled to arrive in Halo: Reach in an update that's due next week, and it's due to come with a slew of new tweaks too.



The update – pencilled in for a release on October 19 – will finally allow players to tackle the campaign with strangers online, and it will also bring with it dedicated Snipers and Infection playlists. It's the second major update for Halo: Reach, which launched to wide acclaim last month.



News comes via Bungie's weekly update, which also includes some other interesting morsels – including the revelation that although less than 1% of players have reached the level cap Bungie is looking to increase it soon.

Halo: Reach Will Be Biggest Game Of 2010, Microsoft Says

"I feel confident that there's nothing that will compare in size," says Aaron Greenberg.

With 2009 nearly finished and a huge year for gaming on the horizon, it should perhaps come as no surprise that Microsoft product management director Aaron Greenberg is staking his claim early. Speaking with Gamasutra, he said Halo Reach will be "the biggest game of 2010."

Greenberg began by wondering aloud whether Gran Turismo 5 has a chance of launching in 2010, "Is it launching next year? I've seen years and years of minigames, but I haven't seen that the game's done. They just released the PSP version -- maybe that's what they've been working on."



He continued, "I feel confident that there's nothing that will compare in size. Halo Reach will be the biggest game of 2010."

The Game Certainly Has The Explive elements to be Game of 2010

Assuming it does arrive in 2010, Halo Reach will indeed be a huge release for Microsoft. However, it faces major competition, including StarCraft II, God of War III, and Final Fantasy XIII. All three are highly-anticipated releases, with Final Fantasy XIII being a multi-platform release.



Halo Reach isn't due for almost a year yet, but it's never too early to start speculating. Do you think Reach will make good on Greenberg's prediction?

Halo: Reach's Commendations, Credits & Your Concerns Explained

Credits=Cool Armor

Bungie is mixing up Halo: Reach multiplayer with all new rules, adding the concepts of Credits, Rank, and Commendations; it's all part of the Xbox 360 game's new "Player Investment" system, which sounds way more exciting than the name implies.



In Halo: Reach, Bungie is throwing out much of the old way of doing things, revamping the game's ranking system that's now based on the accumulation of Credits. And how does one acquire Credits? By completing daily and weekly Challenges—tasks like killing a set number of opponents in a matchmaking game, for the basic stuff—and racking up Commendations, smaller accomplishments like accumulating headshots.



Halo: Reach players will also score Credits by winning and finishing games in matchmaking. That's right, finishing. The majority of these changes look to address the persistent problems with leveling up in multiplayer games, like the mad rush to unlock virtual crap in the name of scoring more Credits.



The whole system, which Bungie notes is divorced from the actual Trueskill ranking that evens out matchmaking, looks pretty smart.



Oh, and what do you do with all these credits? Buy stuff, of course. New armor, new helmets, total Spartan customization. It's "purely cosmetic," Bungie says, keeping the playfield level. Extra details at Bungie.net.

Bungie Speaks About October Playlist

Hello and welcome to the inaugural edition of the October Bungie Weekly Update! Let’s skip the formalities and dig right in.





October Playlist Update, Inbound Imminent

We’ve already promised a big mid-month Matchmaking deployment, but Jeremiah and the core team responsible for Reach’s playlist management have decided to fast track some of the “easier” implementations and break October’s update into two distinct and meaty halves. The first round of playlist updates, barring any unforeseen shenanigans, will go live on Tuesday of next week.







Spaaaaaaaaace!





Here’s what you can expect when we pull the trigger:



Team Slayer

SWAT is taking one in the face (being removed) and the weighting for all other gametypes will be adjusted to fall in line with voting data. Expect – surprise, surprise – more traditional Slayer offerings to appear.



Team SWAT

SWAT gametypes that are removed from other playlists are being incorporated into their own, unique playlist with adjustments made to modes and maps based on voting data (farewell SWAT on Hemorrhage, you sucked and everybody hated you).



Team Objective

Powerhouse will now feature several more gametypes, including 1 Flag and Stockpile. Because Powerhouse is awesome and we don’t get to play it enough.



Multi Team

Rocket Race is being added. You win by staying on the Mongoose and racing to the checkpoints. (Oh, who am I kidding, you’re just going to hop off and try to assassinate people, aren’t you?)



Big Team Battle

SWAT and Classic are being removed and the frequency of Snipers is being reduced based on – you guessed it – voting data.



Arena Doubles

Boardwalk and “Pro” options are both being removed. Default Zealot is being replaced with Arena Zealot, a map variant which features modified initial player spawns and a soft-kill zone in spaaaaaace.



Team Arena

“Pro” options are being removed. Arena Zealot (details above), is being added.



Score Attack

Credit earn rates for Gruntpocalypse are being reduced to fall more in line with other modes.



General Matchmaking

Alongside the major alterations listed above, a myriad of much needed fixes and tweaks to the experience will also go into effect on Tuesday, including a metric ton of small, but annoying bugs and gameplay issues that we’ve identified and earmarked for eradication. As these updates go live, Jeremiah will publish the full details to our Optimatch forum so you can pore over the subtle nuances of each individual change.



Make sure to pop in and tell him that you agree with every single decision we’ve made! We prepped a pile of official discussion threads and bucketed them by playlist to facilitate polite and mature discussion. You can weigh in here.







Loud and Clear





The second salvo for October will include the fix to the current betrayal booting system, bringing it back in line with Halo 3 (three strikes and you’re out), and it will also introduce some significant changes to the Firefight experience, including the removal of friendly fire. Also on the way, a proper Team Snipers playlist, the possibility of a radar-less “Pro” experience in Season 3 of Arena, and more love spread out over all of our offerings, with a strong focus on Rumble Pit and Multi Team (all barring any unforeseen issues).



Already mentioned and still planned is the introduction of Campaign Matchmaking and some substantially awesome changes to the Firefight Matchmaking experience, the latter by way of cooperative multiplayer maestro, Larzy B. We’ll talk more about these updates next week.



Long story short, we’re evaluating all of our playlists and we’re acting fast to make sure feedback from voting data and the community-at-large is being evaluated and implemented.





Firefight Matchmaking 101

While we’re on the Firefight tip, we should talk a little Matchmaking Best Practices. As more and more players roll through Firefight Matchmaking, the network experience should continue to improve. We’re able to record your proximity to other players on the network and link you up with low latency players.



That said, the networking model used for Firefight (and soon enough, Campaign Matchmaking) is different than the multiplayer model and by default, the effects of latency are experienced a little bit differently as well. One sure fire way to ensure that your experience is impacted dramatically is to party up with other players thousands of miles across the globe from you (or with players who have demonstrably poor connections). While Matchmaking can and will make great connections, if you’re forcing a poor match-up through a party, there’s literally nothing our algorithm can do to lessen the impact of a bad connection.





It should go without saying that in every multiplayer mode you play, you should turn off torrents, stop streaming music, and make sure your network is running at optimal conditions. If you’re on a shared network, check to see that someone else isn’t killing your throughput. Every last megabit is precious.



For a more in depth look at how you can improve or troubleshoot your network, check into our Networking 101 article, previously posted to our Project Page.





Also on the playlist front, we’ve begun the monumental task of evaluating the early crop of user submitted map variants. For now, it’s a piecemeal affair, with several of us tasked with exploring File Shares and community hot-spots in search of well-made community maps. I still plan on detailing the process in a much more transparent fashion, but my own amateur offering, Riptide (formerly known as Jurkout), has yet to be put through the official paces. When we do run it through the grinder, I’ll resurrect the Incompetent Cartographer series so you can see exactly what we’re looking for.







It's a World...for Forging!





It’s a huge undertaking. Even while Halo: Reach was still on hot approach, we were still receiving nearly 100,000 unique Halo 3 map variants each and every month. Obviously, downloading and playtesting each and every offering would require a level of manpower and patience far beyond our limits and capabilities.



That said, we’ve got several us-yet-unveiled programs in the works to aid us in our quest and we’ll be making a lot of noise about all of them soon. We’ve already pushed one community map variant through several phases of our internal gut checks and test passes, and it looks like you’ll actually be playing on some sweet community maps before the year is out. Maybe even as soon as next month. (No promises.) One in particular has been a blast to play in both Big Team Battle and 4v4 Stockpile. Hopefully, you'll get a chance to play it soon yourself.



In addition, Sketch has been hard at work to bring a massive community Forge competition to fruition, where we'll pit our finest Forgers against one another in one of several broad map categories for fame, glory, and some truly fabulous prizes. Of course, the ultimate prize will be getting your map into matchmaking where we can all partake in your design genius, so if you want to get an early jump on the competition you should start thinking about building maps that would fit into the existing Halo: Reach ecosystem. Team Slayer is a great place to start, but we’ll also be looking at maps well suited for Invasion, Big Team Battle, Team Objective, Race, and several other playlist options we already have on offer.



More on this front soon, including map design primers and Forge tutorials. Stay Tuned™.

The online team is still hard at work to bring Bungie.net up to full strength in the immediate aftermath of launch. One of the hot discussion items that continues to pop up in our forums is the player model featured in every player’s Service Record (or rather, the lack thereof). Rest assured your cries are being heard and the team is steadily working towards a solution. Keep your fingers crossed and we’ll keep you update.




If you’ve devised an ingeniously elaborate method to circumvent our credit cap or exploit our challenge system, all of your “hard work” is soon to be for naught. While we understand the compulsion to race to the top and earn all the good gear before any of your friends do, network manipulation and other easily detectable workarounds that fall well outside of standard gameplay will result in a credit reset and several other punitive measures designed to knock you back down to a level playing field with all the rest of us who are playing the game without having to resort to exploits. We're watching you.












Without calling attention to specific methods, here are a couple of examples to help you wrap your mind around what we consider acceptable behavior and what we consider the machinations of people with way too much time on their hands:



Example 1: Laziness is Next to Godliness

You’ve commissioned your little brother to play through the same section of ONI: Sword Base over and over again, wielding the Target Locator like a barbarian’s cudgel in a quest to hit your daily credit cap without ever having to lay a finger on the controller.



This is a little bit sad, but it is not an offense we’re going to punish. *You* are playing the game. Keep your credits (but please go easy on your little brother).



Example Deuce: Communication Breakdown

You’ve written a crafty piece of code in your spare time that plays the same section of ONI: Sword Base over and over, wielding the Target Locator like a mechanical death ray in a sad, robotic quest to hit your daily credit cap while you’re busy doing something that isn’t playing the game.



This is really sad and you can expect to have your credits wiped and your armor items reset (and you can possibly expect to be banned, depending on the severity of the manipulation). We’ve already got a sizable list of offenders gathered up and the Banhammer is being heaved high into the air as soon as this afternoon. Make your peace. You get no warning. We’ll see you on the forums real soon!

Halo Reach:Second Thoughts

A Quick Tip For Earning Credits.....


After playing Reach for almost 9 days straight now, I think I’m ready to give a full review of it.



There is so much to cover in this review that I might be sitting here for an hour getting everything written. Firstly, the basics.



Halo: Reach is the prequel to Halo 1 (not the sequel to Halo 3, kids) and the best in the series in my opinion. The controls are great and the game runs very smoothly, and I’ve found no bugs or glitches in my time of playing. I expected nothing less than this when I heard of the game for the first time.



This game has the hardest campaign in Halo history, and I’m not just saying that. Grunts, Jackals, and Brutes are pretty similar to their Halo 2 (not 3, I really think they got dumbed down in that one) counterparts, but Elites are freakin’ HARD. Most are like Halo 1 Zealots, without the swords (most of the time). While it is hard, the storytelling is excellent, the best in the series. I think it’s the best campaign in the series for it’s difficulty and story.



Forge was introduced in Halo 3, and while clunky, was revolutionary for it’s time. Reach keeps the same ideas from 3′s forge, and improves on almost everything. Instead of tediously rotating and spinning blocks, Reach introduces rotation snaps, precision editing, and even COORDINATE EDITING. Instead of constantly dealing with the laws of physics, Reach lets you put objects in midair and even lets objects phase through walls. Reach’s forge is AWESOME. Custom games return, but, require a bit more work to execute than 3′s. I don’t want to explain it, but, there is a wonderful thread on bungie.net detailing how to do it. Theater mode remains relativity unchanged.



Most people know to buy Halo for it’s multiplayer, and I can’t agree more. You don’t have to play the already excellent campaign to love this game to death. Matchmaking is greatly improved, instead of individual rankings per playlist, you retain one rank for the whole game, which I like better because you can’t get matched with Captains all the time on Team Slayer. It even lets you choose whether to play with loud, quiet, rude, polite, lone wolves, or team players, but, it doesn’t always work like it should. It also introduces co-op matchmaking, which I really like. Firefight is now a gametype and not a mode, allowing for custom games to play with your friends. Cool.



Returning from Halo 3 is the File Share. File Share sounds like what it is, it lets you share gametypes, forge maps, and films with your friends. However, to keep more than six files in your share, you need to subscribe to Bungie Pro, which (I think) is ten greenbacks a months to share a ton of files at a time.



Reach is a wonderful game, and makes my #3 favorite game of all time. Problems, while there, are very sparse.

Halo: Reach launched exclusively for the Xbox 360 on September 14, and before the week was out, Microsoft and Bungie already had a significant win to tout. During its first 24 hours on the market, Halo: Reach logged sales to the tune of $200 million in the US and Europe alone. That figure easily bested Halo 3's $170 million day-one sales, though it also came up well shy of the $310 million high-water mark set by the multiplatform Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.




Today, Bungie has returned to offer a more granular look at the performance of its final entrant in the Halo franchise before shifting focus to its Activision project. Though Bungie didn't offer a specific player count, the Washington-based developer said that Reach's number of online unique users during the first week of availability was equivalent to that of Halo 3's unique online users over the past 45 days.





Halo: Reach's opening week figures easily bested Halo 3's.

As far as concurrent users go, Halo: Reach's first-week numbers surpassed Halo 3's all-time high by more than 65 percent, Bungie said. The studio went on to note that more than 70 million games were played from September 13-20, with more than 2 million files uploaded to the File Shares server. In terms of playtime, gamers have spent more than 5,901 years combined in online games.



Despite the solid performance, Halo: Reach was not the top Xbox Live title for the week of September 13 in terms of unique users. After some confusion, Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 retained its seat atop the play chart, still going strong since its November 2009 launch. Bungie noted today, though, that its "sources" indicate that Halo: Reach has managed to unseat Modern Warfare 2 into week two.

 

Above: Halo Reach! Finish the fight! Oh… wait a minute…



In case you missed the marketing blurb posted up by every single gaming publication on the planet, Halo: Reach introduces a brand new mechanic into the series with armor abilities. Each of these perks adds quite a bit more bang to your run-of-the-mill Halo multiplayer match. While advanced strategies regarding each armor ability are still in their fledgling stages, online play has already demonstrated quite a few “do’s” and “don’ts.”









Sprint



Above: Haul ass in Halo: Reach



What is it?



The Sprint armor ability is exactly as it sounds: you run faster when it’s activated. Halo fans have been begging for a sprint feature since Halo: Combat Evolved. Well, it only took around 9 years to get the coding right, but Bungie has finally delivered.









Do’s

Me First! Me First!!



Sprint affords you a much higher mobility than anyone else on the battlefield (you know; assuming that they aren’t also using Sprint). Take advantage of that to snatch up your favorite startup weapons and vehicles.



Sure, your team of Major League Gaming hopefuls will probably be bitching the entire match about how you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. F#$@ those guys. You’re the one who gets to drive the Scorpion Tank while equipped with the rocket launcher and sniper rifle; not them.



Peace Out





Above: RUN!!!



While fighting to your last breath over and over again is all heroic and whatnot, living looks much better on the scoreboards. Should an enemy get the drop on you and take out half your shields before you even know what’s going on, don’t turn to face your assailant. Show everybody what a skittish little bunny rabbit you are by hauling ass out of there. Seriously. Leg it to somewhere safe to recover and counterattack.



Melee Marathon Man



The Sprint armor ability is a godsend for all of you plasma sword-wielding sociopaths. The technique is simple enough. Run like Hell towards the person you want to plasma shank. Make sure to stop sprinting once you are within close proximity of your prey, as you cannot attack while sprinting.









Don’ts

The One-Man Army



Being the first one to get a kill is awesome; rushing ahead of your team to engage the enemy is not. You’re fast, not invincible. There’s nothing special about being the first to get a bunch of enemy ordinance lodged in your teeth.



Stick with your team, chief.


Above: Halo Reach! Finish the fight! Oh… wait a minute…



In case you missed the marketing blurb posted up by every single gaming publication on the planet, Halo: Reach introduces a brand new mechanic into the series with armor abilities. Each of these perks adds quite a bit more bang to your run-of-the-mill Halo multiplayer match. While advanced strategies regarding each armor ability are still in their fledgling stages, online play has already demonstrated quite a few “do’s” and “don’ts.”









Sprint



Above: Haul ass in Halo: Reach



What is it?



The Sprint armor ability is exactly as it sounds: you run faster when it’s activated. Halo fans have been begging for a sprint feature since Halo: Combat Evolved. Well, it only took around 9 years to get the coding right, but Bungie has finally delivered.









Do’s

Me First! Me First!!



Sprint affords you a much higher mobility than anyone else on the battlefield (you know; assuming that they aren’t also using Sprint). Take advantage of that to snatch up your favorite startup weapons and vehicles.



Sure, your team of Major League Gaming hopefuls will probably be bitching the entire match about how you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. F#$@ those guys. You’re the one who gets to drive the Scorpion Tank while equipped with the rocket launcher and sniper rifle; not them.



Peace Out





Above: RUN!!!



While fighting to your last breath over and over again is all heroic and whatnot, living looks much better on the scoreboards. Should an enemy get the drop on you and take out half your shields before you even know what’s going on, don’t turn to face your assailant. Show everybody what a skittish little bunny rabbit you are by hauling ass out of there. Seriously. Leg it to somewhere safe to recover and counterattack.



Melee Marathon Man



The Sprint armor ability is a godsend for all of you plasma sword-wielding sociopaths. The technique is simple enough. Run like Hell towards the person you want to plasma shank. Make sure to stop sprinting once you are within close proximity of your prey, as you cannot attack while sprinting.









Don’ts

The One-Man Army



Being the first one to get a kill is awesome; rushing ahead of your team to engage the enemy is not. You’re fast, not invincible. There’s nothing special about being the first to get a bunch of enemy ordinance lodged in your teeth.



Stick with your team, chief.

The do's and don'ts of Halo: Reach's armor abilities


An online idiot's guide to how not to get murdered in multiplayer with Reach's snazzy new armor abilities

Words: Jordan Baughman, GamesRadar US

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Above: Halo Reach! Finish the fight! Oh… wait a minute…



In case you missed the marketing blurb posted up by every single gaming publication on the planet, Halo: Reach introduces a brand new mechanic into the series with armor abilities. Each of these perks adds quite a bit more bang to your run-of-the-mill Halo multiplayer match. While advanced strategies regarding each armor ability are still in their fledgling stages, online play has already demonstrated quite a few “do’s” and “don’ts.”









Sprint



Above: Haul ass in Halo: Reach



What is it?



The Sprint armor ability is exactly as it sounds: you run faster when it’s activated. Halo fans have been begging for a sprint feature since Halo: Combat Evolved. Well, it only took around 9 years to get the coding right, but Bungie has finally delivered.









Do’s

Me First! Me First!!



Sprint affords you a much higher mobility than anyone else on the battlefield (you know; assuming that they aren’t also using Sprint). Take advantage of that to snatch up your favorite startup weapons and vehicles.



Sure, your team of Major League Gaming hopefuls will probably be bitching the entire match about how you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. F#$@ those guys. You’re the one who gets to drive the Scorpion Tank while equipped with the rocket launcher and sniper rifle; not them.



Peace Out





Above: RUN!!!



While fighting to your last breath over and over again is all heroic and whatnot, living looks much better on the scoreboards. Should an enemy get the drop on you and take out half your shields before you even know what’s going on, don’t turn to face your assailant. Show everybody what a skittish little bunny rabbit you are by hauling ass out of there. Seriously. Leg it to somewhere safe to recover and counterattack.



Melee Marathon Man



The Sprint armor ability is a godsend for all of you plasma sword-wielding sociopaths. The technique is simple enough. Run like Hell towards the person you want to plasma shank. Make sure to stop sprinting once you are within close proximity of your prey, as you cannot attack while sprinting.









Don’ts

The One-Man Army



Being the first one to get a kill is awesome; rushing ahead of your team to engage the enemy is not. You’re fast, not invincible. There’s nothing special about being the first to get a bunch of enemy ordinance lodged in your teeth.



Stick with your team, chief.





Above: Mr. Blue Guy thought he was a badass. Now look at him. LOOK AT HIM!





Another do of JetPack, hijacking an air vehicle, especially an UNSC helicopter and dropping it off a cliff then jetpacking away, but not after hovering away from the battlefield with two helpless enemy Spartans onboard.



I alo  have to say that active camo is my fav.... another do is sorta camping but its fun for awhile in the beginning, rush a power weapon and leave it there, go camo and just wait, when u get ur first bite kill that sucka


The Don't for the Drop Shield reminds me of a team who was seriously overusing the thing, so I charged into the shield they were hiding in a fired a rocket inside it. Sure, it was a suicide, but I got an Overkill out of it.
 
Halo Reach is awesome in every way and we all know it!! If you haven't witnessed the best game of 2010 Halo Reach yet, buy it below for only $50.00 Dollars:
 
 

Halo: Reach And Modern Warfare 2 Vie For Most Online Play

Halo Reach Gets Beat Out By MW2 In 1st Week

                     

    According to statistics released yesterday by Microsoft's Major Nelson, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 , but the statistics only cover the dates between September 13 and 19. Reach came out on September 14, so next week will be the true test of whether MW2 will be toppled from its spot on the top of the "charts" it's held for nearly a year.

Interestingly, online platform Raptr has released its own statistics that show that Halo: Reach has beaten MW 2, and that Modern Warfare 2's playtime has dropped by 50 percent since Reach was released. Raptr's numbers reflect Raptr users as opposed to the general population of Live users, though.



Anyway, the weekly top online titles from Major Nelson are below:

Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles

1 Modern Warfare 2


2 Halo: Reach

3 Halo 3

4 Call of Duty: WaW

5 FIFA Soccer 11 Dem

6 FIFA 10

7 Call of Duty 4 (Purchase the full game for direct download)

8 Madden NFL 11

9 GTA IV (Purchase the full game for direct download)

10 Battlefield Bad Co. 2

11 Gears of War 2

12 Red Dead Redemption

13 Halo 3: ODST

14 Forza Motorsport 3 (Download the demo)

15 Left 4 Dead 2

16 NBA 2K11 Demo

17 NHL 11

18 NCAA Football 11

19 Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 Demo

20 Madden NFL 10

So, what do you guys think? Is next week going to be the first in which Halo: Reach is in the top Live spot?

Get Your Halo Gaming Gear Below:

With Latest Launch, Halo Could Reach New Heights

   
     This special Halo: Reach kit consists of a metal briefcase that opens to revel a series of Halo-related items.



(Credit: Matt Fitzgerald/CNET) There's probably no better way to determine who's a hard-core Xbox player and who's not than this: do they play Halo?



On November 15, 2001, the then relatively low-profile video game development studio Bungie, which at the time was owned by Microsoft, released what would become one of the most significant game titles ever--Halo: Combat Evolved.



No one knew it at the time, but this storyline, spelled out in the game's manual--for Microsoft's original Xbox, not the Xbox 360--ushered in what is now nine years and the six titles of what is easily one of the most successful franchises in entertainment:





The year is 2552. Planet Earth still exists, but overpopulation has forced many of her former residents to colonize other worlds. Faster-than-light travel is now a reality, and Earth's unified government, through the United Nations Space Command, has put its full weight behind the colonization effort. Millions of humans now live on habitable planets in other solar systems. A keystone of humanity's colonization efforts is the planet Reach, an interstellar naval yard that builds colony ships for civilians and warships for the UNSC's armed forces. Conveniently close to Earth, Reach is also a hub of scientific and military activity.









Thirty-two years ago, contact with the outer colony Harvest was lost. A battlegroup sent to investigate was almost completely destroyed; only one badly damaged ship returned to Reach. Its crew told of a seemingly unstoppable alien warship that had effortlessly annihilated their forces.



This was humankind's first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually came to know as the Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their fanatical religious devotion. Covenant religious elders declared humanity an affront to the gods, and the Covenant warrior caste waged a holy war upon humanity with gruesome diligence. After a series of crushing defeats and obliterated colonies, UNSC Admiral Preston Cole established the Cole Protocol: no vessel may inadvertently lead the Covenant to Earth. When forced to withdraw, ships must avoid Earth-bound vectors--even if that means jumping without proper navigational calculations. Vessels in danger of capture must self-destruct.



On Reach, a secret military project to create cyborg super-soldiers takes on newfound importance. The soldiers of the Spartan-II project rack up an impressive record against the Covenant in test deployments, but there are too few of them to turn the tide of the war.



Existing Spartan-II soldiers are recalled to Reach for further augmentation. The plan: board a Covenant vessel with the improved Spartan-IIs and learn the location of the Covenant home world. Two days before the mission begins, Covenant forces strike Reach and annihilate the colony. The Covenant are now on Earth's doorstep. One ship, the Pillar of Autumn, escapes with the last Spartan-II and makes a blind jump into deep space, hoping to lead the Covenant away from Earth.





In the worlds of video games, there are many developers and publishers that herald their franchises as among the most successful of all time. Of course, it can be hard to measure which are actually the most successful of all time, since there are many different metrics--unit sales, revenues, number of users, hours of play, and so on. But there is no doubt that Halo counts among the top tier, joining the likes of Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, The Sims, and so on. According to VGChartz, which tracks sales, the five existing Halo titles--Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Wars, and Halo 3: ODST--have sold a total of 33.5 million units for the Xbox, and that doesn't include additional versions of some of those titles that were released for Windows and other platforms.



Of course, among console players, no one has played any Halo title on any of Sony's PlayStations, or Nintendo's Wii, given that the franchise has always been an Xbox exclusive. And while Bungie developed four of the five existing titles, there was a brief moment in 2009 (Halo Wars) when Ensemble Studios took over for Bungie, which had severed official ties with Microsoft in 2007. But with Halo 3: ODST and now, Halo: Reach, he now independent Bungie stepped right back into the breach and took back the Halo reins--and returned it to the top of the charts after Halo Wars' less than stellar sales performance.



And while it's been years since Microsoft released its Xbox 360 and moved the Halo franchise onto that platform with the massively successful Halo 3, it was only recently that the very last players were forced to step away from playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live via their original Xboxes.



Over the years, Halo has become such a cultural touchstone that not only is there a movie version in the works--it is scheduled for a 2012 release--but "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson is on board as its executive producer, and actor Kevin James is said to be slated to play Master Chief.



Now, with Halo: Reach finally in stores--and likely on millions of players' Xboxes--the franchise has taken its next step. Last February, Bungie let the cat out of the bag, revealing that the game is a standalone prequel to the franchise, offering fans a fully original story and a number of new characters, as well as a scale beyond what the developer has done with any previous Halo title. At the time the company said that the new game will have a much darker story line than its predecessors and is centered around "a key turning point in the Human-Covenant War," said Bungie creative director Marcus Lehto.



In the game, which takes place in 2552, the planet Reach is mankind's final line of defense against the Covenant, as well as home to the human military, the Spartan program. Halo: Reach focuses on the Noble Team, a single group of Spartans, led by a character called Carter 259.



But, if you're reading this, you're no doubt one of the hard core. And you already knew all this.



.The following products are available:

The Best And Worst Of THe Halo Maps

 We all know that maps make the multiplayer experience and most Halo fans would concur with me that Halo 2 had the best multiplayer experience because of the quality maps available for gameplay. If you have great maps in a game, then everything is more enjoyable and the action is non-stop!! We all remember Headlong, Valhalla, And Sanctuary and the awesome moments that we shared with our friends on  those maps. Then we frown at the maps Epitaph, Snowbound, And Backwash because of their cheap design or outlandish design. So , what makes a good map. A good map has to have two bases; one for each team, it has to have strategic weapon spawns that bring out the battle from the beginning, and they have to evoke open, combative game play that has certain characteristics fitting for team play. Well, for starters I give you the worst maps of Halo Through Halo 3 and then move on to categorizing the new maps of Halo Reach.










Hemmorhage

Swordbase

Worst maps in Halo series:

Backwash

Elongation

Epitaph [Worst]

Isolation

Powerhouse

Snowbound

Guardian

Assembly

Foundry

 Rat's Nest


Reflection



Gemini

Boneyard

Desolation



Spire

 Chiron TL34

Sandtrap

Paradiso

Best maps in Halo series:

Beaver Creek


Hang em' high


Midship

Zealot

Burial Mounds


Lockout


Coagulation


Warlock


Pinnacle

Ascension

Sanctuary

Sidewinder


Ivory Tower


Relic

The Cage

Containment

Halo Reach Maps
 
The Good:
 
Boneyard
 
Paradiso
 

Asylum

Countdown
 
Boardwalk
 
Hemorrage
 
The Cage
 
Pinnacle
 
Swordbase
 
Powerhouse
 
 The Bad


Boardwalk



 

Countdown

Asylum

 

Zealot

 

Spire

 

Reflection


Halo Reach Gaming Gear Below!!! Sale!!



Hemmorhage



'Halo: Reach' To Add Campaign Matchmaking



Those Elites Are Tricky In The Campign



Halo Reach Wil Include The Optin For Campign In Matchmaking



Halo Reach Sniping Level



Halo Reach Has Interesting Shades For The Campaign

 


You won't Get Tired Of THis Installment



  

Bungie's community content writer Eric Osborne said that the feature was held back so that players would not spoil the story by playing missions out of order.



"The main reason for its omission is simple: we don't want your very first experience in campaign to occur on the very last level," he said.



"Like all our matchmaking playlists, Campaign Matchmaking will offer all players in the party a vote as to which mission they'll end up tackling together.



"Democracy is totally sweet, but in this case, the majority might overrule your No Spoilers Doctrine."



The October update will also add bug fixes, balance issues, new game types and additional Forge maps.



Halo: Reach was released last week for Xbox 360.


IN OTHER  NEWS......

Halo: Reach has topped the Xbox 360 chart.




It is followed by Mafia II and Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands in second and third.



Elsewhere, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions slips to ninth while Need For Speed: Shift climbs to fifth.



The top ten in full:



1. (-) Halo: Reach (Microsoft Game Studios)

2. (1) Mafia II (2K Games)

3. (6) Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (Ubisoft)

4. (4) Mass Effect 2 (Electronic Arts)

5. (8) Need For Speed: Shift (Electronic Arts)

6. (3) Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (Square Enix)

7. (9) Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar)

8. (5) Sniper: Ghost Warrior (City Interactive)

9. (7) Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (Activision)


The Vehicle Level In The Campaign Takes The Cake







It Gets Enjoyably Dark In The Campaign

Halo Reach Looks To Be The Best Game Of 2010