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.

Halo Reach Preluding Lower Sales For Black Ops

So now it’s official: Microsoft's first-person behemoth Halo: Reach is the year’s biggest entertainment event, generating $200 million in sales in just 24 hours in the United States alone.



That’s two-thirds of what Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 took in from the North American and U.K. markets in its first day last year, but it’s still a number that’s nothing to sneeze at. The one-day take already eclipses the three-day opening weekends of “Iron Man 2,” “Toy Story 3” and “Alice in Wonderland.”



While Microsoft is doing cartwheels, though, the rest of the gaming industry is nervously shuffling its feet. Despite a number of high profile releases, it hasn’t exactly been a banner year for game sales -- and the success of Reach might not help things.



The slump is due, in part, to the ongoing recession. But also deserving some of the credit is the lingering effect of Modern Warfare 2 – a game whose multiplayer component was so deep and so rich that it kept players hooked, reducing their need and desire to buy other titles.



Fatigue is finally starting to gradually set in for that game, but Halo: Reach may well pick up that mantle.



As much praise as the game’s single-player campaign is getting, it’s the rich multi-player mode that really has players excited. New armor abilities, new game modes and an impressive suite of creation tools have overwhelmed the Xbox Live user base with joy. And the game’s matchmaking service is working like a charm so far.



That’s a lot of reasons to play -- and could give buyers plenty of excuses to put off other purchases in the coming months.



“There’s always a worry that a game like that can take share and cannibalize other games,” says Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.



To add to worries, Call of Duty: Black Ops will be hitting shelves in less than two months – a one-two punch to other game developers. That could put a number of seemingly big titles on the bubble, their sales in jeopardy.



None seems in a more perilous position than EA’s Medal of Honor. The battle that was shaping up between the rebooted military shooter and Call of Duty was already a tough one, but with Halo: Reach potentially impacting people’s buying decisions, the game could face an even tougher challenge. (The game's controversial decision to allow players to fight as Taliban forces in multiplayer might not help, either.)



Medal of Honor is actually scheduled to hit shelves well before Black Ops, but it has been three years since the last version – and Call of Duty has become the industry’s biggest seller in that time. The hope, in part, was that the Call of Duty fan base would buy Medal of Honor as a placeholder while waiting for the release of Black Ops – but they could be too busy with Reach to do so.



Meanwhile other titles like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Tron: Evolution, which all would normally appeal to the same general demographic, might be overlooked entirely.



“I see Halo: Reach creating a vacuum in multiplayer,” says Billy Pigeon of M2 Research. “I expect it will have an effect similar to ‘Modern Warfare 2’. People will be playing online and may not buy other games.”

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 Sales Top Out At 358 Million

Sales of console up 38 percent year-over-year, cited as a factor in company's record first fiscal quarter performance; Entertainment and Devices Division sales tally $1.8 billion.



Microsoft has been banking on the motion-sensing Kinect peripheral to boost sales of the Xbox 360 this holiday season, but it turns out the system has had no trouble selling in advance of the camera system's November 4 launch. The company today announced a record performance for its first fiscal quarter (the three months ended September 30), with Xbox 360 sales up 38 percent year-over-year.





Microsoft's revenues Reach-ed for the stars.

The Entertainment and Devices division, which handles Microsoft's gaming business, as well as projects like the Zune and ill-fated Kin phone, posted nearly $1.8 billion in sales. Microsoft claims that number is up 27 percent year-over-year, but only since it has "recast" previous results "to conform to the way [Microsoft] internally managed and monitored segment performance during the current fiscal year." In last year's first fiscal quarter results, Microsoft reported Entertainment and Devices division revenues of nearly $1.9 billion, essentially flat from the prior year.



The Xbox division's operating profits were also affected by the aforementioned recasting. For the recently concluded quarter, Microsoft posted a divisional operating profit of $382 million, claiming that was up from the previous year's $260 million operating profit. The original number Microsoft reported for its first quarter last year was $312 million.



Companywide, Microsoft touted its all-time best first fiscal quarter performance. Every business unit in the company showed sales growth, and revenues for the three months ended September 30 totaled $16.2 billion, up 25 percent from the prior year. Net income surged even more, jumping 51 percent to $5.41 billion.



Microsoft cited strong consumer demand for the Xbox 360 and its games, as well as Office 2010 and Windows 7, as contributing factors to the growth. While Microsoft didn't break down the numbers, it bears noting that the quarter saw the debut of Halo: Reach, which was credited with bringing in $200 million in sales in its first day on sale. According to the industry-tracking NPD Group, Halo: Reach was also the top game for the month of September, selling 3.3 million units at US retailers.



[UPDATE]: In a post-earnings conference call, Microsoft revealed that Halo: Reach had totaled approximately $350 million in revenues to date and helped drive strong growth in the Xbox Live service.



The company expects to retain its momentum with the help of Kinect. Microsoft is projecting roughly 30 percent year-over-year revenue growth for the current quarter, with a jump of about 20 percent for the full year ending June 30, 2011.

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.

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.

.Second Halo Reach Playlist Update is Live

As we mentioned recently, a second playlist update would be coming to Halo Reach in October. That playlist update is now live, including many playlist changes, the most notable of which are a new Team Snipers playlist and a couple new Forge map variants.



Here is the full list of updates.



Playlist Changes



•Team Snipers playlist added

•Living Dead (Infection) playlist added

•Infection, Safe Havens, Race, Rally, Headhunter Pro, and all Classic gametypes removed from Rumble Pit playlist

•All Snipers gametypes removed from Team Slayer playlist

•1 Flag Classic and Headhunter Pro removed from Team Objective playlist

•Multiflag Classic, 1 Flag CTF, 1 Flag Pro, and 1 Bomb Assault will no longer be playable on Hemorrhage in the 8 player Team Objective playlists due to the size of the map.

•Oddball and Hot Potato will no longer be played on Boardwalk in Team Objective playlist

•SWAT, all classic gametypes, and The Cage map will no longer appear in Multi Team playlist

•Rocket Race will no longer appear only in slot 3 of map voting

•Multiflag removed from Boneyard and Spire in Big Team Battle playlist

•Invasion playlist now has 3 voting options

•Friendly Fire removed from Firefight

•Firefight playlist gametypes will be a full set rather than just 1 round.

•Crash Site removed from Score Attack

•Mythic Score Attack added

•Other weapons can no longer be picked up in Sniper Attack

Map Changes



•Glitch on Zealot that would allow you to shoot from space and back down into the map has been fixed

•Softkill zones added to top of sniper buildings on Asylum

•Respawn zones reworked for slayer on Boneyard

•Respawn zones reworked on Hemorrhage

•Warthog respawn timer changed to 120 seconds on Hemorrhage

Gametype Changes



•Respawn timer in CTF is now 10 seconds

•Classic CTF gametypes now require the flag at base to score, and flag returns happen with just a touch

•Flag no longer required to be at base to score in non-classic CTF gametypes

•Flag return time changed to 10 seconds (with 30 second reset) on small maps for 1 Flag gametypes

•Flag return time changed to 30 seconds (with 45 second reset) on all other CTF gametypes

•Respawn timer in Assault is now 10 or 15 seconds depending on the size of the map

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!

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 Price Reduced

 












 
    In the game, you meet Noble Team and for the first time, players will fight alongside a squad of iconic Spartan soldiers. Each one with deadly talents as unique as their individual personalities and customized gear. It is an intense campaign that lets you live the events that set the stage for the Halo trilogy as the UNSC and Covenant clash at the height of their military power. Halo Reach takes a massive leap forward through all-new engine technology designed to take full advantage of next-generation graphics, audio, special effects, AI and animation. This game is the definitive multiplayer experience. It builds on the success of its predecessors, setting a new standard for competitive gameplay, customization, variety, and community integration. There is no question this is a great game. The only question left is why you have not bought it yet. It would make a great gift also.




I4U News brings you daily shopping tips on new releases, pre-orders, hot deals, sales events and unique gadgets. Read the latest Shopping Tips now.

Halo: Reach Makes You A Better Employee, A Better Person

  

This Guy Has Taken Halo Reach Too Seriously!

September 15, 2010, 07:40 AM — Today's post is for all the Xbox gamers out there. How are you feeling this morning? A little blurry-eyed? Did that alarm seem to go off an hour too soon? Are you regretting staying up for one last match (several times in a row)? Yeah, a new Halo game will do that to you.



Yesterday's release of Halo: Reach was something of a momentous occasion. After all, it's the last (well, for now; these decisions have a way of reversing themselves) Halo game from Bungie. Plus it felt like the start of the holiday gaming season for this year. And running up to the release we all read the early reviews, most of which were quite favorable (and rightly so, in my opinion). The die-hard fans hit a Midnight Launch party Monday night, of course (by the time I woke up Tuesday morning I saw at least one person claiming to have finished the campaign already) but most of us had to wait until we got home from work yesterday to immerse ourselves into the Halo universe once again.










So we stayed up much too late, and some of us might be feeling a little guilty about that. But don't! You weren't up late playing a video game. No sir! You were up honing your decision making skills. Trust me on this, it's a scientific fact! A post over at Gamasutra yesterday detailed a study that demonstrated that people who played a first person shooter completed tasks more quickly, and just as accurately, as a control group who played some boring Sims 2 game. So if the boss comments on your haggard look this morning, just tell him you were training to be a better employee.



And tonight, remember that science is on your side. You owe it to your employer, to your friends and family, and to yourself, to play more Halo: Reach. You never know when that extra speed in coming to a decision will mean the difference between life and death! Or at least help snag a big sales contract or troubleshoot a systems problem more quickly. Heck, all things considered, it'd be irresponsible for you not to play tonight!



And if you're thinking this blog post seems pretty light on content, and that maybe this blogger was also up too late playing, well, guilty as charged. The adventures of Noble Team and number 6 had me glued to the Xbox. So I want to leave you with something a bit meatier to sink your teeth into over your morning coffee. Let's head back to Gamasutra again for a great piece on the Halo: Reach launch event that was held Monday night in New York City. It's a nice 'feel good' piece for fans of Halo. Enjoy!

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:

'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