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.



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Second Opinions On Halo Reach

Remember Reach

Halo: Reach is Bungie's final Halo game. And judging by the reviews from all three IGN regions (US, UK, and Australia), it's a worthy sendoff. But why trust the opinion of three of IGN's most notable editors? We've got plenty of other editors who have played Reach and are ready to offer their thoughts. You want multiple opinions? Oh, you're gonna get 'em.

Halo Reach ?Has The Best Gametypes Of Any Online Game

It's the ending that won me over. Oh, I had some great fun with Halo: Reach, which builds to its finish better than any previous Halo game, but it wasn't the conclusion that put this over the top. This is my favorite Halo campaign.



The bonus level that comes after the lengthy credits perfectly closes out Reach and emphasizes the hopelessness of the situation. Coming into this, Bungie's last Halo title, it was already known that Reach was doomed. Being witness to the planet's demise is a bittersweet reward for nearly a decade of loyalty to the franchise. I've got to admit, the minute Reach ended, I popped in the original Halo and started playing it again. I couldn't help myself.




Multiplayer maps

Some of my favorite Halo missions are in Reach. Including a mission, "Long Night of Solace," which introduces space combat into the series. And while battling above Reach is awesome, the best part comes afterwards, when you board a Covenant Corvette and experience some low-G combat. The sound alone makes this level worth playing.



Then, of course, there's the multiplayer, which is the real bread and butter of Halo. Bungie has been tweaking Halo multiplayer over the years and this seems like the best balance to appease the broadest number of fans. Firefight, for me, is where it's at, and the ability to fully customize this mode is going to have me playing Halo: Reach for months.



I'm a Halo fan. I've loved every game. So it's probably not a shock that I love Halo: Reach. I won't apologize for digging another Halo game. Bungie knows how to make a great first-person shooter. It's a fitting finale for Bungie and hopefully the start of something new and exciting as the series continues under 343 Industries' stewardship.



I've always had a love/hate relationship with the Halo franchise. The universe is extensive and the storytelling is fantastic, but the gameplay is also extremely linear and the graphics always seem behind the curve. Still, I've picked up every Halo game on launch day and played the hell out of it in the months to follow. For me, it's about the experience Bungie works so diligently to create, the epic nature of the story, and the hype and fan culture surrounding Halo games. Halo games are an event, and Halo: Reach has been the greatest thus far.



As I write this, I'm sitting at my desk, and at the back of my mind I'm thinking about how I want to get home as quickly as possible to finish the campaign and see how the story ends. I spent hour after hour last night trying to fight my way to the finish, but before I knew it, it was 1 a.m. and I realized my eyes could no longer bear to gaze upon the screen. So, I reluctantly retired despite being right on the cusp of the crescendo of the story.







Halo in Five Minutes

Few games ever have this type of effect. Usually it's because I can't get invested in the story, but I'm rarely up into all hours of the night playing a game feverishly. But for me, Halo: Reach is all about the story. I love how references and characters of the previous games are interwoven, and how well Bungie has created the drama of a planet under attack. In the Halo universe, the fall of Reach is huge, and Bungie has told the story exceptionally well.



Still, I also found plenty of issues with Halo: Reach. The updated engine looks good, but I wouldn't say it is a staggering improvement over Halo 3, nor does it really hold up against other recent titles, like Uncharted 2. The frame rate drops are also an issue, and they took me out of the experience at times. I also appreciate that Bungie wanted to make Reach a bit more challenging than the previous games, but the relentless waves of foes can be a bit of an annoyance.



But at the end of the day, I'm loving Halo: Reach. Bungie is sending themselves out in style, and there is no question that this is their greatest effort yet. I'm sad to see the end of Bungie's Halo, but I'm sure Microsoft will leave the universe in able hands.



While I could probably gush about Halo: Reach for a few pages, I'd like to instead focus on one of its missions, "Long Night of Solace," which is my favorite mission in the Halo series. This is the space dogfight mission that was revealed at E3 2010, but it doesn't start in space. You begin this mission pushing through waves of Covenant forces on a beach with a full complement of Spartans that can essentially clear the way for you if you just sit back -- although I prefer to sprint ahead and jack a Wraith to flank the enemy. All standard Halo fare. But at the end of the beach, a launch pad awaits, and, as you hop into the Sabre and launch into space, the battlefields of Reach fade as you slip silently into the upper atmosphere.



In space you assume control of the agile Sabre fighter. As different Covenant ships jump into view, the gun batteries of Anchor 9 space station begin to blaze and sounds of radio chatter and dull explosions fill the cockpit, you realize you aren't really playing Halo anymore, but the best Battlestar Galactica episode ever. Few games have tackled space combat as well as Bungie in this brief interlude in Reach -- although Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II for Gamecube immediately springs to mind. It's a game-within-a-game, but it's executed so well that a standalone space shooter from Bungie is now higher than an HD Zelda on my fantasy game list.



Eventually you must disable a large Covenant ship by swooping in and taking shots at its massive engines. This concludes the dogfight, but not the mission. You then land on the disabled ship where you are tasked with clearing out the Covenant forces in low gravity. Space jumps and dull, zero atmosphere sound effects make this battle unique -- and difficult. Halo: Reach has a few more surprises in store after this mission, but I feel like this campaign is both the height of the game and of the series since it highlights many of the series best qualities: scale, variety and, of course, combat (evolved).