HALO REACH

    STORY

     Halo Reach is the newest game of the Halo Franchise and also Bungie's last Halo game. This is a prequel to the first Halo game. Reach is the planet where the Spartan-II and Spartan-III programs took place and where Master Chief was trained and made into a Spartan. Now there is a book before this game called Halo: The Fall of Reach that explained the back story to everything up until the beginning of Halo and its alot to explain. So click the title of the book to see the summary of it.

 

     If you have read the book ultimately you will know what happens in the end, but its not about that. It is about the struggle to fight till the end and how the Master Chief ended up to be the only Spartan left.

That is you!

     This game does not focus on Master Chief. Instead you play as a Spartan Noble Six who just starts off replacing one of the noble teammates that was KIA (killed in action). What the really cool part about not being the Master Chief is that this Spartan is really you. You can customize your armor in any way and it will show in the Campaign even in cut scenes. The only difference is everyone on noble team including you is a Spartan-III which is a cheaper version of a Spartan-II , except for Jorge (he's a Spartan-II)  Your first mission with noble team was to check a distress call thinking that it is rebels from the farms retaliating, but as you check there was people slaughtered no human could ever do. Then you find the Covenant there.

NOBLE TEAM

( From left to right  Jorge 052, Carter 259, Emile 239, Kat 320, Jun 266)

       I don't know why but there is a cut scene in that level that I think is the best scenes in this game. It is the Elite Zealot Ambush.  It is a cut scene where elites attack then it goes into a first-person view and the elites take the two surviving civilians you found and take them hostage as they make their escape at that moment. Then you follow them with Jorge and close the way you came from. I think it was the suspense and timing with the music that made is such a good cut scene. At the end of the level you contact the higher ups to tell them that the Covenant are on Reach.
     The Space Battle has never been done before in Halo so I was really afraid of how it would play and then I found out one of the people that made Crimson Skies was helping to make the space battle controls and I was relieved to see that the game play for it was very good. 
     Ok from here on if you don't want to read spoilers then do not read anymore on the story section. During all your missions a Spartan from the noble team makes a brave sacrifice and gets killed. The most awe shocking death was when noble team was running to an elevator and Kat was telling a plan when all of a sudden she gets sniped in the back of the head Mid-sentence and I was speechless. The only noble team Spartan we don't see die is Jun because he went Dr. Halsey to take her to escape Reach. 
     The last mission was to take the smart A.I. that Dr. Halsey created ( Cortana) and give it to Captain Keyes at the Pillar of Autumn. When your on that last mission its just you and Emile left in the noble team. When you arrive where the Pillar of Autumn is you have to defend that area till Captain Keyes arrives with a pelican. You hand it to him and as you do the pelican was taking fire causing it to get out of there without you. Emile who was operating a big turret to shoot the ships gets stabbed in the back by an elite energy sword but falls with the elite taking it with him. 
       So know you have to get to that turret to shoot at a covenant ship before it glasses the Pillar of Autumn. You do it and the ship escapes out of Reach ending with the ship making a random slip space jump arriving at Halo just like in the first game. After the credits there is one more mission it shows you alone while the Covenant are glassing the planet and all around the area. Then you take control of your Spartan and all it saids is to survive, but it is impossible the number of Covenant increase to an overwhelming odds and you eventually get to low health and it goes to a cut scene where your killing elites left and right till your overwhelmed and eventually get killed. This last scene depressed me even though I knew the end it still depressing to see. At least he went down like a Spartan.

MULTIPLAYER

Theirs Jetpacks! 

      This is by far the best Multiplayer system yet for the Halo franchise. You have firefight, slayer, big team battle, Invasion, arena. So many new armor pieces to unlock not to mention firefight voice and armor effects. There is so much  to unlock, but I saved up to unlock Master Chief's voice. Thats right the way he talks you can give him the stupidest dialect to tell him and he will still sound badass. The forge mode is improved big time and has snap on features so you can be nice and organized. 

Some one using Armor lock ability

      They incorporated some new things in the muliplayer. Their is a flashy way to assassinate people now just by holding down melee button.  There are new loadout were you can choose a jetpack, sprint, cloak, projector image, and armor lock.  More importantly they added this new thing called challenges. Their are 5 challenges. 4 are daily and 1 is a weekly challenge. The challenges can ask you to even do something in firefight multiplayer or campaign. I think this is ingenious because now it gives people to go back and do things again. It gives me a reason to go into campaign again and again and again.

Final Verdict   

Overall im giving this a 9 out of 10! Why not 10 out of 10? Their are 2 complaints I have:

1. The music is not as memorable then the other Halo games there was only a few that caught my attention, but nothing I would remember Halo for.
2. We are lacking maps..... AGAIN!? why is it whenever a new halo game comes out there is only a few  multiplayer maps. there are 13 maps and about 5 of them if not more are different structured maps in the same forge world map and there calling them official. 4 of them are remakes of halo 2 maps.