Halo: Reach (2010)

Been replaying Halo Reach on legendary and while the game is relatively a breeze, I have to take one issue to heart, which is that I, on a whim, turned on scoring. Just on the offchance I somehow manage to obtain par score myself. However, the game stops giving you points after you go over par time, which, okay sounds fair. But you know what's absolute bullshit?

They'll SUBTRACT points from your score after par time too, which is just downright petty, honestly. I love Halo especially Bungie Halo considering 343 is a joke, but jesus is that a really shitty little thing to do.

Earlier this afternoon I finished this game with my brother. We each recently got an Xbox Series S, and so we decided to give this game a playthrough via the online coop offered through the Halo Master Chief Collection. To think that we both got this game for a small fee as part of GamePass, along with hundreds of other games, is still shocking to both of us. To think that this game is still this good more than 10 years after it released is really something.

I remember playing it for the first time. I remember being immensely excited for it. Halo 2 and Halo 3 were some of my most played games of their generations. I put in an immense amount of time into the online games, and played through each of the campaigns once or twice on my own, or maybe, sometimes, with a friend. Something about this series just seemed to click back then.

But Reach was like something else entirely. It captured something special. I'm not sure what it was, because the gameplay is probably objectively a bit worse than Halo 3, and the story is not an objectively good one. But this game felt like it tried something new, tried something that was more than just an enhancement of what had always been there, and it provided characters and relationships that I was intrigued by in a way that Master Chief has never been anything other than a largely boring super soldier.

I think the great achievement for this one is the level design, which stepped away from the corridor shooter limitations that came with the first game and stepped deeper into the outdoor, sandbox arenas that would - I imagine - become one of the defining gameplay features of the series. At least, I hope that is what is taken from this. And, pleasantly, it feels hand-crafted rather than shaped by some algorithm. The levels hold some magic of intention still.

I would recommend a playthrough of this game with no limitations. Based on what I've played (which is not yet Halo 3 ODST, 4, 5), this is likely the height of the Halo single play experience. And the addition of firefight is pretty wonderful as well (though I think the Halo gameplay formula misses something when it doesn't have the sensation of moving from one place to the next). Avoid the online multiplayer and go for Halo 3 instead.

Next one up on the docket is Halo 2. But, first, a break from the world of Halo so that I can go into some other universe.

As someone who's never touched an Xbox console, playing Reach on PC is my absolute first experience with the Halo franchise.

And its.... okay. (Speaking from the perspective of someone doing only the campaign; currently up to the level where I'm flying around in space on a spaceship)

It just seems like a fairly brain-dead shooting gallery. Kill all of the aliens, watch a short cutscene, repeat. Not saying it's bad, per se. I just wonder if it's another franchise that's propped up quite-a-bit by nostalgia.

What is bad, however, is the audio mixing in this game. It's the absolute worst I've heard on any game in recent memory. It's really, really bad. No matter how you tweak the audio sliders, you can barely hear dialogue from other characters, or even the gunshots & explosions coming out of your own character. It's like everything that makes a noise is in a closet on the other side of the map. I'd say it's just an early release bug, but after Googling around, it sounds like this has been an issue since the game released on consoles.