Halo: Reach

Okay, I figured that the thing taking up most of my time right now should certainly be the first post in my blog and I have to say, it certainly deserves a good review.

Halo: Reach is the prequel to Halo. Of course with their new technology and such, bungie has thrown in a couple of things that don't add up, such as the Brutes and the fact that there's more spartans and better technology than in the first game, but then again, so did Star Wars. The story is great, it's fun to play, it's dramatic and there's even a couple of parts that may make the soft of heart cry a bit. I won't give away any spoilers, however the gameplay itself is almost flawless. Of course, it's a new game and like most new games this day and age, there are glitches that are soon to be fixed.

Moving onto the multiplayer aspect, Halo has been the top multiplayer game on the xbox since the original game was released only being taken over late in any of the games lives by Call of duty and Gears of war. Once again while there are some kinks to work out, and arguments that the rankings system in Halo 3 was better, I still find the credits system to be a good way to give me a goal to play towards. The biggest mistake Bungie has made are some of the glitches in the game that makes it easy to get credits and now, 3 weeks after release, everyone is at the max rank (for the time being) and there's really no point in actually playing towards max rank because everyone is using these glitches to get their credits.

The game play itself is, in my personal opinion better than any halo yet. The Armor abilities make for a massive new and innovative way to play. You can fly around with a jet pack, become temporarily invincible (And immobile) with the armor lock, or turn invisible and have a radar jammer with the cloak. There are a couple more but I won't give everything away. The new guns add a different gameplay element as well some of them causing you to be a bit more accurate in situations and some of them, such as the needler and plasma pistol, helping your accuracy by adding a little dot to where you should be aiming to hit your target if they keep moving in that direction.

Firefight mode is greatly improved as well, adding matchmaking to the mix so you don't need to recruit your friends to play, which can suck if they're never on. You can play custom firefights where you make up the mix of enemies and how powerful or weak they are and there's also score attack which is a solo mode that allows you to go into certain games (such as an all grunt game) and kill everything by yourself.

Finally the new forgeworld and forge editing are great, you can do so much I can't even begin to explain all of the intricacies. They of course could have added more to it and in the future they probably will (A la Halo 3), but for right now, you can add in your own hand made bases, natural rocks and such, your own weapons and you have a massive world to do it in. I thought it looked small at first, however walking around in it you realize that there is so much room. You can even hover objects in the air now, so you have that extra dimension to build in.

All in all Bungie did a superb job with Reach and there are very few things I personally can complain about in the game that I'm sure they can't fix. I'm sure they'll fix a lot of the bugs in the upcoming patch (2 more days from the time I post this!) and I'm even sure they'll add a load of options, armor and game types.

Thanks for reading!