A Thing About Halo: Reach

 A lot of people have been writing things about Halo: Reach, to the point where I feel like anything I say will be completely redundant. But, I'm going to say things anyways, if only to give me an excuse to write one thousand words about something.

I guess I should start by stating my previous experiences with the Halo series. Well, I didn't own an original Xbox, so I didn't play 1 or 2. I did however play the third, and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the multiplayer (obviously). ODST was just a rental for me, but I really like it and even included it in my Top 10 games of last year. I realized about halfway through June that even though I hadn't really been paying attention to the pre-release information for Reach, I was going to have to buy it. It's just one of those games, that not only will my friends be playing a lot, but everyone will have an opinion on it and I will need one too.

I was pleasantly surprised last Wednesday when my brother walked in with Halo: Reach because I was not sure when I was actually going to end up buying it. The version we bought came with a sweet diary book, that I was excited to read after finishing the game to avoid spoilers. Turns out, I still don't give a shit about Halo's story, so the one in Reach didn't interest me at all; I think I'll still read the book though, just for fun.

Maybe the reason I didn't care about Reach's story was because I was playing it Co-op on Legendary the whole time with two buddies, meaning that the story wasn't my primary concern. I kind of knew what was going on, but I really just appreciated some of the ways people die. I will definitely go back and play it again by myself, to get the full story, but I feel I might not care about it either way.

Anyways, I have to talk about the multiplayer, because it's arguably the most important part of the game. Guess what? It's Halo. It's also really good. The DMR and the Needle Rifle are my favourite weapons, probably because they're practically the same thing. I've heard a lot of people complain about SWAT and Snipers being the only game types people choose. For my first couple hours I didn't think it was too bad, but now I'm starting to completely agree. I like SWAT, but for now I've switched to Team Objective and Big Team Battle just for some more variety.

I haven't played any Firefight yet. I like it in concept, and it's pretty fun in practice as well, but I never want to play it more than the other modes. Maybe if I get a bunch of friends together we'll try to make it pretty far, but I don't think I'll be attempting to find a game through matchmaking.

Forge mode has been drastically improved though. Not only is it fun to dick around with your friends and get Falcons stuck in walls, but I feel like I could actually make a good map if I tried hard enough. I'll probably get around to that at some point, but for the time being I'm fine with just playing the regular-ass multiplayer.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned the leveling-up system yet. I think it's incredibly clever. I love getting points for playing through the campaign and stuff like that, but there's no incentive for people to grind them out since they don't mean anything. A lot of the armor is completely worthless (why do I need to buy left and right shoulder armour?) so I'm saving up for the cool things like visors and armour effects. It's not really about the stuff I can buy, it's mostly because seeing numbers go up is cool.

In conclusion, I think Halo: Reach is pretty damn cool.