Halo: Reach grabs a Busy Gamer 4

First Glance:
The prequel to the epic Halo Trilogy and what is said to be Bungie’s “final” Halo game.

Short Story:
You play as Noble 6, the newest member of Noble Team. This team of Spartans, physically and genetically altered super soldiers armed with high tech armor and weapons, is the last defense against the Covenant, a combination of different alien races who believe that it is their divine right to destroy the human race. Noble Team’s mission is to repel an invasion of the planet Reach, the last human compound before Earth. You and your team must prevent Reach from falling to the Covenant in order to keep the location of Earth a secret. If you are a fan of the Halo series, you know how this story ends.

The Score:
*Disclaimer!  The score I give Halo: Reach does not reflect how I really feel about this game.*  This was easily the most anticipated game release of this year. With stunning cinematics, wonderful voice acting, and not to mention the incredible and epic story of the campaign, I would be shocked if this game does not receive game of the year. With that said, the campaign can take a while to complete especially if you are trying to get the Legendary Campaign achievements. Then, once you are done with the campaign, you can spend the rest of your day playing the awesome online multi-player. For the sole reason that you can spend countless hours playing online, for the Busy Gamer, Halo: Reach is going to get the score of a 4.

Body of the Review:
This was easily the best game I’ve played this year. Bungie really went all out with what they call their last Halo installment. As I mentioned before, the story was incredible. As you start off as a full team, and slowly, one by one, the team of six eventually comes down to one, you realize that the mission you started will not be a successful one. For those of you familiar with the Halo universe, you know that Reach falls to the Covenant, but Bungie makes sure that everyone knows that Reach did not fall without a fight.

There were a number of exciting additions made to Reach. Along with new weapons, my personal favorite being the DMR which is a single fire version of the Battle Rifle from Halo 2 and Halo 3, there were also the addition of the armor load outs. The load outs were my favorite addition to this game. There are a variety of armor load outs available in Reach, including: Sprint, Armor Lock, Invisibility, Hologram, a Deployable Bubble Shield, and let us not forget, a Jet Pack. I am a huge fan of Red vs. Blue, an online series made using the Halo game engine. Now, in the Red vs. Blue storyline, there is a special division of soldiers called “Freelancers.”  Each Freelancer’s armor is equipped with a special ability. Sound familiar?  Being a Red vs. Blue fan, I was really excited to see something like this be apart of the game. My favorite load out would have to be the Sprint load out. It’s the simplest one of the bunch, but it works best for me in Matchmaking.

"Get some, little creepy dino looking thing!"

Halo: Combat Evolved was such a breakthrough game because it was the first game to initialize the melee attack in a First Person Shooter. Halo 2 and 3 took it one step further with instant kills when you melee an opponent from behind. Now, when you do this in a multiplayer match, you would get a badge for an assassination. Halo: Reach took the assassination one step further by actually giving you the visual satisfaction of seeing your character brutally assassinate your opponent. This usually involves the breaking of the neck or a brutal stabbing of the head or chest of your opponent. I love those!
Along with the additions of the gameplay, your ability to customize your Spartan are incredible. There are so many different armor types this time around that the possibilities are endless for how your Spartan looks.

The multiplayer has gone through a huge revamp as well. You can now change your settings to where if you like to play with people who like to talk while playing, or players who are there to have fun, you can set it to where those will be the only players you will be matched with. There are also some new multiplayer games with Reach. These include Head Hunters, Elite Slayer, Invasion, and now SWAT and Living Dead have their own multiplayer playlist. Personally, I am not a fan of any of these new games except for SWAT, but that’s been in the mix since Halo 3. Elite Slayer is probably my least favorite of the new multiplayer games. It was not very fun to play.

Right now, Reach doesn’t have too many maps to choose from and the majority of them are all remakes of maps from previous Halo games, my favorite currently being Countdown.

"Your tactics are transparent!"

One of the best changes would be the changes made in the Forge. Not only did Bungie manage to change things by giving the players the ability to make their own movies using Theater mode and giving players the ability to create their own maps as well in Halo 3. Now in Reach, players have endless possibilities in the Forge. You can now mesh objects together and rotate objects to the angle you desire. And to build your creations, Bungie has given us Forge World. Forge World is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s one huge map that holds at least six different maps inside of it. Most notably, this map has brought back possibly Halo’s most famous map: Blood Gulch. Once again, as a Red vs. Blue fan, I was excited to see Blood Gulch again as it was where the first five seasons of the show took place.

Final Thoughts:
Reach is as close to the perfect FPS as you can get. It has the story, the look, and the gameplay that many will love. I only hope that this will not be Bungie’s last hurrah in the Halo Universe.

Until next time Busy Gamers, Happy gaming!

M-Dawg out.

Red vs Blue Redefined

Its within a week now that the Halo Reach Beta will be hitting the masses. On the 27th, gamers with Halo Reach Beta codes can start playing over Xbox Live in all the new different modes. May 3rd is the day that everyone else is going to be green-lit for beta access.

While you wait, why not torture ourselves by watching teasers? In preparation for the release of the beta, Bungie has released a ViDoc and a live-action trailer.

The ViDoc, entitled Carnàge Carnivàle, teases all elements of the beta hyping all Bungie fanboys via BuTube. Describing the exact appetite of the hardcore gamer, Luke Smith calls the campaign of any game the preparation of the table while the multiplayer is your meal.

http://www.vg247.com/2010/04/28/halo-birth-of-a-spartan-live-action-teaser-springs-forth-from-microsofts-womb/

http://www.bungie.net/News/Blog.aspx?mode=news#Reach_Beta_Guide

Are you ready to Reach for the next Halo title?

ODST came out last fall and blew away all fans of the favored Microsoft franchise, but that was last year; Halo: Reach is SO this year! Game Informer has a Reach as their cover game for their February magazine and now someone has gotten their copy so its time to see what the article brings to the table of new information and pictures.

Bungie has officially released information about the article in a forum that was posted on Bungie.net. Exclusive to magazine readers? Not so much, but we’ll help spread all the new announcements and enhancements around. Depending on what kind of Halo player you are, you might be thrilled to hear that the spike and flame grenades have vanished from the playing field making the obviously dominant grenades, frag and plasma, the only grenades to find in Halo: Reach. Contrary to popular belief, Halo: Reach will not follow Fall of Reach’s storyline.

Like the idea of archaic battles with over 30 enemies in a combat situation? Well Bungie will take those 30 enemy AI and raise you 20 AI vehicles and another 10 enemies on screen at the same time. Epic battles AHOY! Speaking of epic, you’ll be able to battle your way through a revival of what seems to be a squad based remake of Halo: Combat Evolved. With marines looking similar to that of the marines in the original title and the health bar returning, this game will either finish the epicness of the Halo Franchise or project it into a new generation of Halo fans.

(more…)

Halo: Uprising #3 Cover by Marvel

For those Halo fans out there, we here at Busy Gamer are getting the buzz that plenty of things are coming in the future for the first person shooter sci-fi series.

Halo franchise development director has announced two new Halo comic series for 2009 (in addition to The Halo: Uprising #4 coming out March 18, which closes the gaps on activities between Halo 2 and Halo 3). Marvel has stated that two new working titles are ‘Halo: Hell Jumpers’ about the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers and ‘Halo: Spartan Black’, tales of a team of Spartans.

The ODST comic arriving this summer will be stories of the Shock Trooper Team who are known for their “Navy Seal” type skills, according to O’connor. These ass whoopers will be the focus of the next Halo game “Halo 3: ODST” (a first person shooter taking place just after Halo 2 and before Halo 3).

O’Connor says:

“(this game) is significantly more than an add-on. It’s a lot of game. You play the game through the point of view of an ODST. They are dropped into combat from orbit. They have a rivalry with the Spartans that is well known to the fans of the fiction. We finally let you into their boots as it were. …It’s kind of a detective story in a way. But it is much more action-packed than that.”

O’Connor also added penetrating words regarding our favorite main character, “I doubt we have seen the last of Master Chief.”

So as if your Halo wish list was not full already, it ought to be full as hell by now.

[Source]

-Crutchboy out

(PC World) – Halo 3 addiction doesn’t explain or excuse Daniel Petric’s shooting both his parents, says an Ohio judge. More specifically, video game addiction, which was never medically established during the trial, did not make Petric any less responsible for murdering his mother and wounding his father, according to the judge.

Petric is the teenager who shot both his parents after they took his copy of Halo 3 away in September 2007. Petric (16 at the time) snuck out of the house through his bedroom window to buy the Xbox 360 game Halo 3 after his father forbade him to. He was caught returning home, the game was taken from him, and placed in a lockbox in his parents’ closet that also housed a 9mm handgun.

A month later, Petric secured entry to the lockbox, took the game as well as the gun, and — after asking his parents to “close [their] eyes” because he had “a surprise for [them],” shot them both, killing his mother and wounding his father. As his father lay wounded, Petric tried to slip the gun into his father’s hand. He fled the scene after his sister and her husband arrived, taking the game with him.

Petric’s lawyers insisted that the boy’s age and “video game addiction” made him less responsible, the insinuation being that Halo 3, a sci-fi shooter in which players battle hostile aliens, exerted an inexorable grip on Petric’s ability to restrain himself from committing the incredibly heinous acts.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge’s response? That’s not a defense, and furthermore, there’s evidence Petric “plotted the crime for weeks.”