HALO Reach

[Wideboy]

looks good, but I've herd that its meant o be crap?

discuss

[DarrenSV650S]

I use harpic

[andrewsmith]

haha domestos all the way.

Me and a few mates are considering getting it as a change to COD

[kitkat]

my son will be getting his next week, his dad has pre ordered it. He loves the other halo games and is so excited about this one.

[the_lone_wolf]

I would imagine the reach of a HALO jump would be less than that of a HAHO jump simply because your component of horizontal movement is much smaller than the vertical, relatively speaking...

Of course you have the advantage of being able to slip in under the enemy radar, which may or may not offset the lack of reach with the element of surprise...

HTH:cool:

Who are you thinking of invading?

[metalangel]

Anyone get their copy early? Mine was waiting for me when I got home. Only played multiplayer so far, seems pretty good, but (as is inevitable) not really that different from the previous games.

[Wideboy]

I've seen one or two articles about it early on in the production and they didnt exactly have amazing things to say about it

im gona wait until its been out a while, fed up of developers hyping up games to justify the £40, then the game turning out to be crap

[BBadger]

hopefully my copy should trun up today.
Hmmm i always enjoy halo games even the slated ones so this will probably amuse me for months.
And its ment to look better than the other games will help alot to.

[warrenhewitt10]

ign uk give it 10/10, and bungie are yet to dissapoint with one of these games. This is the last one they are making, its up to microsoft for the next one, so it will be crap, as microsoft are still yet to make anything that works properly

[metalangel]

So far it seems to combine the best of Halo 3 and ODST. One guy I spoke to while playing last night said he was reviewing it (didn't say which website) and that he didn't feel it necessary to finish the singleplayer as he felt it was pretty obvious how the story would end (from previous Halo games you know anyway). I countered that this wasn't the point, the whole point was all the ridiculous spectacles and setpieces you'd see along the way, and he agreed he'd finish it after all. Yay!

[BBadger]

I hate royal mail....didnt turn up in the post today =[
and i really wuna play it now

[ThEGr33k]

Pre order is a bad idea... Should have just popped down to Morrisons! Cheaper and you get it as soon as you like. ha ha.

[hindle8907]

lol or just download it if its any good go buy it in 2 weeks from the shops ;) support the developers.

[ThEGr33k]

Im past DL tbh, more effort than its worth imo, for what you get from a good game and the price its pretty good all in.

[hindle8907]

it takes 20-30 mins on my 50mb to dl an 8gb 360 game and a dl disk costs around 59p ... 25 minutes to burn jobs a good un.
if the game is crap you just saved your self £45 if its good go and support the developer.

[hindle8907]

actually i forgot most of you will be using torrents lol so yeah i wouldn't bother either,

[Reeder]

Norty

[kitkat]

my son got his copy today. He has been upstairs playing it since he got in from school. I have not asked him how it is, best not to try and have a conversation when he is playing new game.

[mcgrimes]

Im not too impressed really, its good, but there was way to hype in my opinion. I picked it up for £35 from sainsburys today.

As i said, its good, firefight is a good mode, never really been excited with the Halo series multiplayer battles - it'll be ebayed in time for COD!

[metalhead19]

Mine arrived 3 days early, i think its good, never really got on with halo games but this one a like. But as mcgrimes has said, will be gone ready for COD.

[gedt5]

i picked up my sons copy from asda at 6am today but he got sent home from school today with a wry neck [muscle spazum] so hes in agony and cant play it :smt088
on the plus side he'll be off school tomorrow so if hes not too sore he can have an allday session.\\:D/

[Wideboy]

im am very reluctant to buy it due to the hype, hyped up games usually turn out to be a let down

[xXBADGERXx]

I played the Online Multiplayer Beta a while back , was also on the Beta for Halo 3 , and I can say the online bit is a damn site fairer with the shield and the jetpack . I don`t get paid til tomorrow so I shall join you lot after work when I go out and buy it .

[metalangel]

I have to say (played more with friends yesterday) I don't really like many of the maps yet.

Race and Rally are both incredibly boring, and Rocket Race (the game of kings) is nowhere to be found!

After a few goes on Firefight (where again, the maps somehow don't feel as nice as they did in ODST) one of our party departed and we decided to join some public matches both to have more players and to get more CR to save up for more voices and of course the Grunt Birthday Party upgrade.

Whether we were victims of lag or hacking I don't know, but we ended up in several games of SWAT (no shield or radar) where my friend and I would round a corner and someone would headshot both of us within a second of each other. We, naturally, couldn't score hits nearly as reliably and often I'd be headshotted from miles away by someone I hadn't even seen (and who couldn't be seen in the deathcam either). The final game was just a normal slayer match and again, headshot headshot headshot, and my friend agreed when I complained that the guy who was waaaaay at the top of the scoreboard was shrugging off multiple hits to just turn and immediately, instantly headshot you.

I dare say that this new emphasis on headshots may have spoiled what made Halo multiplayer so much fun. But it's early days, not concluding anything yet.

A bit later we played the first campaign mission in co-op. The ethnically diverse squad grated on us immediately (for goodness' sake, the woman is also the disabled one, and I quipped that perhaps she lost her arm doing what Emile is seen doing in the opening cutscene - sharpening his knife against his arm!) and in spite of the many ludicrous accents, they all sound the same over the radio.

[kitkat]

spoke to my son eventually this morning. He has always loved halo games and loves this one. the best game he has played. so he is a happy bunny

[ThEGr33k]

I have only played the single player, after being disappointed with Halo 2 and 3 I have to say this one is Great! I really cant believe how much better it is. Thing is it took me a couple of levels to get back into the swing of using a controller (using PC for Bad Company 2 most of the time, oh buy that and not COD, COD is old and boring now) but after I had I really enjoyed it. Id guess im about half way through, and thats after 5 hours play so its LONG! Not the stumps of games that were Halo 2 & 3.

Id say give it a go!

As to Multi, I wont bother, 1) Im not paying MS £40 more to be able to when I can just use the PC for better connections and experience, and 2) Its always disappointing because of the bad connection and no where near as good as the 16 player LAN Halo 1 & 2 games my friends used to have...

[mcgrimes]

As to Multi, I wont bother, 1) Im not paying MS £40 more...

If you shop around you can get 12, sometimes 13months for about £26. What i like about xbox live is the ease of getting games, joining your friends games, creating parties so you and your friends stick together; and by default, everybody has a headset.

If my PC was adequate, id probably play more games on there, but as it is, its a pile of shiz! :D

[hindle8907]

Pc ftw 99% :) the other 1% is for car games on tee xbox.

[thedonal]

Does the single player campaign follow the Halo trend of getting shorter and more disappointing as the series progressed?

Was rather underwhelmed with Halo 3 after 2 playthroughs, despite some great moments.

It's a shame, because I was blown away by Halo and very impressed by Halo 2 (especially the twist of playing the Arbiter).

Online was better, though- the Halo 3 matched games made it a little easier to get into instead of the noob-deathfest of Modern Warfare.



Is ODST any good? Turns up rather cheap these days, hinting that it's not all that..

[Kilted Ginger]

Just completed the solo campaign. Good yes, overhyped yes. Basically its odst with spartans. Quite a short story and although the end is predestined i felt it was a bit lacking in places, but i wont go into details so as not to spoil it. The gain credits to buy armour idea i dislike intensely, very cynical way to hold players / reward hackers. Same as in COD
If it was any other game than halo i'd probably trade it in when my next purchase comes along but, I have all the other derivatives so would be a shame not to have the set.
It starts off following the eric nylund stories then veers off. Does not tie up how 117 is in stasis on the PoA and does not have the massive battles it promised. 7/10
not played multi yet (other than beta) but i'm assuming its still just elites against spartans and not developed to allow the use of hunters / jackal snipers / brutes etc which fro me would have been a better way to divide abilities.

[jans1971]

seen a few youtube multiplayer videos looks pretty **** to me all that jumping around not for me

[mcgrimes]

Gets a bit laggy at times, in the larger battles, or sometimes just looking to a point faraway which happened during a firefight - makes aiming accurately a bitch!

[ThEGr33k]

Does the single player campaign follow the Halo trend of getting shorter and more disappointing as the series progressed?

Was rather underwhelmed with Halo 3 after 2 playthroughs, despite some great moments.

It's a shame, because I was blown away by Halo and very impressed by Halo 2 (especially the twist of playing the Arbiter).

Online was better, though- the Halo 3 matched games made it a little easier to get into instead of the noob-deathfest of Modern Warfare.



Is ODST any good? Turns up rather cheap these days, hinting that it's not all that..

I think its a fair bit longer than Halo 2 and 3, Ive played 5 hours and still have an hour or 2 left. I think Halo 2 and 3 could both be cracked in like 4 hours! (Both on normal, the difference in reach between normal and heroic is BIG).

I enjoyed ODST, its not mega long but its a nice story and the sound track is amazing, I LOVED all the night mission parts running around a dead city alone. Was just fab.



I was equally under whelmed by Halo 2 & 3 after the first one (mostly because of game length) but I think Reach is very nearly as brilliant as the original. I for one think its a shame that Bungie is no longer at the head of this franchise... I was really hoping for a remake of the original, that would be FAB!

[Roberrrrt]

First Halo I've played, got it on pre-order on saturday.:smt045

After being used to COD MW2, and its controls, I'm still finding it difficult to adapt. It's not as addictive as COD was - I don't find myself desperate to play it or to level-up.

I don't like how you can't choose your weapons/perks until you're in-game, I don't like how the zoom-function isn't on the left hand shoulder trigger (makes quick zooming difficult), I don't like the slower pace compared to COD and I think the maps lack any real quality.

Only played the story mode for an hour or so, and it is a welcome break from COD etc, and is the first time I've been interested in playing a game for a while.

In summary, not as good as hyped, but from a biased COD opinion really.

[Grinch]

Cool ODST should be cheap for me to buy now.

[metalangel]

Played a lot more yesterday, many of my friends now have it so we had a six player game last night.

Invasion mode is great fun, it's a shame there's only like two maps to play it on. Invasion Slayer is also very cool, you have go to waypoints and keep control of them for 15 seconds, then after another 15 seconds a weapon or vehicle is dropped off, the more points you have the better quality stuff is delivered. I hope more Invasion maps are made by other players soon as the two that are available are going to get repetitive very quickly otherwise.

Getting a bit frustrated by being constantly matched against either insane 14 year olds (headshot! headshot! HEADSHOT!) or braindead idiots. We lost a game of Generator Defense in about three minutes because the other two players just weren't doing anything to protect the gens, in desperation when we were down to the last one I parked a forklift in front of it to make it harder for the Covenant to shoot, and one of the idiots then climbs into it and 'adjusts' its position so the Covenant had a clear shot again. BANG dead 30 secs later. GRRR.

[mcgrimes]

Getting a bit frustrated by being constantly matched against either insane 14 year olds (headshot! headshot! HEADSHOT!) or braindead idiots. GRRR.

Are you aware you can set the game to choose players of your skill level or similar in the match making menu?

I play invasion mode, that cloak the elites get is great!

[metalangel]

Yeah, I always set it for good connection and similar skill.

Alas, as it's still early days, the game hasn't had time to properly work out everyone's skill (nor their network rating, as evidenced by the fact that three days of playing it later and it still hasn't acumulated enough data to rate my packet loss) so sometimes you get matched with monkeys, sometimes with people who seem to be living aimbots.

My friend who I'm playing with most is noting the same thing with the psych profile. In spite of asking for polite teamplayers, he's still being matched with the usual loathesome pubescent bigots.

While the cloak is good, the fact it sends both your (and your enemies') radars screwy is something of a giveaway. I find that crouching and moving is more stealthy, as if you go slowly enough you don't cause a 'blip' to appear on the radar. You can see whether you're producing one or not on your own radar. I do that a lot in the Invasion game, either sneaking in or just stopping until an enemy has left radar range so I'm not spotted.

[MCN_LiamM]

With regards to ODST.

It's a good game but you can't really approach it the same way you approach Halo 3. You're not a super human so you can't go in guns blazing and beat everything to death and survive. You have to be a bit stealthier and smarter. Ammo seems to be a problem for me - I'm constantly running out of stuff.

It's a good story line and I like the way it's told. I only got it the other month because it was so cheap.

Off on holiday on Saturday so will be getting Reach (and subsequently having no social life) on my return to Blighty.

[andrewsmith]

well Metalangel will have seen the comments in the Megathread and what TON is attempting

100% completion in 72 hours solid.
He will be looking like this come Saturday. May buy it wen a get some cash again

http://www.drugbuyers.com/freeboard/avatars/29549.jpg

[metalangel]

I didn't really find the health thing to be an issue in ODST... your 'stamina' bar works so much like a shield that it might as well be one. The only problem was it reintroduced the long-absent health bar which meant if you had a close call you had this irritating beeping in your ear until you found a medkit.

The two ODST-specific guns (their super-versions of the SMG and pistol) were excellent weapons except they both ate ammo like Drew drinks and you were only allowed to carry a tiny amount for them. Most of the tough sections in ODST were just the result of running dry of ammo!

100% completion in 72 hours solid

That is nuts. I have a friend who managed to get one of those keys for beating GTAIV 100% within a week or something.

[andrewsmith]

was at 30 hours around 10pm last night

read on from here to about p435

[Wideboy]

Lol is stu really going for it then? i thought he was just arsing about.... good luck to him i say, i know i couldnt do more than 3hrs :lol:

[andrewsmith]

WB, Stu seemed hell bent on it.

9 hours is my limit

[metalangel]

Does 100% include everything in the Armoury? Some of the armour effects are like 2 million credits each, and the most I've ever had after a game is about 1,700...

[andrewsmith]

think it mite. Will keep an eye out 4 oxm 100% guide

[BBadger]

ign had somthing on live about firefight and screwing around with the skulls so you can rack up hundered of thousands of points per match.

[metalangel]

Knowing Bungie, they'll nobble anyone who's done that.

[Grinch]

With regards to ODST.

It's a good game but you can't really approach it the same way you approach Halo 3. You're not a super human so you can't go in guns blazing and beat everything to death and survive. You have to be a bit stealthier and smarter. Ammo seems to be a problem for me - I'm constantly running out of stuff.

It's a good story line and I like the way it's told. I only got it the other month because it was so cheap.

Off on holiday on Saturday so will be getting Reach (and subsequently having no social life) on my return to Blighty.

Sweet, sound like just what I want.

[metalangel]

ODST is highly recommended. If Halo 3 is the summer blockbuster, ODST is art house. It tells a decent enough story, in a fairly unique way, and it has atmosphere by the ton.

[Grinch]

Bing ordered.

[Wideboy]

i dont get it, am i still actually a spartan or a human?

been playing it for about 10 mins now

[BBadger]

Your a spartan 3....all other halo's your are spartan 2.

spartan 3's are little spartans that appear to moan about most things throughout the game.

[Wideboy]

but you are a human?? your a robot/cyborg in the others??

[BBadger]

Human, thats been augmented for speed power and other things that get slapped in a power suit.

[metalangel]

Your a spartan 3....all other halo's your are spartan 2.

spartan 3's are little spartans that appear to moan about most things throughout the game.

Nope, all of Noble team are Spartan-3s except Jorge-052 who is a Spartan-2. This is very clearly indicated if you check the Firefight voice for him and he says 'you Threes get nice armour'.

[Wideboy]

completed it, thought it was crap TBH.... what waste of money

other halo's are way better

[BBadger]

completed it, thought it was crap TBH.... what waste of money

Tbh it wasnt the greatest but forge world and the new multiplayer modes make it alot of fun and worth the money if you play online alot.

[metalangel]

Some of the stuff in Forge is just amazing... Q3DM17 is in there!

I discovered a useful tip the other night while swearing my way through the second mission on Legendary. If you have the armour lockdown ability, the 'burst' of energy is equivalent to a grenade going off.

So when you return to the base near the end of the mission with the gauss-equipped warthog, park it next to the barriers and use repeated lockdown 'bursts' to bounce it over! Then you can just drive it forward and one-shot kill all the nasty enemies (including the two hunters) waiting for you up ahead.

[MCN_LiamM]

Just got back from holiday. Get paid tomorrow. Should be getting Legendary Edition if there's still any left in stock. Everybody I've asked has said it's amazing - but I don't expect anything less from Halo and Bungie.

As of tomorrow evening, I have no social life.