In the newest issue of Game Informer, the crew went over to Bungie to test out a demo of Halo: Reach. Below I’ll be telling you pretty much everything in the article, my take on it, and what I think I may have learned about the game without them actually saying it. But first let me give a briefing on the game. Halo: Reach takes place on the planet reach, the major military home for the UNSC and where the Spartan training grounds are. The planet was well defended and hidden behind dozens of other outer colony worlds. Somehow the Covenant was able to find out where Reach was and made a full force attack on it. Things don’t go so well from here. If you know much about Halo lore you already know that Reach is doomed. This game takes place in the final days of the planet and just a few days before the beginning of Halo: Combat Evolved.
You play as the sixth and newest member of Noble Team. They call your character Noble 6… creative. The rest of the team is made up of all Spartan II’s and one Spartan III. Carter is the leader and Kat, the only female on the team, is second in command. These two have been with Noble Team the longest, watching other members die off and new ones jumping in. Both are extremely devoted team members which actually cost Kat her right arm. It’s now been replaced by a robotic implant, but nowhere in the article you learn about what happened to her. Possible love story between Carter and Kat? I think there could be since they share a strong bond being the only original members left. The remaining members are Emile, Jun, and Jorge. Emile is the silent fellow in the trailer with the skull painted on his helmet. Jun is the sniper of the group. Jorge is the heavy weapons specialist and the only Spartan II on the team. Making him the heavy weapons guy makes the most sense as Spartan II’s are bigger and bulkier than Spartan III’s. Quick lesson on the different Spartans before moving on. Spartan II’s are the elite, do it all lone wolf kind of soldiers. That’s what Master Chief is. Spartan III’s were created later as kind of a cost effective unit. They’re extremely well trained and deadly, maybe not as much so as a Spartan II but cost less to make. So this allows there to be large teams of Spartan III’s, much like Nobe Team. But it also makes them expendable, a “fire and forget” solution to any problems. And then the article talks about the final character being the planet Reach blah blah blah you’ll see the inhabitants and learn about it all whatever. It’s cool, don’t get me wrong. But the article doesn’t give any info on the planet, just them trying to be all… I can’t think of the word, but other games have been like this too. So moving on.
The tone of Halo: Reach is taken slightly differently than Halo1-3, but it has to be. This isn’t a story about saving the planet, this is all about the destruction of a planet. So Bungie has gone with a more serious approach to the whole story for the game, it’s darker. The color palette is darker too. It’s not all desaturated or anything like Gears of War, it’s still got those Halo colors in it. It’s all just a bit darker. This also reflects on the Covenant and they’re appeal. In Halo 3 the Covenant were almost a comical bunch of enemies. Master Chief would plow through them as Grunts yelled and made silly jokes. This time they’re making the Covenant more feared. At this point in the timeline, the Covenant are still fresh and greatly feared, not much is known about them. Another shift with the enemies, maybe to make them a little meaner, but now they’ll be speaking their own languages in low guttural languages. I like the idea, I think it’ll be more frightening to hear a group of Elites sneaking around speaking in their native tongue rather than in perfect English. Another cool change to the look and feel of this game compared to Halo 3 are the cinematics. It’s not going to be epic movie-like, but more like a war journalism. Airborne shots will be shown as if it’s from an aircraft filming from above, or there could be some shots from a runner on the field with a camera in there hands. Maybe some security tape footage. Hopefully this will also help evoke another feeling in the game, again, different from Halo 3. You won’t get the feeling of being some sort of super human like you were with Mater Chief, but rather a group of vulnerable soldiers. “We definitely want to take a more serious approach to the franchise with Halo: Reach. We wanted to delve a little deeper into our characters themselves – in the Spartans. They’re not perfect – they’re susceptible to damage”.
Those we some of the things they changed, but things are returning. The shield and heath damage meter from Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 3: ODST are back, meaning once again you’ll be searching for health packs. Along with the look and feel of the game, this is the aspect I think will make the Covenant most feared again. You can’t just sit there for a few seconds out of fire to be fully healed again, you’ve gotta do some work to heal up. Some people may not like the health bar thing, but I love it. It makes you play the game less carelessly and a lot more strategic and though out. Halo: Reach seems to be headed back to the roots of what made Halo:CE and Halo 2. More proof of this is the ax of the spike and incindiery grenades, leaving just frag and plasma grenades. While the fire ‘nades were fun to use and toss around, you only saw them a few times, never in multiplayer matchmaking. So I have no problem with those two getting the boot. Also returning are many of your favorite weapons. They mention the sniper rifle, assault rifle, magnum, and the energy sword all returning but with some visual changes and upgrades. They never said the battle rifle was in the game, but ow can it not be? It’s THE weapon in Halo. Two new guns mentioned were the Designated Marksman Rifle, or DMR, and the Needle Rifle. Neither they talk about much, but they say the DMR is a single shot rifle that fits somewhere between the sniper and BR. They say the Needle Rifle is a “mid-range headshot weapon, combining the fun mechanics of the needler with great flexibilty and accuracy. Three individual hits from the needle rifle will super-combine and explode”. A headshot weapon? Who needs headshots when the ammo will “super-combine and explode”? New vehicles will be appearing in the game also. They mention the Falcon, an armed and transport helicopter that will ferry you and your team across the world. You’ll also stumble upon civilian vehicles that you’ll no be able to hop into and drive.
Game Informer didn’t just learn about the game, they got to play a demo of the game. Although they barely speak of it, only talking about it when they came across something new. Like right at the beginning of the article they talk about how Noble Team is called in to investigate a disturbance at the communications array that keeps the UNSC connected to the rest of the planet. They get there and see plasma burns all over the walls and around the room. Humans don’t use plasma weapons. They get ambushed. And that’s about as much info they give at a time about the demo before they start talking about other things. Although they do tell you about a new enemy called Skirmishers which they say are cousins to the Jackals. These guys travel in packs and flank their targets. They got a look at a night stage as well where they reveal some new mechanics to the game. Assassinations were always a part of the franchise but now they have a whole mechanic to them. No more just meleeing someone in the back and killing them. Here’s the small excerpt on them. “These new melee assassinations are completed by holding down the melee button while near an opponent. If they remain unaware of your presence, your Spartan will initiate a context-sensative stealth kill”. The other new mechanic they mention are the armor abilities. Basically these are just small equipment like objects you hook up to you to customize yourself. The two they mention are the sprint ability and active camo ability. A player can only equip one armor ability at a time, so there won’t be any sprinting and camo units. Each armor ability only gives you a short burst of the ability before it has to cool down and essentially recharge. So if you have the camo ability, sure you could use it over and over again. But how long does it take for that ability to recharge? I’m going to assume much longer than the ability to sprint.
Now the only thing left in the article is the upgrade to the technology. This is a much more advanced game than Halo 3 was, running on a way more improved engine. The first they talk about is an “imposter” tech, a new level of detail (LOD) system. The system works where if something is wayyy of in the distance, it’ll still look good to you, but will have less detail in it. The closer you get to it, details start to fill in more and more. It’s like a hot chick at the bar. From afar she looks amazing, but the closer you get the more you realize she is just not so hot. Well with this new imposter technology, that chick will look really great from a distance and continue to scale up as you get closer, still looking really good. This means less chance of pop-up textures and stipling as anything can be placed in the far distance without taking a hit to the performance as they’re not as detailed as something up close would be. This allows for more technology to eb placed into smaller areas. Lighting for instance. Halo 3 could have 3 or 4 dynamic lights on screen at a time. Halo: Reach can have 20-40 with the most notable in-game results are on weapon effects. As plasma plasma bolts go flying by you, they’ll each have there own independent light source, casting shadow and color about the space. “on the back of a Warthog, we see a chain gun fire at a wall. hundreds of real sparks fly from the stone. Even more impressive, the particles interact not just with the geometry of the wall, but with its curves and lines. The sparks actually bounce and flow along the tiny textured surfaces. Also added is a new weather system they don’t talk about much, but do mention one more thing. Most games, including past halo games have a skybox. A skybox is just a painted dome cover over each level. Well Halo: Reach goes the opposite direction, makying the sky apart of the level. Now you can watch a covenant drop ship descend from orbit and towards you the whole way instead of the object just spawning somewhere inside the skybox and heading to it’s destination.
Now just a few things before ending this. Yes multiplayer will obviously be in the game with full feature parity to Halo 3. Atleast 4 player co-op, two player split screen, 16 player competetive matches, saved films, all that stuff along with a bunch of new things not being talked about yet. Now, my quick take on a few things not discussed. Yes, there will be up to 6 Spartans at once in the campaign so there could be 6 player co-op. But Noble Team will be splitting up throughout the campaign. Did Bungie make co-op missions for the other characters of the game for when they split up? Also, this does not sound like a squad based game like Republic Heroes was where you’ll be able to give commands to the rest of the squad. Some people thought it may be, but I’m pretty sure it’s not after reading this.
This about wraps up this article. Go out and buy this months Game Informer so you can read up on the whole article yourself and express what you think.
Chris Parker - Head Admin 
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