In Halo: Reach, space aliens employ way cooler weapons than humans do. By the year 2552, we humans will apparently, barely have standard-issue machine guns and pistols. But aliens! Man, they will take us down with laser rifles, giant sledgehammers, crystal swords and invisibility cloaks, plus hovercraft. Hovercraft!
Halo: Reach is a prequel. It's set before the events of the first Halo game, when aliens - the Covenant - invade the human space colony of Planet Reach.
If you've played earlier Halos, everything will seem extremely familiar.
You constantly shoot aliens and, fortunately, you steal their cool weapons and ammo off their corpses, then jog or drive through forests, buildings or whatever, then kill a bunch more aliens, etc.
You drive alien tanks, human spaceships and human forklifts. Yes, forklifts - if you want to be killed in one!
As with other Halo games, the visual otherworldliness is sprawling. Spectacular vistas give us amazing clouds, rolling hills, tree-lined mountains, rocky terrain - and an outer space setting for a Star Wars-esque battle.
The difference from previous Halos is, before we played as super-soldier Master Chief. In Reach, we play as a courageous soldier named Noble 6.
As a hardcore gamer, I found the game so easy, for so long, that at times I just avoided killing certain aliens by running past them.
Other times, the game tries to make everything really super-hard all at once, by throwing dozens of hard-to-kill villains and vehicles at you in one big moment (as previous Halos have done).
That's what I call the lazy game designer's "cram a bunch of crazy crap on the screen" routine. That makes the end of Reach a lame letdown.
In the later stages, how many times do you have to shoot an alien in the head with a sniper rifle or a grenade launcher to kill him? I feel like I've shoved three grenades into an alien's face, and he still lives, compared to early in the game when just a few bullets would do. Shooting games use that ploy regularly. But this is ridiculous.
Anyway, definitely, if you're a hardcore gamer, play Reach on a harder setting. If you're a casual gamer like my friends who raise families, then play on an easier setting.
Many Halo gamers love the Halo story. To wit, the offline campaign mission comes with a sci-fi fantasy, canny dialogue ("It's the damn Covenant!") and mainstream plot twists that are not engaging.
The solo campaign is very good for shooting. The online multiplayer is, too, despite the fact that it doesn't let gamers come into games mid-game.
The online multiplayer comes with good ("balanced") battlefields, tons of options (team play, cooperative play, etc.), plus all manner of goodies, such as rocket launchers, sniper rifles, night vision goggles and a sick jetpack!
The jetpack lets you jet above rivals to drop grenades on their heads. That's worth the price of admission right there.