Halo: Reach


Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. Originally unveiled at E3 2009, Reach was preceded by a multiplayer beta available to those who purchased Halo 3: ODST, in order to gain player feedback for fixing bugs and making gameplay tweaks. Reach is the final Halo title that Bungie will be developing, as the Microsoft-owned studio 343 Industries will take over development for all future games in the series.

The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the alien Covenant on the human colony of Reach weeks prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Players control Noble 6, a member of an elite supersoldier squad, during the battle for the world of Reach. As the Covenant begin their assault on the planet, the UNSC begin their heroic yet ultimately futile effort to halt the brutal alien invaders.

Halo: Reach grossed $200 million on its launch day setting a new record for the franchise.

Gameplay

Halo: Reach is a first person shooter. Players assume the role of Noble 6, a supersoldier engaged in combat with an alien collective known as the Covenant.

In Halo 3, players could wield one-use equipment power-ups that offer temporary offensive or defensive advantages. This system of single-use equipment is replaced in Reach by reusable and persistent armor abilities which remain with a player until they are replaced. Like Halo 3: ODST, the ability to wield two handheld firearms (dual wielding) has also been removed. Among the abilities are a hologram, where the player spawns a "dummy" twin, jetpack, active camo, sprint, and "armor lock", which makes the player invincible in exchange for the loss of mobility. In addition to tweaks and changes to existing weapons from the Halo series, Reach features new weapons fulfilling various combat roles.

Forge, a level editor that first appeared with Halo 3, was updated for Reach, and can be used to edit the default multiplayer maps as well as a large blank canvas known as Forge World. Forge World itself is home to several Bungie-created Forge maps that will ship on-disc. Forge tools have also been improved; objects can now be phased into other objects, and can also be snapped to specific orientations.

Multiplayer

Spartan players use the armor lock and jetpack armor abilities

Reach features "loadouts", which allow players to pick a predefined choice of armor abilities and weapons at spawn time. The veto system has been improved, allowing players to vote for their preferred map and game mode out of a few choices. Players are now rewarded with "credits", which players can spend on aesthetic armor customizations. Players can also choose the gender of their Spartan and almost all armor settings and investments translate across Reach's game modes.

Among standard multiplayer modes such as Slayer and King of the Hill, Reach includes gametypes new to the franchise. In "Headhunter", players drop skulls upon death, which other players can pick up and deposit at special zones for points. When a player dies all their accumulated skulls are dropped as well. "Stockpile" has teams race to collect neutral flags, holding them at capture points every minute for points. "Generator Defense" pits three Spartans against three Elites (A type of Covenant soldier). The Elites' objective is to destroy three generators, while Spartans defend the installation. After every round the players switch roles. "Invasion" is a six versus six mode with 3 squads of two on each team. The gametype pits Spartans against Elites; Elites vie for control of territories to disable a shield guarding a navigation core; once the shield is disabled, they must transfer the core to a dropship—the Spartans must prevent this from happening. As the game progresses, new loadouts, vehicles, and areas of the map become open. "Invasion" also offers a Slayer variant where both teams goal is to reach a certain number of kills in the allotted time. Vehicles and weapons are unlocked by controlling a moving territory.

Alongside other multiplayer options is "Firefight", a version of which appeared in Halo 3: ODST. In Firefight players take on increasingly difficult waves of foes in a game of survival. Players can customize Firefight options, including the number and types of enemies. It has also been announced that a firefight versus is playable in which there is an elite team trying to keep the spartan team from scoring points. Some game modes such as Generator Defense are playable in Firefight. Although Firefight in ODST only supported matches among players that were on each others' friend lists, firefight in Reach supports online matchmaking between random players.

Also new to Halo: Reach are nameplates which appear next to a player's gamertag and can be earned by completing different requirements and activating the nameplate via Bungie.net.

Setting

Reach takes place in a futuristic science fiction setting during the year 2552, shortly before the events of the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved. Humans, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), have been waging a long war against a collective of alien races known as the Covenant. By the events of Reach, almost all of humanity's interstellar colonies have fallen. Reach itself is an Earthlike colony that serves as the UNSC's main military hub. In addition to the military presence, the colony is home to over 700 million civilians.

Characters

The game follows the actions of Noble Team, a UNSC special operations unit composed of elite supersoldiers known as Spartans. Players assume the role of an unnamed new addition to the team, identified by the call sign Noble 6. Noble Team's leader is Carter-A259, a no-nonsense soldier. His second-in-command, Kat-B320, has a bionic arm; together, Carter and Kat are the only two remaining original members of Noble Team. The other members include heavy weapons specialist Jorge-052, Emile-A239, and marksman Jun-A266.

Plot

The game begins with player character joining Noble Team as a replacement for a fallen comrade. Colonel Holland, the team's commander, sends the Spartans to discover why a relay station on Reach went offline, suspecting damage done by insurgents. Instead of human rebels, Noble Team discovers the Covenant. Soon after, Noble team is deployed to "Sword Base", an installation belonging to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), for defensive purposes; the scientist Catherine Halsey, mastermind of the SPARTAN-II program and the MJOLNIR powered armor worn by all SPARTAN characters, informs Noble Team that the Covenant at the relay were searching for important information.

As the Covenant arrive on the planet in force, Noble Team is dispatched on various defensive missions such as assaulting a Covenant ground base and removing fortified Covenant defenses. When a massive super-carrier joins the fight, Jorge and Six infiltrate the ship, intending to destroy it with a makeshift bomb. When the detonator malfunctions, Jorge sacrifices himself to destroy the carrier; soon after a larger Covenant fleet arrives to continue the assault. Noble Six regroups with the rest of the team in assisting with the evacuation of the planet, during which Kat is killed by a sniper.

Recalling Noble Team to Sword Base, Halsey shows them an ancient Forerunner artifact that she believes is key to winning the war. Noble Six, Carter, and Emile are entrusted with taking the artificial intelligence Cortana, and the information she carries, to the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn, while Jun is assigned to evacuate Halsey in a Pelican dropship.

En route to the Autumn's dry dock, Carter sacrifices himself and the team's Pelican to destroy a mobile assault platform, and Emile takes control of a coilgun emplacement to defend the Autumn while Captain Jacob Keyes arrives to secure Cortana. Emile is slain by Elites, and Six opts to remain on Reach and take Emile's place at the gun while the Autumn escapes. The game depicts the opening scene of Halo: Combat Evolved, in which Cortana discovers the franchise's titular Halo ringworld, followed by the credits and a personal message of thanks from Bungie.

The post-credits scene puts the player in control of Noble Six's last stand against overwhelming Covenant forces; the only objective is "Survive," and the game displays cracks in the visor of Six's helmet as damage is accrued. Six finally discards the shattered helmet, leaving it on the ground in a shot that mirrors the game's opening scene. Over thirty years later, the shot cuts to this same helmet, resting on the grassy plains of a now-rejuvenated Reach. A narration by Halsey eulogizes Noble Team's sacrifice, which enabled the victory over the Covenant (as depicted in the Halo trilogy).

Development

After the development of Halo 3, developer Bungie broke into teams; one group began working on an expansion, Halo 3: ODST, while another group, headed by creative director Marcus Lehto, began work on what would become Reach. In brainstorming, the team kept returning to the idea of a prequel set before the first Halo game. "And Reach, as a fictional planet, was just a great candidate [to] play around with. It's such a rich world, with such a great fiction surrounding it," said Lehto. "We were like: 'Okay, that's it. We've just got a lot of things we can do there so we can build an immense story with it.'"

As Reach ends with the destruction of the titular planet, Bungie focused on making sure that players still felt a sense of accomplishment and success. "It is a challenge overall to ensure the player feels they’re doing the right thing all the way to the end," said Lehto.

Bungie made it a goal to capitalise on the Xbox 360 hardware to make every part of Reach look better than Halo 3. Originally, the plan for Reach was to port existing Halo 3 assets and update them, but as 3D Art Lead Scott Shepard noted, "The more we started looking into this, the more we found that realistically we could rebuild each asset from scratch with a huge increase in quality without significantly investing more time." Texture resolution and polygon counts for models were increased; the Reach assault rifle is constructed of more polygons than an entire Marine character from Halo 3. The prequel concept also gave the art team an opportunity to redesign key enemies, weapons and elements of the series, though Scott stressed that they remained true to the spirit, if not the letter, of the original designs. Artists found inspiration in the original concept art for Halo: Combat Evolved; the shape for the redesigned Covenant Grunts came from a sketch by Shi Kai Wang done ten years earlier. Much of the engine was redesigned.

To increase replay value, the developers focused on improving the artificial intelligence. Rather than scripting enemy encounters, the developers focused on a more open world or sandbox approach to battles.

Audio

Martin O'Donnell returns to score Reach. With the game's music, O'Donnell wrote more "somber, more visceral" music because the plot is character-driven and focuses on a planet that is already known in the universe to have fallen. The music piece shown in the world premiere of Halo: Reach was the first music he wrote for the game, which he hoped he could use as a starting point for developing further themes. Heroes actor Greg Grunberg will voice a character in the game.

Announcements

Reach is announced at E3, June 1, 2009

Halo: Reach was announced on June 1, 2009 with a trailer at the Microsoft E3 2009 press conference. An accompanying press release announced that an invitation to the open multiplayer beta of the game would appear in spring 2010, a date later refined to May 3, 2010. Reach will be the last Halo game developed by original Halo developer Bungie. Future Halo games will be overseen by Microsoft subsidiary 343 Industries.

At E3 2010, Bungie revealed parts of the game's campaign, as well as Firefight. On June 23, 2010 Bungie reached the "Zero Bug Release" milestone. This means that for the most part, the team is focused on crushing all of the game's bugs and no major content will be added from this point forward. This also means that any "bugged" AI will be removed rather than be fixed, as there is simply no time to repair the coding.

On July 30, 2010, Bungie released the complete list of achievements for Halo: Reach including the titles, symbols, and descriptions/requirements. The full list can be seen here.

Multiplayer beta

Reach's multiplayer beta was open to owners of Halo 3: ODST. Bungie's previous multiplayer beta for Halo 3 had drawn 800,000 players; while more than 3 million copies of ODST were sold by November 2009, Bungie did not have any expectation upon how many players might appear for Reach, although estimating between 2 and 3 million. Due to development schedules, the code players experienced was already six weeks old, with several bugs and issues had already been addressed internally, but would still be an issue in the beta. While there were concerns that these sorts of issues might tarnish players' perception of the game, Jarrard noted that they had little choice to ship it with the issues and attempt to communicate with players concerning the fixes.

More than 2.7 million players participated in the beta, which lasted from May 3 to May 20. The game was rolled out from an internal group of Bungie or Microsoft employees, with the total number of players in the thousands. When the beta went public, more than a million played the first day, causing back-end servers to struggle to handle the traffic. While the engineering team overestimated server load, bugs in server clusters caused game uploads to become backed up, slowing matchmaking to a crawl until the underlying issues could be fixed. Jarrard noted that the 16 million total hours of play time and large-scale rollout of the game was vital to seeing how Reach would perform.

Bungie used the beta to fix mistakes, glitches, and change the balance of gameplay elements; "We needed our fans to provide feedback," said Lehto, adding that having a large audience to "hammer" on the game allowed them to gather useful feedback to mold the game. The game automatically collected statistics such as upload speeds, the time it took players to find matches, and game preferences, but sorting out what Jarrard called "the more subjective anecdotal feedback" from emails, notes and forums was more difficult. On Bungie's community site, Bungie.net, the Reach beta generated over 360,000 forum posts alone. In order to manage the high volume of feedback, Bungie created official threads for groups of issues; "We tried to give people a little bit more of a direct avenue to give that feedback and to make our lives easier. It was definitely a lot to assess and digest," said Jarrard. Among the bugs players discovered, many had to do with host migration.

Release

According to a survey by Gamesindustry.biz, Reach was chosen by industry professionals as their pick for the top-selling game of 2010.

Reach was released in three retail editions. The standard edition contains the game and the manual. The limited edition features an artifact bag with story information, different packaging, and an exclusive set of in-game Elite armor. The Legendary Edition contains all the materials from the limited edition, a different packaging, two hours of developer commentary on the in game cutscenes, in-game Spartan armor effect and a 10-pound (4.5 kg) statue created by McFarlane Toys. North American players who purchase a first run copy of the game (buying in-store close to launch day or pre-ordering) will receive an in-game Spartan "Recon" helmet customization; the same incentive is offered to other regions, but only if it is pre-ordered. In addition to the retail editions, Reach comes bundled with a limited edition Xbox 360 Slim that sports Halo-themed sounds and finish and two controllers.

Microsoft listed Reach as an Xbox Live Marketplace download on August 12, 2010, at a price of 99999 Microsoft Points (~US$1250); A spokesperson confirmed the download was for media review purposes, and that there were no plans to distribute the game to the public through Games on Demand. Four days later, hackers managed to access, download, and distribute the game online; Microsoft claimed to be actively investigating the matter. Halo 2, Halo 3, and ODST were similarly leaked ahead of release.

Marketing

Jarrard told The Seattle Times that the developers were planning a much more "grandiose" marketing effort than ODST. Microsoft planned its biggest marketing for a game, surpassing the scale and cost of the award-winning Halo 3 marketing, which cost $6.5 million in 2007 dollars. McFarlane, who had produced toys for Halo 3, created a line of 5-inch action figures, while Square Enix's Play Arts toy label created additional figures.

Sales

Reach made $200 million in first-day sales, a record for the franchise. Its strong sales suggested to analysts that despite the lagging game market of 2010 the trend might reverse for core titles in the holiday season.

Reach premiered at the top of Xbox 360 and multi-platform charts across the world, including in Japan (where Halo has generally fared poorly). In the United Kingdom, Reach's opening week was the fifth-best launch in the territory, beating Halo 3's debut by 20,000 units and ODST by 200,000 units.

Reception

Review scores
Publication .................. Score
1UP.com A+
Computer and Video Games 9.2/10
Edge 9/10
Eurogamer 9/10
Game Informer 9.50/10
GamePro 5/5 stars
Game Revolution A
GamesRadar 8/10
GameTrailers 9.3/10
IGN 9.5/10 (US)
10.0/10 (UK)
Official Xbox Magazine (UK) 10.0/10
VideoGamer.com 9/10
X-Play 5/5 stars
The Guardian 5/5 stars
The Daily Telegraph 10/10

Halo: Reach was released to highly positive reception. On the critic aggregate reviews GameRankings and Metacritic, the game has a normalized score of 92.23% and 93%, respectively, based on samples of 15 and 26 reviews.

IGN writer Erik Brudvig rated Halo: Reach 9.5 out of 10, while IGN UK writer Martin Robinson rated it 10.0 out of 10 and both writers awarded it IGN's Editor's Choice Award. Brudvig praised the Campaign for not suffering from the "repetitive landscapes and circuitous, difficult to follow plots" that past Halo titles had, as well as the Armor Abilities, and in general thought that Reach was a "big step forward," but pointed out that the Campaign was the most difficult of the entire Halo series, and in its Co-op mode the difficulty increases further. Brudvig cited a lack of detail in the graphics and "the occasional framerate stutter while the engine can't keep up with what's happening." This stutter is due to the larger scale of the game. In general, Brudvig felt it was "excellent, backed by solid storytelling and a powerful audio-visual experience" and considered it Bungie's "ultimate punctuation on a decade's work."

Brudvig was somewhat critical of the multiplayer map selection, since 4 out of the 13 available maps were remakes from past Halo games, but spoke positively of the more flexible Forge options allowing players to customize maps. He concluded by saying, "the multiplayer suite is one of the best ever" and felt that the Firefight mode, introduced in Halo 3: ODST, "had met its potential."

"It's a parting gift from Bungie that should keep players entertained through to the next generation; and if any other console shooter can better it in that time it'll be one hell of a feat."
IGN's Martin Robinson on Halo:Reach

Martin Robinson's review also spoke very positively about the Campaign, calling it a "full-blooded final effort that brings together the very best elements of the series' past while pushing those basics further forward than ever before, and there's none of the anti-climactic theatrics of the second game or failed experimentation of ODST." Robinson felt that the weapons, particularly the Assault and Plasma rifles, were "so violent in their depiction they feel like they're about to tear your hands off, and even the pistols feel more ferocious than ever before." Despite his criticism of the story, Robinson felt that the level design was Bungie's best and wrote "it's the multiplayer that qualifies Reach as truly exceptional."

All information was acquired from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo:_Reach