Why I despise Halo Reach

[John 117]

Okay......halo reach was amazing. I agree. But why do some people hate it? Here are the reasons.

1. There is no variety in Reach. In all the other halo games.. there is a great interchange of friends and foes. Only covenant in Reach.

2. its kinda horrible to die in the end.....and it makes you sad.

3. it did not have the same feel as halo

Edited May 7, 2012 by One
Merged posts

[Azaxx]

Okay......halo reach was amazing. I agree. But why do some people hate it? Here are the reasons.

1. There is no variety in Reach. In all the other halo games.. there is a great interchange of friends and foes. Only covenant in Reach.

2. its kinda horrible to die in the end.....and it makes you sad.

3. it did not have the same feel as halo

 

John, you need to stop double posting, in this case, triple posting (ps request mod to merge posts)

 

But variety?, in Halo CE-3, you jsut fought Flood and Covey, not much 'variety' there.

 

Then the end, it was inevitable that Noble 6 would die at the end of Reach, most spartans did if you read the books.

And that's what games are designed to do, bring emotion to you on a different context. Like movies and books do, this brought a sense of loss for your character, but a sense of accomplishment, as you know you set up the trilogy that you get to play.

 

Same 'feel'?, of course it wasn't it was a completely new game that had been evolved from the previous ones. It also had different themes and was set earlier so it was said to be different. Then to add to that, it was a completely new engine, so again, it was seen to be different right from the get go of production.

 

 

Well that's how I took it, expecting some critism for this.

[Baby Boo]

Like azaxx said, there is only two, maximum three, enemies in other halo games.

 

Secondly, the death of noble six and the rest was inevitable. Six was alone, and hopelessly outnumbered by the forces that remained on the planet.

 

Same feel, no, of course it didn't. They changed reach in many ways to suit the likings and pleads of the fans. Regardless, it still was, and will always be, halo.

[Elite jbZzz]

Im betting you didn't read the books dude.The spartans 3 were made for suicide missions.

[General PWNFACE]

Im betting you didn't read the books dude.The spartans 3 were made for suicide missions.

However, not everyone on Noble Team was a Spartan III

[Baby Boo]

 

However, not everyone on Noble Team was a Spartan III

 

Actually, yes, they are. They all got their status together, at the same time. All Spartan III's.

[fzdw11]

Actually, yes, they are. They all got their status together, at the same time. All Spartan III's.

Wasn't Jorge a Spartan II? I'm pretty sure he was.

[Baby Boo]

 

Wasn't Jorge a Spartan II? I'm pretty sure he was.

 

Wait.... Yes, he was, my mistake. One of the reasons he's bigger than the others. Also, in the mission ONI sword base, halsey mentions 'her armor' to Jorge... Halsey trained the spartan I's and II's, but not the III's... So yeah, you're right.

[Undead]

Okay......halo reach was amazing. I agree. But why do some people hate it? Here are the reasons.

1. There is no variety in Reach. In all the other halo games.. there is a great interchange of friends and foes. Only covenant in Reach.

2. its kinda horrible to die in the end.....and it makes you sad.

3. it did not have the same feel as halo

 

1. Variety..? Humanity's first contact with the Covenant was in 2525 and the game takes place in 2552 which is 27 years after the first contact with the Covenant. The flood were on the planet G 617 g, which is a Forerunner planet, so you wouldn't really see the Forerunners or the Flood on Reach anyways just the Covenant.

 

2. That's how Reach ended, all the Spartans on Reach died except for Master Chief. He is known to be the last Spartan alive but there are 17 (in total) Spartans still alive.

 

There are three Spartan-II's: Linda, Kelly, and Fred which are stuck in the Micro Dyson Sphere at Onyx.

 

There are also three Spartan-II's, designated "Grey Tea", were said to have been on "fields of battle too distant to be easily recalled."

 

Of the Spartan-III's (Gamma Company), there are two teams that remain. There is team Katana that is stuck in the Forerunner equivalents to cryo-tubes.

 

Team Saber is the other remaining team. The team consists of Ash, Holly, Dante, Olivia and Mark. Of them, only Ash, Olivia, and Mark are alive in the Dyson Sphere.

 

There are also two Spartan-III's (Beta Company) remaining, Tom and Lucy.

 

So, all together there are 7 remaining Spartan-II's and 10 Spartan III's.

 

 

3. It definitely felt like Halo to me.

[VivaLebowski]

Reach's failure to deliver on a campaign level wasnt beacuse it was dark...dark stories are fine, better if they are in the context of a series where the sad ending of the dark story helps lead to ultimate victory.

 

My problem with Reach's campaign was:

1) The characterizations of Noble team were dry, uninteresting and humorless. Being serous isn't neccasarily a bad thing but the characters of Reach were just boring. No interesting interplay of dialogue, funny interesting or otherwise. No interesting backstories or motivations. No real dynamic-ness to them either. I'm not someone who demands character arcs, and I don't expect a masterpiece of story telling but if Bungie could do it with previous Halo's, they could do it with Reach. I could hardly care when they died.

 

2) Lack of Scale, sense of the struggle. Reach rarely delivers a sense of absolutely gigantic forces clashing. Only in a few scenes do you see more than one covenant or UNSC ship at a time, whereas in Halo 2 and 3, skyboxes and cut scenes full of clashing fleets were a common occurence. The arrival of the massive mainstay of the covenant fleet following Long Night of Solace's destruction feels like a rushed aside, and we do not see the collected force in any large numbers. The cutscene at the beginning of H2 gives more of a feeling of desperation and destruction to Reach's fall than anything in Halo:Reach actually does. Also, Long Night of Solace is one of the coolest things in the campaign, but we see it in action only once and it is completely destroyed within one mission.

 

3) Unsatisfying conclusion: The final Lone wolf Mission is an interesting capstone but the pillar of autumn mission does not cut it. It feels like the same grind through Covenant infantry interspersed with a few moments of Fire-fight esque hold the fort action. The brief appearance of the Scarabs (who you never fight in any meaningfull sense) feels shoehorned in, and the last few minutes is simply a little bit more firefight.

[The Director]

The main reason that Reach bothered me was because of Canon. When they first released the game, it had glaringly obvious contradictions to the established storyline. It felt to me like Bungie, who had thus far been so careful to make their games match the book series, had given the project to people who had never even read the books (except for a glance here and there for dates). It was like playing a game of a movie that's based off of a book or reading a poorly researched fan-fic. The fact that Bungie did nothing to correct this except say "the game is canon, not the books" didn't help either. FoR is and always will be in my top five favorite books, and the fact that they took the story and trampled on it disappointed me. 343i has since tried to make Reach more like the book with datapads and what not, but there are still some things that haven't been explained.

 

Another thing that disappointed me was the campaign overall. I expected to be playing as a bad*** member of Blue Team or even Red Team (who, btw, made it off Reach alive. Just sayin) and ended up with a not as bad*** Spartan III. It lacked the humor of previous Halo titles, and what humor there was seemed forced. The AI you were forced to play as a team with was crummy and teamkill happy to say the least. And not to mention that the game forced you to watch allies die in unusual ways, like Kat getting killed by a headshot with a needle rifle when her shields should have been up.

 

Needless to say, there were plenty of reasons why I dislike the campaign. However, Reach has grown on me. Like a fungus.

[VivaLebowski]

The main reason that Reach bothered me was because of Canon. When they first released the game, it had glaringly obvious contradictions to the established storyline. It felt to me like Bungie, who had thus far been so careful to make their games match the book series, had given the project to people who had never even read the books (except for a glance here and there for dates). It was like playing a game of a movie that's based off of a book or reading a poorly researched fan-fic. The fact that Bungie did nothing to correct this except say "the game is canon, not the books" didn't help either. FoR is and always will be in my top five favorite books, and the fact that they took the story and trampled on it disappointed me. 343i has since tried to make Reach more like the book with datapads and what not, but there are still some things that haven't been explained.

 

Another thing that disappointed me was the campaign overall. I expected to be playing as a bad*** member of Blue Team or even Red Team (who, btw, made it off Reach alive. Just sayin) and ended up with a not as bad*** Spartan III. It lacked the humor of previous Halo titles, and what humor there was seemed forced. The AI you were forced to play as a team with was crummy and teamkill happy to say the least. And not to mention that the game forced you to watch allies die in unusual ways, like Kat getting killed by a headshot with a needle rifle when her shields should have been up.

 

Needless to say, there were plenty of reasons why I dislike the campaign. However, Reach has grown on me. Like a fungus.

 

I don't neccasarily agree with you about the canon but you raised some good points about the campaign. Kat's death in particular was just lame.

 

Another good point you said was the one about people taking charge who didn't match the previous quality...this is a problem with all of these things. Someone who has the right vision does something then hands it off to less skilled successors. I feel like Reach suffered beacuse the Bungie employee's working on it were not the same as previous. It seems like Bungie or Microsoft or whoever would completely shift up the design team from game to game...makes sense beacuse these productions are exhaustive for people to make but I think it showed with Reach...probably didnt help that allot of the best Bungie guys might have been tired of making Halo too...

 

With 343, theres an even greater chance of the new people not being as good as previous Halo makers. Then again, 343 is unafraid to implement their own vision, as shown by the pretty dramatic changes they are willing to make. So its less of an issue of them f'ing up someone else's vision but of them themselves having a flawed vision of their own to start with.

[PuRe PoNy]

The main reason that Reach bothered me was because of Canon. When they first released the game, it had glaringly obvious contradictions to the established storyline. It felt to me like Bungie, who had thus far been so careful to make their games match the book series, had given the project to people who had never even read the books (except for a glance here and there for dates). It was like playing a game of a movie that's based off of a book or reading a poorly researched fan-fic. The fact that Bungie did nothing to correct this except say "the game is canon, not the books" didn't help either. FoR is and always will be in my top five favorite books, and the fact that they took the story and trampled on it disappointed me. 343i has since tried to make Reach more like the book with datapads and what not, but there are still some things that haven't been explained.

 

Another thing that disappointed me was the campaign overall. I expected to be playing as a bad*** member of Blue Team or even Red Team (who, btw, made it off Reach alive. Just sayin) and ended up with a not as bad*** Spartan III. It lacked the humor of previous Halo titles, and what humor there was seemed forced. The AI you were forced to play as a team with was crummy and teamkill happy to say the least. And not to mention that the game forced you to watch allies die in unusual ways, like Kat getting killed by a headshot with a needle rifle when her shields should have been up.

 

Needless to say, there were plenty of reasons why I dislike the campaign. However, Reach has grown on me. Like a fungus.

I agree after reading 'The Fall of Reach' the Halo:Reach storyline just didn't fit in.

[Twinreaper]

Just to.chime in real quick...Kat's death had both purpose and was done perfectly. It was a solid "take out the brains" maneuver on the zealots end. Kat was both comms and tech expert....a heavy loss for any team in the midst of battle.

 

When she died, none of the spartans had actively running shields. There was no reason to have them up.as they were alone at the time and gathering themselves together. The zealots caught them off guard, and that was Kat's downfall.

[VivaLebowski]

Just to.chime in real quick...Kat's death had both purpose and was done perfectly. It was a solid "take out the brains" maneuver on the zealots end. Kat was both comms and tech expert....a heavy loss for any team in the midst of battle.

 

When she died, none of the spartans had actively running shields. There was no reason to have them up.as they were alone at the time and gathering themselves together. The zealots caught them off guard, and that was Kat's downfall.

 

I can see that but it didnt seem clarified in game.

[DoctorB77]

Okay......halo reach was amazing. I agree. But why do some people hate it? Here are the reasons.

1. There is no variety in Reach. In all the other halo games.. there is a great interchange of friends and foes. Only covenant in Reach.

2. its kinda horrible to die in the end.....and it makes you sad.

3. it did not have the same feel as halo

 

1. Ya. Well there is only 2 in the other games. If you want flood then it would disrupt the story

2. Um. He died and so did everyone else on that planet. It showed how noble 6 was a hero. He stayed to fight until the end like all of the other nobles who had died.

3. How can it not feel halo. If the name is HALO reach then it is halo.

[bozweby1]

The main reason that Reach bothered me was because of Canon. When they first released the game, it had glaringly obvious contradictions to the established storyline. It felt to me like Bungie, who had thus far been so careful to make their games match the book series, had given the project to people who had never even read the books (except for a glance here and there for dates). It was like playing a game of a movie that's based off of a book or reading a poorly researched fan-fic. The fact that Bungie did nothing to correct this except say "the game is canon, not the books" didn't help either. FoR is and always will be in my top five favorite books, and the fact that they took the story and trampled on it disappointed me. 343i has since tried to make Reach more like the book with datapads and what not, but there are still some things that haven't been explained.

 

Another thing that disappointed me was the campaign overall. I expected to be playing as a bad*** member of Blue Team or even Red Team (who, btw, made it off Reach alive. Just sayin) and ended up with a not as bad*** Spartan III. It lacked the humor of previous Halo titles, and what humor there was seemed forced. The AI you were forced to play as a team with was crummy and teamkill happy to say the least. And not to mention that the game forced you to watch allies die in unusual ways, like Kat getting killed by a headshot with a needle rifle when her shields should have been up.

 

Needless to say, there were plenty of reasons why I dislike the campaign. However, Reach has grown on me. Like a fungus.

yeah it bugged the crap out of me that the covenant attacked way earlier than in FoR, and the fact that the autumn was back on reach after it should have made the jump to slip space didnt really make since considering they would have had to fight their way back to the surface, dock with the shipyard, attach the boosters and wait for noble team to deliver a "fragment" of cortana's core. its way to much to squeese into that amount of time. dont get me wrong i enjoyed the game it the story plot that bugged me

[Azaxx]

Just to.chime in real quick...Kat's death had both purpose and was done perfectly. It was a solid "take out the brains" maneuver on the zealots end. Kat was both comms and tech expert....a heavy loss for any team in the midst of battle.

 

When she died, none of the spartans had actively running shields. There was no reason to have them up.as they were alone at the time and gathering themselves together. The zealots caught them off guard, and that was Kat's downfall.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxWhg__70CQ

 

watch that Twin, and see kats death, its horrible how they made her die, even though it had a purpose

[Carts]

^ Haha the last sentence in the video made me lol

[B-52]

You should read the books. Sure they changed it up but change is good. You wouldnt want to be playing halo the sam way it was like in halo ce or 2 would you?