7 Things You Should Know About Halo Reach

7 Things You Should Know About Halo Reach

Get ready to fight the Covenant as a Member of the Spartan’s Noble Team. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’ll be taking a look at the 7 Things you should know about ‘Halo: Reach’

Number 1: The Setting and Plot

Taking place before the events of the original epic ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’, Reach takes place in the year 2552, on a far off colony of the same name. As it turns out, it is one of the last human strongholds that stands in the way of the Covenant, an alien force on a quest to destroy Earth.

As a doomed planet in the Halo mythos, ‘Reach’ tells the story of the downfall of the UNSC’s central military Hub, and annihilation of the super-soldier project that spawned the last Spartan known as the ‘Master Chief.’

Number 2: The Protagonist and Team-Members

Adorning the Spartan Super-Soldier armor once again, players will now inhabit the role of a Noble 6, a new rookie member of the elite Noble Team.

In your squad, you will fight alongside other Super-soldiers. These include its leader Carter, Kat- who sports a bionic arm, its sniper Jun, Emile- who provides the brute force, and its oldest member Jorge -who packs a mini-gun.

Number 3: Power-Ups, Abilities and Vehicles

In Halo 3, players could wield one-use equipment power-ups that offered a temporary offensive or defensive boost. In Reach, this system has been replaced with several persistent armor abilities that remain with a player until they are replaced.

Among the new abilities you can now sprint, use a jet pack, or go into armor lock, which will make you invincible in exchange for the loss of mobility.

And while continuing to depend on the signature vehicles in group combat, Reach introduces entirely new space missions that will have you fly a spaceship in defense of the planet.

Number 4: Weapons and Health

Reach features several new firearms, which complement the various combat roles of your individual team members. And as you’ll soon notice, the signature ‘Battle Rifle’ from Halo 3 is gone, replaced with the new longer-range ‘Marksman Rifle.’

Meanwhile, your ability to dual wield weapons has been removed to focus your attention on armor abilities. And to balance combat, Melee attacks are now more involved, and difficult to execute.

Fans of Halo 2 and 3 will also have to adjust to the new need to pick up med-packs to restore their health. This is due to Noble Team’s use of the older armor that pre-dates the self-healing armor of the later installments.

Number 5: Multiplayer

As always, the online multiplayer is a significant focus of the game’s overall appeal. Widening its customization options, you can now choose between male and female Spartan armor. You can also select ‘Loadouts’, which are pre-chosen weapons when entering a game.

The veto system has also been revamped, allowing you to vote for your preferred map and game mode out of several choices.

Giving the multiplayer a broader appeal, winning matches will now reward you with credits, which you may use to purchase aesthetic armor customizations.

Among the returning multiplayer modes, gamers can play several new and exciting additions, including “Head Hunter” and “Stockpile,” which focus on moving kill skulls to marked zones, and collecting the most flags.

There are also the larger group modes called “Generator Defense”, and “Invasion”, along with an overhauled version of ODST’s “Firefight Mode.”

Number 6: The Forge World

Fans of Forge are in for a real treat. This time, you will be able to create your custom multiplayer map layouts with new tools that allow you to phase objects into each other, leave them fixed in mid-air, or snap them together. Plus, team spawn points can now be easily colored, teleporters can be dropped at will, and gigantic structures can be placed just about anywhere.

Number 7: Improved Gameplay and Graphics

To increase replay value, Reach’s campaign features drastically improved enemy AI. Rather then continuing to rely on scripted moments, Covenant forces will be much smarter and pro-active on the battlefield. Meanwhile the game features a more open sandbox approach to its battles, keeping the missions fresh every time you play.

Graphically, Reach was originally supposed to tweak Halo 3’s assets, but instead the game engine has been completely overhauled. As a result, the texture resolutions and polygon counts have increased to the point that there is more detail in a weapon, than there used to be in an entire character model.

And to maximize the aging hardware, the game uses a trick called "impostering," to turn down the resolution of far away objects, in order to boost the quality of what’s directly in front of you.

Conclusion:

Halo fans are in for quite a treat as Reach provides gamers with Bungie’s most cinematic and evolved combat experience to date, exclusively for the Xbox 360 home console.