If it ain't broke, don't fix it, just add tons of content. Slightly dated gameplay, but incredibly addictive multiplayer
First, there is a meaty single player campaign. For anyone familiar with the series, Halo: Reach brings us to the days prior to the events of the first Halo game and tells the story of the Covenant's arrival to the human planet of Reach, and the resulting struggle for humanity's survival. The player-controlled character is a late replacement in a team of Spartan soldiers (a class popularized by the protagonist Master Chief in the earlier Halo games) called Noble Team. This team is sent to investigate a disturbance within a particular area of Reach, which unsurprisingly ends up being caused by a Covenant presence on the planet, sending the human population into a panic. Unrelenting combat ensues. Obviously, there are no plot secrets to reveal, as the future occurrences are already set in stone. It's not like anyone was really surprised to see Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode III. A prequel to a popular story isn't going to allow much breathing room for plot twists, but the game succeeds in ushering in the inevitability and portraying a sense of desperation.
Since the game chronicles the events surrounding a squad rather than a lone soldier, much of the game is spent playing alongside other Spartan soldiers or other standard recon soldiers. Consequently, less of this game is spent playing alone when compared to the earlier Halo titles, but while this may suggest a "squad" style of gameplay, it never quite feels like it. The player character is dubbed Noble Six, but he is not a squad leader or commander, so the player won't be dishing out any orders to squad mates. Instead, their most useful attribute at times seems to be the propensity to draw the attention and fire of Covenant troops. With that, though, comes moments where they charge into battle and alert the enemy when it might be more helpful if there was an option to have them lay low until a signal is given. No such luck.
The tried-and-true Halo formula is intact here. There is no cover system to speak of, so combat consists of finding something to stand behind and trying to get as many head shots as possible while dodging slow-moving enemy projectiles from every angle. The Covenant will come in droves, so depending on what skill level the game is played at, expect to die a lot while trying to figure out the best approach to certain situations. The result is some very intense firefights and it does well to garner the ever-building feeling of a planet being gradually overwhelmed by Covenant, but it also feels dated at times. The underlying combat from the original Halo game almost 10 years ago is largely untouched. If you love Halo and you love this system, you will absolutely love Reach. If you've never liked this system of combat, this is not going to change your mind.
There are some new bells and whistles, though. Halo: Reach introduces "armor abilities," akin to the game mechanic seen in the popular PC FPS game Crysis. One ability can be used at a time, picked up at key positions in the campaign where they will be useful or even mandatory. Like Crysis, a few of the abilities are sprint and cloak, and there's a nice twist to the "strength" attribute, allowing for a moment of immobile invincibility, useful when a grenade has just plopped down on your foot to survive the blast. There is also a hologram decoy ability, a surprisingly useful tribute to "HoloDuke" from the old-school PC shooter, Duke Nukem 3D. There's the Drop Shield, which surrounds the player in a bubble that can be walked through, but no weapons will penetrate. Lastly, there's the jetpack ability, which is used for some short-lived platforming sequences, and doesn't end up very effective against the AI-controlled opponents with superb aim on the Heroic difficulty. Still, it's really cool-looking, and comes in handy when it can result in a shortcut to scaling a couple floors in a building. A jetpack is always going to be more fun than stairs. As expected, there are also several enjoyable vehicle sequences. The familiar Warthog hum-vee and Tank make appearances, but there's also a short stint in space combat that feels a bit reminiscent of a simplified Wing Commander. It's not long, but it's different and fun.
The new abilities, grouped with superb presentation in the form of convincing voice acting and compelling cut scenes, results in an enjoyable campaign, even if the very basic mechanics feel slightly played-out at this point. The length of the campaign is pretty standard for a quality FPS these days. The average gamer will likely get about 10-12 hours out of it, but there will definitely be the hardcore speed-run gamer putting that to the test at all times.
But the campaign is not where Halo: Reach shines. The beauty in this game is when you log on to Xbox Live and play with friends. The multiplayer component of this game is larger and more feature-packed than any console game that comes to mind. The customization options feel reminiscent to what PC gamers have been accustomed to for years but console gamers have never experienced. Best of all, this game makes it easier than ever to keep the gameplay varied, and accessibility is one of the reasons that the community is all but guaranteed to be quite large for years to come.
The matchmaking options are broken up into "playlists," giving the option to pick an overall genre to be played, such as competitive or co-op. Within each of these categories lies several sub-categories, such as "Slayer," "Team Slayer," or "Big Team Battle" within competitive, or "firefight" within co-op. There are also some less-standard game modes available. "Oddball" is a competitive game mode where there is a single skull present on the game board and the only points are scored by holding the skull. The skull can be recovered by killing the holder and then grabbing it when it is dropped, though guns are disabled for the player holding the skull, allowing only for melee attacks. There is also "Infection," where the match is split between two teams, soldiers with shotguns, and "zombies" with laser swords and an ability to leap forward at very fast speeds. The soldiers try to survive for a time limit while the zombies will continue to respawn for the entirely of the match, and every soldier that is killed will be a zombie for the rest of the match as well. Games like these really break up the pacing of your everyday Slayer match and are great additions to an already great competitive multiplayer game.
The entire campaign can also be played through with up to 4 other players as well, and there a ton of different ways to play it. So you've played through the entire campaign on Heroic all by yourself? Grab some friends and crank the difficulty up to Legendary. Still need an extra challenge on top of that? Use the included "skull" modifiers to make it even tougher, like recharging shields only by melee-attacking an enemy, disabling the motion tracker, or having dropped weapons offer much less ammunition. On top of that, each campaign mission has a "par" for amount of points earned to work for. The replay value is tremendous.
The bottom line: Bungie decided to take the good-old Halo formula and pack it with everything but the kitchen sink. There's no revolutionary change to the gameplay and consequently nothing to attract too many new fans to the franchise. The system can feel dated at times and the campaign isn't mind-blowing, but that's not the point. The point is the community, and it's a point well-taken. Halo: Reach is really a tribute to the longtime fans; it's a big, fat, "thank you" to everyone for playing over the years. This is the sort of game that will likely have a players online up until Microsoft finally decides to take down the servers sometime in the next console generation, like Halo 2 before it. You sent the franchise out with a bang, Bungie.