Bungie manages to send its series out with a bang. A really, really, awesome bang.
Reach takes place before the first game of the series, Halo: Combat Evolved. You play as Noble team's new faceless hero in a team of six. Within the first several minutes of the game, you are presented with an insanely cliché action-movie line, and a side-plot that is dumped and never revisited. Needless to say, the story will start you out with low expectations, but then proceed to blow your mind. While the game does not have enough time to fit in character development for six distinct Spartans, it more than makes up for it with the overall theme of heroic sacrifice, that has been a staple of the series from the start.
Reach's gameplay continues the tradition of giving numerous, small tweaks to an excellent gameplay formula. Halo gameplay is powerful bursts of ten to fifteen minute fights from area to area with a huge variety of weapons, vehicles, and equipment to encourage numerous small, tactical decisions. Reach is by far the most difficult game of the series on its Heroic difficulty, which is the most satisfying and rewarding difficulty if you have been with the series since 2001. The useless equipment from Halo 3 is replaced with a more consistent system, which allows you to keep one ability (sprint, jump jet, armor lock, bubble shield) and use it as much as you need with appropriate cool-down times in between. Your equipment won't change how you play entirely, but encourages you to use more appropriate tactics that give more depth to the game. On Heroic and Legendary difficulties, it is imperative you use them effectively to triumph.
Multiplayer is mindnumbingly varied. If you manage to hate everything, you still can't complain because you can make your own modes and maps with the deep customization system and the new and improved Forge. The new Forge is so easy and accessible that players will be making professional quality maps in only a few hours at a time. This is imperative, because there is a surprisingly small amount of built in maps. Of course, this may be to make room for map-packs, but it seems redundant given how easy it is to just use Forge. Firefight is here from ODST, and while it still is far from being the highlight of multiplayer, some additional options make it pretty dam fun- especially if you take the time to check out "gruntpocalypse" which, if you've guessed, is you vs. a crapload of grunts.
Multiplayer matchmaking is streamlined, so you get into games faster, especially if you are with a good group. There are new systems put in to solve the griefing problem that comes with any game that has a huge 14-year old kid population. Players are now discouraged from quitting five games in a row, by the threat of not being able to play fifteen minutes. The effectiveness of this is still hard to gauge, as at least two players have quit early in more than half of the games I have played. You are more likely to be grouped with players of your own skill level, while not sacrificing challenges, as the game organizes players into the "league" system. From my experience, every game is tense, and usually not overly one-sided (until those dam kids leave), I have not had to deal with people who play 23 hours a day, just to tea-bag the rest of us who like to sleep in between gaming sessions. Multiplayer games run smoothly, however I have had periods where I could not get into a specific game mode for hours on end- and a couple friends of mine have reported this problem. In the end, Halo multiplayer is where you want to make friends in ranked matches, so you can then fool around with your own unique maps and game modes for less competition and more ADD-fueled fun. Enjoy!
The graphics are noticeably better than Halo 3, and ODST (which changed nothing visually), but not too noticeable. More attention has been paid to the remarkable art design. Painted on back drops in the far distance are artistic masterpieces. These vistas come often enough to keep you enthralled till the end. Technically, contrasts look sharper, and facial detail/animations don't look cartoonish or silly. You can observe some extremely dull and blurry textures if you look close at some objects- especially those in forge which seem to have been taken from the Halo 3 forge after being taken from a Halo 2 map. The colors and explosions, however, are vibrant as they highlight that art design can absolutely make technical graphics suck it.
The sound design in Reach is fantastic. The soundtrack is more epic and varied than it ever has been. This is the kind of soundtrack that makes Final Fantasy sound like nails on a chalkboard. One particularly great track is an edited version of the ODST theme. There are reiterations of just about every iconic Halo soundtrack, and just as many new ones that highlight the overarching theme of the story. The soundtrack is perfectly intertwined with the emotion the game is meant to convey, and it comes together PERFECTLY as the game builds up to the epic and emotionally charged ending.
The campaign in Reach took me 9 hours to beat on Heroic. If you play through on normal, I'd estimate about 8 hours. Even though it is slightly sub-par in length, it feels more beefy thanks to the fantastic pacing. Hell, at 9 hours, that's the longest since the first game. Of course, don't base your hour-per-dollar decision purchase based on campaign length alone. Multiplayer will eat up a large portion of your time, and if you aren't in forge for at least 10 hours the first week, you don't have a pulse. A campaign scoring (plus the skull system) encourages you to play with/against buddies as you struggle through missions to get the biggest score, which translates into upgrades to make your armor look increasingly badas. Long story short, Halo: Reach is overflowing with content. You can put down Halo 3, and even Bad Company 2 now for a week or so, because you absolutely need to play Bungie's final word on the Halo series.