1. Failed Bulltrues
As a Halo player of questionable skill, I often resort to using the energy sword. In previous Halo games even this tactic had its limits; you can hardly imagine my indignant rage each time a better player scored a Bulltrue against me. They would laugh and laugh! Reach almost always awards me my hard-earned kill in spite of their Bulltrue medal, which gives me something to hang my Mark V helmet on.
2. More Zombie than Human
As I noted, I fare best with the sword. Reach seems to recognize this, frequently spawning me as a zombie in every round of a Living Dead game. Other players might complain; I celebrate.
3. Victory by Lag
Is there anything better than capitalizing on real-world network issues to gain the better of your adversary? I think not. I quite fondly remember one game where a player sneaked up behind me and began assassinating me. Unfortunately for him, the game went to black screen during his dissection. As the game resumed, we found our individual locations flipped; I felt a little bit guilty when he ragequit after I assassinated him.
4. Overpowered Weapons
I need these weapons. Without my precious needler, I am nothing… I’m navel lint. Thanks to such high-performance tactical gear, I can steal the upper edge from the enemy and put him where he belongs!
5. Forge Maps
When I first started playing Reach, I worried about the limited number of arenas in the game. As a professional Grifball Warrior, I especially worried about the lack of variety in Grifball maps. Thanks to the continued additions of Forge maps, I can now enjoy Grifball on a vast and diverse set of maps. In addition, the pervasive greyness of each map actually looks right at home on my black-and-white RCA!
6. Uncaged
Although I frequently find myself dying more than killing in any given game, some games turn particularly ugly in a hurry. On many maps, you have no escape; you must simply endure the brutality of the opposing team’s wrath. On Uncaged, though, I have the ability to jetpack to the top of the level, safe from the enemies’ lines of sight.
7. Grenade Challenges
I love these! I most especially enjoy the sticky grenade challenges. You can always expect to play a bunch of Elite Slayer games on those days, which suits me and my needler proclivity just fine!
8. Removal of Firefight Doubles
When they added this playlist a few months ago, it really impeded my ability to AFK for credits in standard Firefight games. As more and more people flocked to Firefight Doubles, I in turn needed to wait longer and longer to find player matches to carry me through each of my firefight games. Luckily, I can “rest” much more easily now!
9. DLC Removal
If I can make any claim to fame, I can at least famously claim that I have all of the achievements in Reach. When some punk gets a good look at my K/D in the pregame lobby and tries to knock me down, I have that accomplishment to rub in his face after I needle him to death.
10. No vehicles in Team Slayer
Allow me to be serious for a moment. 9 games out of 10 take place in Sword Base and Countdown. I would love to have a Mongoose on those maps, though!
11. Spawning System
I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I’ve spent running through all of the maps in Forge mode. (I especially enjoy playing the DLC maps in Forge mode, where I don’t have to worry about people shooting at me.) This hard-earned experience pays off in matchmaking games, particularly in the various Grifball arenae.
12. Replacement Zombies
Despite extensive practice with the sword, I still have a hard time defeating the evil humans in Living Dead games. I always rejoice when one of my undead brethren exits the game, essentially killing one of those untoward humans for me!
13. Cheap Headhunter Spawns
Sneaking up on other players takes a lot of time and patience. Playing Headhuntress saves you that hassle by spawning you right behind the other players from the jump!
14. Capture Zones
Sometimes I like to eat while I’m playing Halo. I want to eat, but I also want to get some kills to make myself look like a good player. The various capture zones in Reach allow me to do absolutely nothing (other than eat, of course!) as I wait for yet another unsuspecting victim to traipse along!
15. Glitchy Stickies
As a master swordsman, I find myself charging other players in a straight line more often than not, making it all too easy for them to place sticky grenades on my beautiful armor. Sometimes, whether by glitch or by lag, their sticky grenades pass by harmlessly with no effect. This has saved me from certain doom a number of times!
16. Revenant Sniper Glitch
I used to worry about how long I could hope to take advantage of the glitches in Reach. After all, what would happen when Bungie (or 343 thereafter) finally got around to fixing them? It would throw my entire game off! Thanks to examples like the revenant sniper glitch, though, I know I don’t need to worry much at all about 343 fixing any bugs I find!
17. DMR Popularity
I love watching people fight over the DMR in a game with AR starts. They usually shoot each other a few times, making my job a heck of a lot easier as I come sliding in with my needler.
18. Explosion Inconsistencies
I used to use armor lock all of the time. I missed Sprint, but armor lock did save me from a lot of rocket launcher attacks. In time, though, I learned that I didn’t necessarily need the armor lock anyway; I could somehow survive rocket launcher attacks without using armor lock at all!
19. Firefight Isn’t Fun Anymore
At first, I tried to find a way to vote for FF limited because I wanted to play a fun game that required skill. I rarely won, though; everyone wants to vote for fuel rod firefight. Now, I don’t believe in quitting a game under any circumstance, so I took the next-best option and started going AFK for entire rounds of firefight. You can’t imagine how the credits still continued to roll in, irregardless! If Bungie/343 had left in playlists like Firefight Limited and Firefight Doubles, I would have never learned the joy of these free credits!
20. Halo Can’t Count
In my experience, you just can’t match the exhiliration of betraying a teammate with a needler. Unfortunately, Reach does employ some sort of “betrayal boot” system that offers opposing teammates the opportunity to boot you on occasion. In my experience, though, the game has a hard time counting up the betrayals properly. I can frequently embed multiple clusters of needles into a single teammate before he finally gains the ability to boot me!
