Before I even start bashing and trash talking about how 343 really goofed up with Reach allow me to tell you that this re-release of Reach has been a blessing in many ways. It has been long since I’ve enjoyed myself so much into a Halo title. The more recent ones like Halo 4 which reminded me more of Call of Duty with a halo skin on it or Halo 5: Guardians with its god awful campaign story and the pay to win req system that polluted the game, left me with a not much hope for the future of Halo. Don’t get me wrong I had a good amount of fun in both other games but nothing could compare to Reach. When it was announced in May 2019 I think that Reach was coming to MCC as a remaster and for PC my mind went wild with excitement as I was thinking of a remaster like the Halo 2 Anniversary. Boy was I disappointed.
Nearly 6 months later it was released. I went straight into campaign on Heroic to experience a true Halo game in my opinion. Not even before the first level was completed did I see some problems. Not many might know this but in Winter Contingency after you’ve met up with Kat and Emile at the comm outpost there’s a certain scripted dialogue that is supposed to happen. Noble 1 (Carter) is supposed to start talking to his team before the door letting you get in the outpost opens. He says; “We need to find the control room, from there Kat can get the relay back online. Emile, post here if we flush any hostiles, they’re yours. Alright, let’s do this.” This audio bug is something that happens almost every time. Winter Contingency is I believe one of two levels that Noble 6 (you, the player) is playing with the whole team. Immersion in this case is very important, I can understand this bug being here back in the day in 2010 but after nearly 10 years and a “remaster” from 343 I was expecting small things like this to be fixed. It’s not game breaking but attention to detail would have been appreciated.
Moving on. I’m going to start up with some good positive stuff before I move to the bad. The campaign was fine, besides one hilarious moment when Jun sniped me as I was assassinating an Elite on Nightfall the rest of the game play was fine. If anything 343 fixed online campaign and online firefight. I can remember lagging very badly and having a really bad experience in the 360 or backwards compatible version of Reach when playing co-op campaign or firefight. In my latest games it seems completely fixed. No lag at all. Great job 343. Something else that is super neat for clans I’m sure is weapon lowering is also available. In the past for machinima people had to go into local or system link games to lower their weapons. Now it’s doable online again. Not an outstanding feature but it is appreciated for sure. The forge! Oh my god I missed forge world! After Reach came out 343 didn’t seem to be able to understand that we wanted another forge world map. The closest thing that came to it was forge islands, a DLC in Halo 4. It was ok. It wasn’t bad but it was literally 3 flat pillars with an ocean that looked like jello. Never understood why 343 couldn’t give us forge world back. But now we have it. Spent already way to many hours remaking DayZ and plenty of Invasion maps. Multiplayer? Fun as hell. Clearly there are a lot of newer players who have no idea what they are doing which keep giving me the easiest overkills in my life. To the point where I killed 4 players with 1 plasma grenade and a tricky armor lock move where I just threw it on the ground and they all ran in close trying to melee kill me in armor lock. Too funny.
Alright that pretty much covers the good positive stuff I could yank out of this game. Now prepare your hate mail and comments for I am about to destroy how 343 goofed up severely.
Multiplayer, is not fixed. If anything it is broken. Especially for the map setup. They ruined Boneyard, Tempest, Highlands, Ridgeline and others I’m sure. The spawn switch is crazy. I’m not sure who had the idea to allow for enemy Blue players to be able to spawn in my Red base while I’m actively in it with 2 other teammates but holy god that is some -Yoink-. You can pretty much take on the Call of Duty meta of calling out the spawn switch. Any aspects of battlelines are completely gone. You will often spawn right in front of behind enemies getting you an easy peasy assassination. The only variant game mode of BTB is the TU version which reduces the bloom of your weapons drastically. It removes almost all skills of pacing your shots for better accuracy. After playing over 6 hours of just BTB back to back games I was hoping to get to play on legendary maps like Paradiso or Hemorrhage, but no such luck. Spawns are also incredibly unfair like on the Boneyard variant called scrap yard where Blue team almost always dominates Reds simply because they spawn on top of a hill right next to the main building. Please do not misunderstand me here. Not every game will you get reckt or see major imbalances or broken game mechanics, a single decent skilled player versus a bunch of PC noobs can make a big difference. I’m talking about overall here.
Going to Invasion. I was expecting a brand new experience. Nope all we got is the same broken game mode. Elites vs Spartans locked in an epic struggle? More like Elites desperately trying to prevent the humans from stealing their Banshee. For the players who have no idea what I’m saying allow me to elaborate. Almost all Invasion maps have a team of 6 Elite players (Elite as the aliens in game) vs 6 Spartan players. Elites attack in 3 phases. Usually phase 1 and 2 consist of Elites needing to capture 1 of 2 territories. Stand in the zone, deny access to any Spartans trying to contest it and survive the hail of grenades coming your way. Phase 3 always consist of Elites grabbing a core. Pretty much a giant USB that the player carries in the same fashion as a detachable turret. If Elites get the core into a capture zone which is always in the open with zero cover then they win. After a phase is complete Elites and Spartans gain access to better spawns, advanced loadouts and even spawned in power weapons and vehicles. Here comes the issues. With Elites attacking The vehicles they have spawn in the open in easy to reach areas where any Spartan player can easily slip by and steal them. Stealing a Ghost, Revenant or even Wraith is not fun but can easily dealt with given the Elites have plasma grenades and plasma pistols. But if a Banshee is stolen, and that player knows what their doing and that you happen to be on the Elite team you might as well uninstall the game. Needle rifles, Covenant version of the DMRs are useless against armored targets. It does nothing but bounce off the surface of the Banshee’s hull. Unless you manage to land a lucky plasma grenade or launcher salvo on it or that you are luckier enough to hit it with an EMP from your pistol, you are goofed. This issue has been in the game for so long and it was to my big surprise that Bungie never took the time to fix it. When I saw the same problem in 343’s “remastered” version I was just disappointed at myself at how I was hopeful enough to believe that the same devs that gave us the horrible Halo 5 were supposed to fix Halo: Reach.
In conclusion. This is no remaster it is a copy pasted mess with even more broken aspects as the same game almost 10 years ago. I highly doubt 343 will care enough to fix this. I only hope that the promised mod support will revive this game.