> So give me ONE good reason why Reach sucks and If you can’t you are all pathetic and should not even be Halo fans in the first place!
I have a lot more than just one.
1. The failed attempt to cater to casuals by catering to the unskilled.
Reach is rife with examples of Bungie attempting to appease casuals by catering to the unskilled. Armor Lock was a crutch that allowed one to stall for time so that teammates could correct your mistakes. Sword block allowed people to escape the consequences of failing to control and acquire the Energy Sword before the other team. Non-bleed-through damage made melee charges – an infamously-thoughtless technique – far more viable than they should have been.
Unfortunately, even many casuals hate bullcrap gameplay. While many of the people who left Halo because of Reach were competitives and average players, there were nonetheless quite a few casuals that were driven away as well.
2. Destruction of existing and functional game dynamics via the introduction of ill-thought-out game mechanics.
Many existing game dynamics were damaged or destroyed with Reach. Jetpack is the most egregious and blatant example: it entirely circumvents the concept of map control. Gone are the days where you had to work (with your team) to get to the top floor or area of a map; now, you just hold a button and press your joystick forward.
3. Giving rewards for doing absolutely nothing.
It is generally accepted that a game mechanic should offer a reward proportional to the effort expended in its use. That is to say: if something is very difficult, it should pay off. This is generally what people mean when they refer to a game mechanic as “skillful”: the reward it offers is proportionate to the skill and effort needed to use it. Armor Abilities work against this concept: they offer massive bonuses at the press of a button – rewarding you for doing nothing. Camo, Jetpack, and – most infamously – Armor Lock are the biggest offenders, though in objective games, Drop Shield is also highly problematic in this regard.
4. A poorly-designed sandbox in which only a small handful of weapons are useful.
I really, really hope I don’t even have to explain this to you. It’s not a matter of skill or stats: anyone who has played Matchmaking in this game for a decent amount of time should recognize how pitifully useless every weapon except for power weapons and the DMR are.
5. Ripping off of a failed, unsuccessful game.
Most of Reach’s “new” mechanics – bloom, crouching to reduce bloom, Armor Abilities, and others – were taken almost directly from another game, called “Shadowrun”. This is no coincidence: Sage Merrill, the lead sandbox designer for Reach, was a Shadowrun game designer. Fun fact: the game development studio that made Shadowrun never made another game. It went out of business because Shadowrun was a commercial failure.
6. A lackluster Campaign.
Look at the advertising for any Halo game and it becomes immediately apparent that the Campaign is one of the most prominent and cared-for aspects of the game. Reach’s campaign was absolutely lackluster, however. The friendly AI were the most useless in the history of the series. The story was short, dull, and much of the plot was irrelevant filler material that had nothing at all to do with the conclusion. The characters were cardboard cutouts, because they were never given enough time to develop. The gameplay was repetitive switch-mashing, with dissatisfyingly few waves of enemies. The environment was washed out and dull, and the music was – save for a few rare moments of excellent composition – even duller. There was no emotion of any kind – no sense of wonder at a breathtaking environment, no vengeful rage after seeing a pivotal character die, no suspense or feelings of foreboding leading up to the reveal of a space zombie. Nothing.
7. The poor file-sharing capabilities.
In Halo 3, we had Bungie Favourites. Technically, these weren’t chosen by Bungie. Bungie delegated the selection to groups, which made the pick. Nonetheless, we ended up with cool, quirky, and funny screenshots and content. Compare this to the mindless trash that fills Halo: Reach’s “Most Downloaded” list. The File Browser is also massively clunky; while some of this can be attributed to the limitations of the console, it is impossible to deny that the file tagging system is clumsy and barely useful, and the File Browser’s stiff (for lack of a better word) UI cripples its utility when searching for online files.
8. The moronic bugs and poorly-implemented systems.
Constant host migrations except when they’re necessary. Quit ban warnings in the middle of matches. Quit bans that punish the people who stay more than the people who quit. Fake AFK detection based on guesswork. An exploitable mute ban system. A Skinner box “credit” system that sabotages objective games, and ultimately becomes next to useless, since some gametypes (FF Arcade) hand credits out like candy on Halloween. Non-skill-based matching being the default in Matchmaking. Need I go on?