Halo Reach: Destroying 9 years of Halo Mechanics
After many deliberate hours of analyzing Halo: Reach the only thing I can conclude is that Reach feels and plays nothing like Halo and simply doesn’t have the skill depth of previous titles. In my opinion, this is because the arena-style game mechanics of previous Halos had a certain addictive feeling that is replaced by slower paced role-style mechanics that turn the game into a chore to play. It overly rewards amateur tactics like camping and the helmet-camera exploit, which have never been as prominent as they are in Reach (think Hemorrhage). In previous Halos you would never hear a completely silent map. Players were always moving and trying to setup for some key time in the game because, against skilled players, camping was never a winning strategy. In Reach, there have been countless times where the map is completely silent because everyone is using the armor abilities and power weapons defensively, drastically slowing the pace even the further. Even the “pro” armor ability, sprint, was not balanced against the rest of the sandbox. Not slowing down when being shot while sprinting leads to cheap double pummels, and it allows for ridiculous getaways of players that should’ve long been dead. Combine this defensive play with sprint and bloom and any idiot could put themselves into a crap situation and get out problem free. I think we all have experienced the bull-headed play of sprint + sword…I also don’t think I need to even touch on why armor lock doesn’t have a place in Halo.
Regarding pace, movement speed and jump-height were drastically reduced. This basically nullified strafing and replaced it with a randomized broken bloom aim system to add some sort of dynamic element to 1 on 1’s. This bloom system, more times than not, punished players timing their shots and rewarded the spammers. They took the on-map power ups from previous games and turned them into armor abilities. This makes no sense and is one of the worst changes made. Previous Halos were about fighting for the high ground and controlling the power weapons. Jetpack completely destroys this and makes certain power weapons useless (think Reflection). Not to mention the simple fact that a player shooting down on someone has a tremendous advantage because it’s nearly impossible to not hit the head. Thus why high ground was so important in previous games.
Regarding weapon sandbox balance, Reach honestly feels as if it was never alpha or beta tested. As both weapons are 5 shot kills, the DMR is basically a longer range version of the most inconsistent weapon in any Halo game, the Reach magnum. Rockets and grenades both got a significant splash damage boost in addition to the slower movement speed; which is ridiculous. Even the melee system was poorly changed: the fact that a melee removed full shields or only a sliver of shields makes no sense. It only slowed gameplay and rendered landing more shots than your opponent before throwing a melee meaningless. Melee should always do a set amount of damage, not change as a function of remaining opponent’s shields.
Reach has, without a doubt, the worst set of maps in any Halo game. And when it was released, it only shipped a handful of true multiplayer maps. Even further, no one wants any of these maps remade in future titles. They are the worst set of imbalanced and thoughtless examples of bungie’s idiocy recycled from campaign. The maps were obviously developed as multiplayer maps and then included into campaign but that just simply didn’t work. It made the maps feel cheap and out of sync with traditional Halo multiplayer.
The rest were firefight. And speaking of firefight: it changed from a challenge to survive the most waves as a team into a race to get points, which isn’t nearly as fun or group oriented.
Overall, I don’t even think that Reach deserves the name Halo in the title. It should be called Shadowrun: Halo Edition. After all, the DMR is functionally an exact replica of the Shadowrun Rifle, and the Magnum is identical as well. They even implemented the same bloom system, which increases randomization even more after shields are popped (proven through ample tests) Even the Reach Jetpack is identical in smoothness (ease of aim while in use) and duration to the Glider in Shadowrun. No doubt Sage Merrill is to blame for all these drastic changes; as he was the lead sandbox designer on both Reach and Shadowrun.
Suffice it say, I cannot stand Reach. I’m not saying that true Halo fans should hate Reach, after all, it is a Bungie developed “Halo” game. However, the core mechanics of Reach are no where close to the core mechanics of Halo CE, 2, and 3. It has its own unique feel and gameplay that someone like me, who has over 10 years of continuous Halo experience, doesn’t want to believe is the new heart of Halo. But change isn’t always progress. Halo didn’t need these changes to thrive. It certainly didn’t need these changes to gain more popularity or competitive nature. The introduction of these changes are why Reach has the all-time lowest recorded Xbox-Live numbers of any Halo title, and rightly so.