Halo: Reach First Look

15 Feb 2010 at 15:24:38 by

So it's finally on its way, Bungie's last Halo game. And it's a swan-song you certainly won't want to miss, especially if you've invested into the lore, the world and everything Halo.

Halo: Reach, as you're probably already aware, will be set before Combat Evolved in the year 2552 on Reach, an Earth-like planet which is home to the UNSC and the Spartan program. Although we all know what happens to Reach, Bungie's community man, Brian Jarrard, told us that the story is worth telling and really "fills the gaps" in the Halo universe, allowing the team to focus on the human (well, human-ish) side of the story. Because the planet is populated primarily by the UNSC, it gives the player "a better idea of how the UNSC was operating" and just how immediate the Covenant threat is.

Jarrard also said it gave the developers the opportunity to grow their characters too, allowing them to explore the relationships between them and driving the narrative forward in a way which forces you to pay attention to the story.

But if you're playing the game, you'll no doubt be paying attention to the story, waiting to see how the demise of Reach sets off the sequence of events which ultimately leads you to the Master Chief and Cortana. For the time being though, you're a member of the Noble team, which works in a very similar way to the ODST set up. It consists of different classes such as sniper, heavy-weapons and the like. You are known only as Noble Six, Mr Anonymous, and you'll play this character through the game. Noble Team is a Spartan team, an earlier prototype of the hard-ass Master Chief Spartan. Because they're an earlier version of the final product, you can expect the Noble Team to be stripped of all their perks. For example, you'll have to collect health packs, like in ODST, because the program hasn't yet been able to introduce regenerative health.

Bungie hasn't taken everything away, though, without replacing it with something else. The most exciting changes are the RPG elements in the game (if I can really call them that). You'll be able to customse and tweak your player's skills, like armour and deployable cover. There's also the addition of a "sprint" ability which allows you a few seconds of uber speed and can be used at any time. That is regenerative and once you've used up your sprint, you need only wait a few more seconds before it's enabled again.

There are also new weapons like the DMR, a cross between a sniper rifle and a battle rifle which is surprisingly accurate at long range, but furiously deadly in battle situations too, with an exceptionally high fire rate for a rifle of that caliber. And the Covenant have a new rifle too, the Needle Rifle which is another highly accurate weapon (although we're not sure why it doesn't appear in the latter games -  presumably it turns out to be rubbish). How that fares when pitted against the DMR is unknown, but we've been told that they won't be the only new weapons we'll see.

Halo: Reach will close the book on Bungie's development of the game, and it's a game the devs are truly passionate about, with Jarrard saying that they wanted to make it the best game yet. Although Halo: Reach won't have a new engine, the Halo 3 engine has been completely overhauled for the job. All cinematics will be done in real run-time, so your gaming experience will be visually consistent. But it's not the cinematics which have received a makeover - attention is also being paid to character models, facial expressions and textures in order to allow the aging engine to compete with its more recent rivals. This engine can, according to the presentation, render dozens of times more than its predecessor, meaning explosions, as well as the aforementioned character models, will be things of beauty.

The AI too will be vastly improved, according to Jarrard, and the game will be able to handle a ridiculous amount of enemies while still managing to deal with your squad. Ideal and pretty important when Bungie talk about "massive battlefield situations" which could see the screen populated with up to 60 warriors composed of Spartans, marines and Covenant troops all taking chunks out of each other, and hopefully demonstrating the scope and scale of the war on the planet.

And then there's the return of the video editor, the in-game software which allows you to capture and edit your own in-game footage.

We were keen to know how the multiplayer will evolve in Reach, too - for instance,  if we can expect new modes and how they'll tie into the single player campaign, but Bungie didn't let anything slip. However, the developer did stress its intention to remain at the top when it comes to online gaming and that there'll be more announcements closer to release.  Don't forget you can get involved when the beta goes live if you've got a copy of Halo: ODST.

We're excited...are you?

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