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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL8-A00Pdkg&feature=related

Bad choice.

Epic campaign>MM

Im at work, what is it?

Did he just jump up on a Hunter and stick a Grenade on him?!

"Character Boarding" should have been in, totally.

So character boarding would basically let me kill Hunters the way I do it already anyway.


Space battles and the global battle should have been in. Then again, for extra strategy, destructible terrain would also be a nice addition as well.

All that was missing was "character boarding" and the jet ski. I don't really see that we missed much. "Global battle" just seems like a slightly larger scale battle then what was found in Halo 3, something that reach actually had.

I personally disagree, ShumaGorath. I still felt like I was fighting a handful of enemies while being accompanied by a few herp-derping UNSC Marines. I feel that the game failed to portray a sense of being part of a larger war.

The one part that nearly made me want to stop playing was the start of the mission where the cutscene shows multitudes of Scorpions and Warthogs advancing on the enemy. I thought to myself, "Finally! These smaller skirmishes and firefights are over! It's time for the real war!" only to have the level begin with you only accompanied by the one other Spartan with the bionic arm. I was immensely disappointed. Then again, my complaints with Reach are many.

In regards to the footage, I think those features were awesome. Particuarly 'character boarding.' I could give a damn about Halo's multiplayer, which I haven't enjoyed since Halo:CE lan parties against real life friends. Halo MP is dominated solely by those who can pull off headshot after headshot, must of whom are thirteen and have yet to experience puberty. If I had things my way, 100% of every Halo game would be dedicated to to the best SP experience around.

I guess I'm just getting crotchety though.

Commander Endova wrote:I personally disagree, ShumaGorath. I still felt like I was fighting a handful of enemies while being accompanied by a few herp-derping UNSC Marines. I feel that the game failed to portray a sense of being part of a larger war.

The one part that nearly made me want to stop playing was the start of the mission where the cutscene shows multitudes of Scorpions and Warthogs advancing on the enemy. I thought to myself, "Finally! These smaller skirmishes and firefights are over! It's time for the real war!" only to have the level begin with you only accompanied by the one other Spartan with the bionic arm. I was immensely disappointed. Then again, my complaints with Reach are many.

In regards to the footage, I think those features were awesome. Particuarly 'character boarding.' I could give a damn about Halo's multiplayer, which I haven't enjoyed since Halo:CE lan parties against real life friends. Halo MP is dominated solely by those who can pull off headshot after headshot, must of whom are thirteen and have yet to experience puberty. If I had things my way, 100% of every Halo game would be dedicated to to the best SP experience around.

I guess I'm just getting crotchety though.

The largescale battles pictured didn't actually have a huge number of enemies or allies in them, just enormous set pieces. It wasn't really any less grand then attacking the two scarabs in the desert canyon thing in halo 3. It wasn't as boxed in, but if you're not going to use that space then all it really does is make the battle more ugly. You're confusing scale with density, scale doesn't make things better, it just puts distances between objects.

Then I wish for higher density!

If were thinking of the same battle in Halo 3, than I think that was one of my favorites. If memory serves, there were a large number of Scorpions and Warthogs in that scene, and I think it felt like one of the larger skirmishes in the game.

Commander Endova wrote:Then I wish for higher density!

If were thinking of the same battle in Halo 3, than I think that was one of my favorites. If memory serves, there were a large number of Scorpions and Warthogs in that scene, and I think it felt like one of the larger skirmishes in the game.

There were 2 scorpions, 2 warthogs, 2 planes, and I think 2 ATVs. There were like 8 dudes, so a few vehicles always got left behind. They aren't really limited in what they can display for polygons, they have some wiggle room there, but if I remember right the AI routines are a bit too complex for a large number of AI allies to be in one battle.

Commander Endova wrote:I personally disagree, ShumaGorath. I still felt like I was fighting a handful of enemies while being accompanied by a few herp-derping UNSC Marines. I feel that the game failed to portray a sense of being part of a larger war.

I feel it did it perfectly. How many 'large wars' would have your average Special Operations teams in huge firefights against absurd amounts of enemies?

Even when you're on the defense, you employ them as a scalpel. Not a sledgehammer. The Spartans were bred for war, but even so...they were employed in instances where their talents would turn the tide of the overall war. Not a single battle.

The one part that nearly made me want to stop playing was the start of the mission where the cutscene shows multitudes of Scorpions and Warthogs advancing on the enemy. I thought to myself, "Finally! These smaller skirmishes and firefights are over! It's time for the real war!" only to have the level begin with you only accompanied by the one other Spartan with the bionic arm. I was immensely disappointed. Then again, my complaints with Reach are many.

To be fair: that cutscene shows it all. They went in thinking they were going to, at best, be cleaning out a small force that snuck in.
Not an entire invasion force.

In regards to the footage, I think those features were awesome. Particuarly 'character boarding.' I could give a damn about Halo's multiplayer, which I haven't enjoyed since Halo:CE lan parties against real life friends. Halo MP is dominated solely by those who can pull off headshot after headshot, must of whom are thirteen and have yet to experience puberty. If I had things my way, 100% of every Halo game would be dedicated to to the best SP experience around.

And Reach, quite frankly, had the best SP/coop experience yet. SilverMk2 and I constantly are replaying bits and pieces of it.

Why? Because it's fun and immersive.

Then again, we also do a lot of MP with ourselves in a party/private chat so we can't hear the "brodudes" or the 13 year olds yelling their obscenity of the day.
And let's not even start with the Firefight shenanigans...

I guess I'm just getting crotchety though.

Very likely.

Personally, my favorite mission, and the only one I felt felt like you were a part of a larger battle was the one where you were running to the space shuttle through the beach as things were dropping all around you.

If only they fixed the Allied AI. That was seriously lacking, and utterly disappointing in some parts. There was a trailer narrated by Halsey which I thought had some parts (like Kat walking behind the hulk of Jorge, shooting her pistol) that would've made the game a bit better, more immersive.

As it was, I loved it. Completely. But showing the other Spartans being, well, Spartans would've been nice, rather than have Noble Six do "everything".

@ShumaGorath: Still, it felt like one of the bigger battles in the series.

@Kanluwen: Blame it on the AI, or the lack of any sort of tactical command, but I didn't feel like I was operating as part of a realistic elite SF unit. Or maybe not a believable one. I felt more like part of a team of generic b-movie "special forces" heroes. My team mates seemed to just be puttering around or dieing while I did most of the heavy lifting. And just because they're doing surgical strikes doesn't mean we have to be completely detached from the larger war but for some background animation showing a far away battle.

And yes. The cutscene shows what happened, but they could have easily written it that the whole force didn't get stomped, and had a proper epic battle. I would have preferred it that way.

I'm by no means saying that is a bad game that no one should play. I've enjoyed all the Halo games so far, and it is possibly my favorite sci-fi universe. My complaint is that overall, despite a few novel features and improvements, the game definitely feels as though the Bungie team was tired of making Halo, and was simply ordered by Microsoft to milk the cash-cow one more time before moving the franchise over to 343 Industries' jurisdiction. It's a fine game, but there was potential for so much more.