Halo: Reach

This game came out a little while ago, but I wasn't going to beat it without the help of my good friends and old roommates from North B 412. But with the three of us working full time and balancing other commitments and social activities, it took us a month to "git-r-done." But so be it! It was well worth the wait and earlier tonight we finished the campaign on legendary difficulty and now boast the achievements to prove it. Good times. The campaign was pretty run-of-the-mill as far as FPS stories go, but the relentless air of noble martyrdom kept things quite sad and meaningful in a very manufactured way. The game's epilogue also made up for an otherwise lackluster ending. But enough about the campaign. Let's talk multiplayer. I know I rarely do so in my Back-Blogged posts, but every now and again a game comes out that warrants more than a mere dabble in the online play. And Halo: Reach was certainly one of these games. I have to imagine you've played online Halo if you're reading this video game blog entry, so I won't bore you with any fundamentals or details, but let's just say that Reach improved upon Halo 3 in many, many facets. And Halo 3 was the gold standard (for me) of online FPS play. Gone is the "leveling down" system that penalizes you for losing ranked matches. In fact, gone are ranked matches in general. Here, now, are specialty classes that allow you to use jet packs or super speed bursts, or to spawn with your choice of default weapons. Also, new filters allow you to decide whether you prefer to play with trash-talkers or silent types; with diehards or casual gamers. I have yet to take advantage of them and question how well they work, but I'm sure I'll be thankful for the addition when I'm getting annoyed by some bratty preteen during some future endeavor. See, the thing is, I'll be returning to Reach many times over to play online multiplayer matches. It ain't logging, per se, but it's just too damn fun and irresistible to ignore. I'm sure my days of 3:00 a.m. slayer sessions are just as behind me as college is, but that doesn't mean I won't waste my fair share of nights now and again. In short, Reach had the best multiplayer of any Halo game thus far and one of the better campaigns. It's certainly Bungie's magnum opus and more or less a must-play for all those with an Xbox 360. Remember Reach? I know I will.