Halo: Reach Takes Over Your Xbox 360 For the Next Few Months

It’s the end of the road for Halo, so it only makes sense that they head back to the beginning. The prequel to everything Halo you’ve known before, Halo: Reach hits shelves at midnight tonight, awaiting the eager fans lined up at local retailers like Best Buy and Gamestop, hoping to be the first to blast their way through a dizzying array of new maps and campaigns, as well as make some of their own with the new Forge feature (and Forge World). Of course, others are just waiting for the boxes to arrive on their doorstep if they ordered online. Either way, there’s going to be lots of people calling in sick to work tomorrow. If you’re the boss and you get your share of those scratchy-voiced/coughing calls tomorrow AND you’re a Halo fan yourself (I imagine that’s why you’re reading this), then you know you can’t really hold it against them. Just give them the day and work them twice as hard on Wednesday (if they make it in).

Now to the game itself. First, I know that nothing I say could dissuade the loyal fan to not buy this game. Even if I said that they replaced Spartan armor with bunny costumes, it’s just not happening. And, honestly, do I need to convince you to plop down your hard earned money? There is no fence-sitting when it comes to the Halo franchise. You either play or you don’t.

And I’m not going to spoil any of the surprises the maps and campaigns provide. I haven’t had time to get very far, because there’s so much to see and do that it’s overwhelming and won’t be conquered end-to-end anytime soon (unless you’re the guy who calls off sick for the whole week). I’m an explorer gamer, even in the 1st person shooters, because I want to cover every nook and cranny of the map to find my sweet spot to snipe and gun down anyone stepping into my line of fire. In the end, I’m not as skilled a player as most, but I get my sightseeing in. And Halo: Reach is chock full of amazing sites. If I had a better tv, I’m sure it would look even more amazing, but both in-game combat and dramatic, character-rich cut-scenes are so gorgeous that you can become really invested in the missions and the AI characters that make up your team (the elite squad called Noble Team), since you know what the future holds for the Halo universe. Anyone expecting a straight-ahead shoot-’em-up might be a little disappointed, because this game has a story to tell as well. Of course, if you just want to blast everything in sight and ignore the story, that’s fine too, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice.

When it comes to multiplayer, there’s 21 new maps, 18 different game types, and 12 gameplay modes. But it’s the greatly improved matchmaking system adds a more social element to finding other gamers at your level or people with the same tastes as you when it comes to maps and game types. But for the first time ever, Halo: Reach provides players with the opportunity to make use of campaign matchmaking, which allows players to find up to 3 friends to tackle any campaign you set your sights on.

But as I said before, what I’m really interested in is the map building feature provided in the Forge. Building maps and sharing them on Xbox Live will likely become an extension of the franchise within itself, now that Bungie won’t be making anymore Halo games from now on.

Honestly, I don’t know why you’re still reading this. If you love Halo, you should be in line, cash in hand, ready to shell it out for Bungie‘s 5th and final foray into the Halo universe, made exclusively for the Xbox 360. It’s got everything the diehard Halo fans want, multiplied to the Nth degree, with more features, more customization, and more surprises than you can imagine, even for a Halo game! And, if nothing else, hey, it’s got jetpacks…