game was design to be played on, and you’re in for a real fight. Remember, you’re not controlling Master Chief, the super-soldier. More powerful enemies can take you down in a single blow and a few grunts can really make your day a hassle. Sometimes Reach can be a run-andgun funstravaganza. Other times this approach, on heroic or legendary difficulty, will make you want to put a 360 controller through your TV. Slow things down, take a more calculated approach and find a flaw in the enemy’s attack plan. You will be rewarded. Since you’re part of a squad, you’ll often be helped by AI teammates. They can be really freaking dumb in situations where you need them the most, but for the most part they do their job, plus their presence makes more sense when you’re playing four-player co-op on Xbox Live. Another element enhancing the campaign experience is armour abilities. Previous Halo games had one-time-use pickups that
gamecca review • issue 16 • October 2010
could be used to deploy a shield or drain power, but these have been replaced by reusable abilities in your armour. Each ability can be used to life-saving or enemykilling effect. One of them lets you sprint. Another will let you go into an armour lock for a few seconds - useful for absorbing big hits from tanks or powerful enemies. Another gives you active camo. Each has a drawback, but used cleverly they are effective against both enemies in campaign or humans in multiplayer. That is ultimately what a Halo game is all about, though. The multiplayer. Reach is, for lack of a more superlative term, the best multiplayer experience on any console, ever. Xbox Live has long been my favourite choice for gaming online, simply because it gave easy access to my friends and voice chat was ubiquitous. In comparison to Reach, the Xbox guide front-end seems archaic. Right there, from the main menu, Reach shows you which of your friends are online, and what they’re playing. You don’t go into a menu
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