Halo Reach free on Xbox 360

[Eraser]

Halo Reach is free on Xbox 360 until October 1st through the Games with Gold program. Thought some of you might want to know.

Once you get it, it's yours indefinitely, so you can still play and uninstall/reinstall after Oct 1 if you want.

[xer0s]

Pretty sure I already have this, but never finished it. Just played the MP.

The free monthly deals on XBL are really great. Can keep ya busy for free if ya don't mind old(er) games...

[Eraser]

I payed the first mission.
It's kind of a boring game, isn't it? Not entirely unlike my experience with Halo and Halo 3...

[MKJ]

it really isn't. play further, nub.
also dont play on normal like some noob.

[xer0s]

Yep. That's a bit of an unspoken rule with Halo. Play on Legendary. It'll make for a much more enjoyable, challenging experience...

[shaft]

Halo 3 was the best.

[xer0s]

Correct.

Although I probably played Halo 2 more and had more fun. But that was during my peak college days...

[Κracus]

I believe I finished reach on legendary. If that's the one with one mission taking place on the bridge of a covenant ship I did that mission without firing a single shot, on legendary.

[Captain]

No one is impressed.

[Doombrain]

Compounded by the fact no one believes him.

[Eraser]

Played the first four missions now. When does shit start to get good? Rarely have I played a game that's more soulless, generic and uninspiring than this game. So far it's little more than a linear collection of dull grey military bases with long stretches of green in between.

[Ryoki]

Lol. Yup, sounds like Halo alright.

[Κracus]

I read those comments and I'll I can think of is. "doesn't appreciate good level design" "doesn't pay attention to the fun AI"

[Eraser]

Nah, that's not right.

It's just that, for a game that supposedly is about an epic storyline, it's all just so throwaway generic.

None of the characters are memorable. I'm not even sure what their names are other than their Delta One or Gamma Five or Bravo Six or whatever they are designations (see, can't even remember that).

None of the locations are particularly memorable because they're all so alike.

None of the enemies are memorable because so far, they're colored variations on the same theme. Kind of like having a bowl of M&M's. One may have a peanut inside while the other's crispy and there may be a great variety of colors, but ultimately, they're all just M&Ms.

As for the weapons, while there's a clear variety in human and alien weaponry, the alien weapons are a bit too NERF-y for my tastes and the sound design on all of 'em is really underwhelming IMO.

The idea of vehicles is cute and I get that it was totally awesome-cool-neverdonebefore with the first Halo, but four games down the line, it's not that interesting anymore. Also, what's up with those moronic vehicle controls?

I find the combat in general to be rather lackluster. There's no meaty feeling to it, no real power. No KABLOOM! when firing a shotgun. No hard metal grinding bullet mechanism when firing the machinegun and that Needler gun from the aliens, words fail to describe how cute it is, yeah?

Then there's an annoyance of mine that's of a technical kind. The voices of your squad mates are somehow distorted based on where they are. For instance, when someone is behind you, talking away from you, the voice sounds muffled. Great technical achievement (I guess) but it makes it so that 90% of comms chat is completely unintelligible and subtitles won't help because there are none for that sort of dialogue. So more often than not, a squad mate tells me what to do but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do because I couldn't properly hear him.

Last, but not least, Bungie were the masters of storytelling no? Maybe I'm not deep enough into the game, or vested deep enough into the Halo universe in general, but I find the whole story to be terribly cheesy so far. There's no "Oh... my... god!" moments for me, even though I know there should have been due to the music swelling up in a very suggestive way.

The game just doesn't grab me, pull me in and make me feel like I want to play more. Countless of other games are capable of just sucking me in like that from the get-go. Halo really doesn't.

[Ryoki]

Basing my opinion on the 1st and 2nd in the series, which is all i ever played Halo wise - but it sounds to me like Eraser is very much correct. The Halo series never tickled me in the right spot either and some of the reasons he sums up are very familiar. There's a couple of things the first one did right (although you can argue about how important the innovations were when you compared it to PC based competitors at the time) but the second one... shit, i never even finished that. It was so incredibly boring i'm pretty sure it was the reason i ditched my console and went back to PC for my gaming.

And good level design? I struggle to think of worse leveldesign in a commercially succesful shooter.

[Eraser]

I played part of the first game on my PC, but never finished it because I got bored with it. I never played the second but did play all the way through the third on my Xbox 360.

I thought Halo 3 was somewhat entertaining while it lasted but I can't remember a whole lot about it to be honest.

[Don Carlos]

Halo 4 is good

[Κracus]

What difficulty are you playing on? I honestly don't recall much of the story in reach, I just really liked the actual gameplay. iirc I think I played through the first time on legendary for shits and giggles but I enjoyed every minute of it.

[Mogul]

Reach is my favorite of the series, even in MP. Most Halo players don't like it. I get it. It has competitive shortcomings, because of items that can be used at will (jetpack, etc). I prefer to look at them as depth increases over more "vanilla" shooters.

[Eraser]

So, this awesome AI, right? Driving is not its strong suit apparently. After turning circles for like 3 minutes non stop it then got stuck behind a bridge pillar not once but twice, didn't have the guts to make a tiny 2 foot jump off an edge and finally parked the warhog like this:

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/RQb3CWf.jpg[/lvlshot]

[xer0s]

Hmmm, you seem to hate this game and yet you keep playing...

[Eraser]

I'm hoping (so far in-vain) that it gets better.
Honestly though, the game isn't terrible it's just that everything feels so much like a new studio's very first attempt at a triple-A title with a very strict budget.
Of course, it's entirely justified to hate on something if there's swathes of fanboys rushing to its defense