After giving up on Blockbuster (and Gamefly) to deliver Halo Reach in a timely fashion, I paid Gamestop a visit. I generally don’t purchase many titles given my short attention span for anything other than Call of Duty. But after 5 hours with Halo Reach, I believe it’s going to work out just fine. In fact, I’ve barely scratched the surface, having yet to take a look at the campaign mode or even visit the armory to trick out my online avatar.
Of course, all this depth is a little bit overwhelming. There are a ton of multiplayer modes and submodes — I haven’t quite mastered the lingo and the game manual hasn’t been very helpful in that regard. Perhaps I once possessed this knowledge, but it’s buried deep within the recesses of my mind after a three year Halo hiatus. (Last played, 10/07.) For the moment, I’ve settled on Rumble Pit, Slayer (free-for-all mode) variants as my preferred match style. Unfortunately, it seems you’re mostly stuck with that variance as players vote on both maps and play mode between rounds. And I really want more time with the new loadouts, yet it could be every third match before I can access those “armor abilities” again.
Despite their label, armor abilities aren’t entirely or necessarily defensive and, any way you slice it, change the combat dynamics in interesting ways. Based on the competition, the jetpack seems to be a favored enhancement. It hasn’t helped me too much, as far as k/d is concerned, but it’s a whole lot of fun! It reminds me a bit of the glider from the older and underrated Shadowrun. Once I get control down, jetpacking could further enhance my love of (and destruction from) the sticky grenade. Lastly, the Mortal Combat-esque close combat fatality animations are fun to watch – even though they’re rendered quickly (as gameplay doesn’t pause) and without much bloodshed.
I finally hopped into the settings and armory. Looks like the “Green Thumb” button layout will put the melee attack where us CoD veterans will prefer it.
I also tried uploading a video clip, but it appears it’ll cost me 750 Microsoft points to enable online viewing – meh, I don’t care that much. And I have other methods to record and upload videos if there’s something I just must share.
I moved my mele button at first but find having it on the shoulder button almost a necessity since moving my thumb from the stick for a half second can get you whacked.
Also, change your playlist from rumble pit to another mode like Firefight or Invasion and you’ll have access to loadouts every time. You won’t think armor lock is good for anything till you have some teammates to back you up.
Yeah, I’ve been swapping the melee button back and forth. I can’t decide where I prefer it. In either position, I’m a bit spastic and periodically, accidentally zoom or bash. I don’t seem to have that problem in CoD, though. Hm.
I spent some time with the invisibility mode last night and that seemed to be a good technique to sit quietly and take out some of the folks jetpacking around. Ha.
I’ll have to try Firefight. I thought I had to have friends or a team to do it though?
Nope, if you’ve got friends in a party they’ll get put on your team, but it’ll match you up with random mates if you’re alone.
yeah the change of the melee button was screwing me up too. That and switching from L4D2. Firefight is also a good mode. I find the matchmaking in Halo far better than in COD. Also the lack of ridiculous ‘glitches’ that ruin the game experience.