Halo: Reach

[Steel5]

Re: Halo: Reach

I will spoiler tag the new campaign screens.


We know there will be some wildlife on Reach, and well, this thing looks crazy.

Spoiler

I don't want anything spoiled but I couldn't help myself and sneaked a peak at that screen.

The three new maps looks amazing, LOL at the IGN guy thinking that Zealot is a Midship remake, it just uses the same colors. The visuals of this game are amazing, Reflection looks incredible!

[Flawless]

Re: Halo: Reach

GamePro

"We've not done a great job with bringing characters to life [in the past]," says Lehto. "I was adamant about changing that to bring more life into the performances in cut scenes and the game itself."

You can find this extra wartime emphasis in other aspects of the game as well. In outdoor scenes, you may see human troops clashing with Covenant forces far off in the distance, as bullets, plasma shots, and tank shells rain down around them. Radio chatter reminds you of what's going down on the planet around you. Civilian militia forces can get in the way and even die if you're not quick enough to dispose of your foes. "We wanted to make sure that this game really captured the global battle of Reach. These battles become bigger, and you see the battles beyond you," says Lehto, adding "We shot the cinematics with cameras in the trenches or on the Warthogs. They're treated all very realistically, like a war-film documentary."

"Reach is certainly the most difficult project we have ever created," says Lehto. "The vision for it was so big that it required us to go back and completely revamp every aspect of our engine and our content pipeline. Halo had become a little bit campy, and we wanted to do something a little more raw and powerful as far as the tone of the game and story is concerned. That being said, we wanted it to be fun, too. It is a more serious story than past games. It is about the fall of a planet. It's a huge story to tell, but there's a lot of heart and soul within that."

GamePlanet

But the world of Reach itself may be Bungie’s finest achievement. The trend in the Halo series has been towards increasingly linear and defined environments. Reach harks back to the series’ roots, telling its story in a vast, much more open environment, begging for, and rewarding exploration.

The game engine far surpasses previous Halo titles. Halo 3 was able to handle a mere four dynamic light sources on the screen at any time. Reach soars at twenty to forty sources. Speaking of soaring, the sky has also been turned into an asset, as ships can now ascend into and out of clouds (instead of being painted on blue wallpaper). On the ground, the draw range has been significantly increased. Reach can also handle twice as many units on-screen as its predecessor.

That has also freed Bungie to create a comprehensive ecology for the planet Reach without having to compromise necessary military units. As the fight with the Covenant heats up, we see flocks of distressed Moa, large ostrich-like birds that share a striking resemblance with their New Zealand namesake, scattering in all directions.

Together, these elements charge Halo: Reach as a whole with a heightened sense of character, drama and immersion.

Rather than just rolling green fields, rocky outcrops and sterile military installations, the planet is populated by civilians, indigenous wildlife and the trappings of civilisation. It's not just a battleground, it's somebody's home.

The Sidney Morning Herald

How does it feel to be finishing up on Halo for good, the last Halo that Bungie is going to be working on?

It's bittersweet for me personally. Everyone at Bungie loves the universe. We created the universe, have been working in it for 10 years. But I think everyone is really excited about what we are working on next.

You're confident that this is going to be your best game yet?

Absolutely. When we started out making Reach we obviously knew it was going to be our last Halo. We absolutely did want to pull out all of the stops and make the biggest Halo game that we've ever made. It is absolutely the most ambitious game that we have shipped at Bungie. It is a hugely feature-rich game.

How difficult is it to balance the need to innovate while still keeping the elements that make the game Halo and have been so popular in the past?

Extremely difficult. That is one of the biggest challenges of making a game like this. If you change the number of rounds in the assault rifle by one, someone cared about that, someone was passionate about that. That is the balance for us. What can we change without pissing people off, without changing something that people thought was core. And at the same time, how do we push the envelope as far as we possibly can. I think with Reach we really pushed it. Armour abilities absolutely change multi-player. The Campaign is absolutely going to surprise people in terms of what they have come to expect from a Halo campaign. We ripped apart the engine and rebuilt it from the ground up. I think we absolutely pushed it as far as we could. All the while trying to preserve that core of what makes Halo amazing. In fact, in some cases going back to the things that were really special about Halo 1, like the mystery, the exploration, the Elites that are the super fun enemy to fight. It is a balancing act.

SeattlePI

You've got more women in the game. Was that a business decision to reflect the market, or influenced by developers with female players in their families?

We always want to be sure we're trying to be as inclusive as possible with players. That's one of the reasons in player customization you can choose a real female Spartan now, and choose a real female voice to go with her, and kit her out just like you would male Spartans.

You can do some really neat stuff there, and it's really cool, too, because contextually all the characters speak to you appropriately then with regards to your gender, in cinematics and also in game play itself.

That's new — to have gender-appropriate cinematics even?

Yes, that's something I really pushed for on this project. I wanted to make sure male and female were treated equally as far as player character was concerned, and you could really open up the audience, hopefully, to a broader group of folks.

[Steel5]

Re: Halo: Reach

IGN's daily extraordinary short clip of the day:
<object id='vid_3277503' width='480' height='270' data='http://media.ign.com/ev/embed.swf' type='application/x-shockwave-flash'><param name='movie' value='http://media.ign.com/ev/embed.swf' /><param name='allowfullscreen' value='true' /><param name='allowscriptaccess' value='always' /><param name='bgcolor' value='#000000' /><param name='flashvars' value='vgroup=halor_gmp_multi_0805&object=14276699 '/></object><div style='width:480;'><a href='http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/142/14276699.html'>Halo: Reach at IGN.com</a></div>

I'm very excited to play the team version of headhunter.

[Candyman5]

Re: Halo: Reach

Im keeping my eyes glued to ebay for awhile until release.

Man its hard looking for info and not trying to get spoiled...lol.

[Cyros]

Re: Halo: Reach

Im keeping my eyes glued to ebay for awhile until release.

Man its hard looking for info and not trying to get spoiled...lol.

And that's why I take the approach of not looking up info for games I'm excited about past a certain point.

[Methlab]

Re: Halo: Reach

I'm not that excited. Looks like all the other Halo games to me.

Pass.

[Candyman5]

Re: Halo: Reach

I'm not that excited. Looks like all the other Halo games to me.

Pass.

They rebuilt the whole engine again so thats impossible for it to look the same?

Unless you meant the gameplay or something else but even that got changed a bit...

[Pete1210]

Re: Halo: Reach

I'm not that excited. Looks like all the other Halo games to me.

I feel about the same. Except I may still get it just because I played all the others.

[Methlab]

Re: Halo: Reach

They rebuilt the whole engine again so thats impossible for it to look the same?

Unless you meant the gameplay or something else but even that got changed a bit...

I can tell you are super pumped up from your posts, but honestly I watched the video and it looks pretty much like the prior releases to me. There was nothing that grabbed me at all. I just remembered playing it before and COD coming out a month later and selling Halo. I will not repeat that experience this time..lol.

[Altimus]

Re: Halo: Reach

They rebuilt the whole engine again so thats impossible for it to look the same?

Unless you meant the gameplay or something else but even that got changed a bit...

This is the least I've felt hyped for a Halo game and I've gotten every Halo game and read almost every book. Don't know why, I'll still get it but to me ODST left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Steel5]

Re: Halo: Reach

This is the least I've felt hyped for a Halo game and I've gotten every Halo game and read almost every book. Don't know why, I'll still get it but to me ODST left a bad taste in my mouth.

ODST was an expansion made in 12 months by a team of about 25 people, so thats a bit different than Reach. Reach is a 3 year development cycle made by about 150 people.

Personally, I am the most hyped about his game than I have been for any of the other games in the series, it looks to be the best game in the series and has a staggering feature set that will keep it in my 360 for years to come.

To each his own though, Reach is significantly different than its predecessor's, but at its core its still Halo, so if you don't enjoy that, then its probably not the game for you.

[DTX3]

Re: Halo: Reach

I'm not hyped at all but definitely getting it first day. Better for me, makes the wait go by faster.

[SinisterAlex]

Re: Halo: Reach

I'm looking forward to the new Forge mode. I love Forge in Halo 3, and with Forge World, this game will keep me occupied for a very long time.

[Steel5]

Re: Halo: Reach

<div style="width: 480px;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=702616"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=702616" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object><div style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana; text-align: center; width: 480px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; background-color: black; height: 32px;"><div><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com" title="GameTrailers.com">Video Games</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/game/halo-reach/11394" title="Halo: Reach">Halo: Reach</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/asylum-map-halo-reach/702616" title="Asylum Map Multiplayer Gameplay HD">Asylum Map Multiplayer Gameplay HD</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px;"><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/" title="XBox 360">XBox 360</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/" title="PS3">Playstation 3</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://wii.gametrailers.com/" title="Wii">Nintendo Wii</a></div></div></div>

[Flawless]

Re: Halo: Reach

I wish we could get some gameplay of full matches on the newly revealed maps.