Well, in an attempt to keep vaguely up to date I've decided that, as well as my reviews of old video games, I should at least attempt something current and so I'm going to blog my progress through Halo Reach - letting you know where I'm up to campaign-wise and looking at armour choices etc.
Know this post will contain SPOILERS for any who are behind me in the campaign, and a warning not to spoil anything for those ahead of me. I thought of this post a while back and obviously there's a lot to discuss so for brevity's sake I will discuss the mission 'Long Night of Solace' though I am a little further in campaign.
Some of you may be wondering how I haven't finished the game yet, well life has a way of prioritising your time over video games and I don't see that as a bad thing - but there's also another reason - Challenges!!
There are daily and Weekly Challenges on Reach, which earn you credits that you use to rank up and buy new armour components for your character. The challenges often involve killing enemies in Firefight, which allows me to play 'Gruntpocalypse' a hilarious game type, involving waves and waves of Grunts and the obligotary 'birthday party' setting turned on.
Armour
This was the armour set I used for the mission. My colours are brown and green, in keeping with a 'camo' effect. I have taken to choosing armour to fit the mission I'm about to take. As the mission takes place in space I tried to get the most appropriate gear for the job. I'm not high rank enough for EVA which would make most sense, but I got an 'Air Assault' helmet with EVA shoulders with the rest being default gear. Before this I stuck with my pre-order bonus 'Recon' helmet and 'Officer' rank Elite armour from the Limited Edition.
New Stuff
You know how much I love new stuff in Franchise games so I'll discuss a few new things that pop up in this game, including my favourite - Spaceships!!
Covenant Corvette
These ships are a common sight in Reach. One appears early on, attacking Sword Base until it is repelled and taken out by a MAC strike. In the space mission, however, you get to board on of these beasts, which features a frantic battle in Zero-G. I love the design, with 'gaps' in the Hull, presumably to make it a harder target. I was hoping for new ships and vehicles and Reach hasn't disappointed.
Sabre
Continuing the Halo tradition these starfighters are named after a sword-type. It was amazing to finally be in space and the Sabre was well equipped to be there with it's elegant maneuvers leading to crashes in my inexperienced hands and then quickly outmaneuvering the enemy. It was great also to go up against Covenant Seraphs, before only glimpsed in cutscenes.
There's more, but I'll leave it for now, as most things show up again in campaign later on - I'll link to Anchor 9 which features in the mission and leave it at that.
Campaign
So I've completed the mission which involves taking out a Covenant Supercarrier (I hadn't realised how big those things are until I checked, they dwarf even the normal Assault Carriers which themselves are pretty huge. The Spartans plan to take it out by rigging a Slipspace drive to go off prematurely, planting it on the ship and tearing it a part in the ensuing accident. They plan to accomplish this by boarding a Covenant Corvette and piloting it into the carrier.
The Spartans reach the launch site for the Sabre programme and Noble 6 and Jorge go into orbit to hook up with the UNSC Savannah which is donating it's Slipspace drive to the mission. While there they combat Seraphs and space banshees, which was great fun and very challenging when you forget that the Sabre is equipped with missiles!!
It was a brilliant opportunity to get into some deep combat aboard a covenant vessel and even get to the bridge. I failed my usual side objective of 'keep all the NPC soldiers alive' but as it happens it wouldn't have helped. The bomb has to be set off manually and the only way off the ship is to jump.
This was a great emotional moment as, tumbling into orbit, you witness Jorge's sacrifice succeed and the carrier obliterated. But as you fall more your heart sinks as another Covenant fleet arrives.
It was an incredible moment, and I honoured Jorge's sacrifice - I bought his voice for Firefight, something else you can do with your hard earned credits!
I'll keep you posted.
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