Halo: Reach – rgbFilter

Halo: Reach – a review and a fond farewell

September 14, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, FPS, game review, Halo, Halo: Reach, Microsoft, multiplayer, ODST, review, Xbox, Xbox Live1 Comment

A Fond Farewell When Halo: Reach was announced as a prequel, a lot of gamers expressed their concerns,making comparisons to Lucas’s critical failure with the Star Wars movie prequels. This totally ignores that one of the defining differences between film and video games is that it’s pretty hard to make a game worse than the original. Unless, as a developer, you’re completely phoning it in, a large part of the art of game making, as opposed to film making, is tweaking the elements of gameplay, not just making the graphics…

At X’10 – Halo: Reach sneak peak

August 27, 2010August 28, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, co-op, event, Forge, Forge World, FPS, gallery, Halo, Halo: Reach, multiplayer, sneak peak, video, x10, Xbox 360, Xbox Live0 comment

One of the closed door events at X’10 this year was for the highly anticipated final chapter of Halo, at least from Bungie. Unfortunately, once we were ushered behind the heavy curtains we weren’t allowed to actually record anything, but we did get to see the first single player missions, Noble Actual and Winter Contingency in action. The single player gameplay was exactly what one would expect out of Halo, with even more polish put on the engine itself. While Reach introduces squad play, there’s no real squad mechanic in…

Halo: Reach – Deliver Hope live action trailer

August 26, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, Halo, Halo: Reach, Hybrid long, Microsoft, trailer, Xbox 360, Xbox Live0 comment

With less than a month to go until Halo: Reach hits store shelves, wrapping up Bungie’s involvement with the seminal Xbox franchise, new live action trailers have been coming out on a regular basis. Besides making a great game in its own right, the live action trailers are effective at delivering an emotional impact, and for me, always leave me saying… “Movie please?” Catch the earlier Hybrid live trailer after the break…

Halo: Reach – The Battle Begins trailer

July 29, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, campaign, Halo, Halo: Reach, Limited Edition, trailer, video, Xbox 360, Xbox Live8 Comments

A new trailer was launched today for Halo: Reach, and this time around, it’s focusing more on the dramatic elements than the multiplayer gameplay. Although thoroughly impressed with the multiplayer beta that came out in the spring, it’s good to see some more focus on the single player story. Gamers have logged millions of hours of game time on the Xbox Live servers, but for me, the Halo series has always been about the epic space opera. There are few game franchises that manage to capture that sense of scale…

Halo: Reach E3 2010 Campaign Trailer

June 14, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, E3, E3 2010, Halo: Reach, Microsoft, trailer1 Comment

One of the highlights from today’s Microsoft was also the swan song for the Microsoft/Bungie relationship. Even though Halo: Reach has been known to be the last game in the Halo universe from Bungie (Microsoft still owns the IP), it looks like the venerable developer is going out with a bang. The prequel to the Halo story, about the fall of Reach, will introduce space combat for the first time. Halo: Reach should hit stores Sept 14th, 2010

Halo: Reach release date announced

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010 Doug Groves beta, Bungie, Halo, Halo: Reach, release date, Xbox, Xbox 3600 comment

Now that the beta for Halo: Reach has run its course, Bungie has announced that the full game will be coming out September 14, 2010. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bungie collected a LOT of debugging information during the beta, either. In less than 3 weeks, the beta run saw over 2.7 million users log 16 million hours and 1.1 billion kills. That’s over a kill a minute, if you’re curious. “It’s exceeded our expectations,” said Bungie Studios community director Brian Jarrard. “Our only real perspective going into this was…

Halo: Reach beta impressions

May 4, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, Halo: Reach, Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox Live2 Comments

The mulitplayer beta Halo: Reach, available for free to Halo 3: ODST owners, was released yesterday. If the beta is any indication, Bungie’s last installment of the franchise is going to be a high point. I’ve always enjoyed the Halo series, but mainly for the single player experience. Every game in the Halo franchise has had good multiplayer, which is a large reason why it’s been successful for so long. Last night, after playing Reach for much longer than I expected to, I have to say that this is the…