LAST BUT NOT LEAST

One of the most anticipated games of the year is the next installment of the Halo series, Halo: Reach. This game takes place as a prequel to the first Halo game that was released in November of 01. Instead of playing as the Master Chief, (like in Halo 1,2, and 3) you take the role of the sixth character on a Spartan III squad called Noble team. They are the badass group that the military sends on suicide missions and somehow finds their way home every time.

Not a lot of information has been released yet about the main campaign, but a few multiplayer videos, and trailers have been uploaded to youtube and various video game websites. After watching some of those videos, I could tell that the graphics were definitely amped up.

Of course, Bungie has made a few changes to the multiplayer and not just new maps, but actual changes. The first thing that I noticed about the multiplayer beta video i saw, was the fact that you can now have jet packs. Sounds kinda weird to have jet packs in a game like Halo, but the video i saw on youtube was kinda cool. Hopefully, like the Banshees, you can lock on to the jet packs with a rocket launcher or the new grenade launcher, to quickly destroy your flying opponent or you could just put on a jet pack yourself and fly after your opponent with a pistol, like in the video i have a link to.

Since most of the articles i have read about the new features didn't reveal too much about multiplayer, I had to go on pure observation of the videos on the official Halo website, youtube, and Xbox Live. After watching a gameplay video of the beta a few times, I noticed that a Spartan busted out a barrel roll. I immediately thought "its about damn time you can dodge." If your like me, im sure you get pissed when someone gets in a ghost and just trys to run over people the entire game. Now instead of trying to jump over them, you can now just roll out of the way.

One of the best features that I took note about, was the fact that you can now assassinate your opponent. Unlink in all of the other Halo games, when you hit the melee button while being directly behind someone your character goes into a animated assassination. In the older games your character would either hit the player with his gun or just straight up take a swing at the player, it just depended on what type of gun you were holding at the time.

Personally, I'm still on the fence about getting this game, just because I was a little disappointed with ODST.  I do have all of the other Halo games, so I will probably keep the tradition and get it anyway. The graphics look incredible, and I would like to see how the multiplayer works out with all of the "upgrading" Bungie made.