Remember Reach…a blast from the past.

So today I was just surfing the webs and did a random Google image search for Halo Reach. One of the images was linked to a post I made on my other blog a few years ago about Halo Reach, linking to the Remember Reach website and its Statue of Light Memorial to Team Noble. It really is a pretty awesome little thing, gave me a little chill when I watched the video again.

You can see where your individual light is in the sculpture…that bright point in Emile’s leg is mine.
You know, taken altogether I think Reach is my favorite standalone Halo game. I mean of Course CE is CE…its what got me into this in the first place, its amazing. But Reach…Reach was Bungies swan song to the Halo series, the last game in the franchise that really put them on the map.
(Yea yea Myth and Marathon. Sure both great series, but also not Halo. Not Halo’s numbers if nothing else.)
They really put a lot of love into the game and it shows.
Halo Reach, if you by some odd chance do not know, is the story of the Fall of Reach. Reach  was the name of the planet which was the heart of the UNSC Military industrial-complex. It had the main shipyards and training facilities. It was where the UNSC HQ was located.
It was where all hope for a military victory against the government died on July 24th, 2552. On that day a massive Covenant fleet (preceded by a much smaller assault group) launched an assault on the Epsilon Eridani system, led there unwittingly by the UNSC Iroquois, commanded by Jacob Keyes.

*They had to do a bit of ret-conning here. In the book The Fall of Reach, the Pillar of Autumn had been selected and retro-fitted prior to the Covenant invasion of Reach for a mission involving Spartan-II’s (Blue Team I think) to try and kidnap one of the Prophets in hopes that a peace could then be brokered. It was already in space going through a shakedown run when the first Covenant forces jumped in-system. In the game the ship is in a dock on the planet’s surface. Nevermind that you would never refit something that size in-atmosphere in reality (you know what I mean). Just a plot device to make Noble’s sacrifice mean all the more.*
Keyes went on to immediately command the Pillar of Autumn as it fled the system in a last ditch attempt at securing one of the Prophets in an attempt to sue for peace. It was Cortana’s split-second decision to use coordinates discovered in a Forerunner artifact as their destination point. This happened to be the locale of Halo Installation 07, and kicked off the events of Halo: Combat Evolved.

As I said it was their swan song to a much beloved franchise, one that has now seen a new game (Halo 4) launched under the banner of 343 Industries.
Halo: Reach is the story of a group of Spartan-III’s, Noble Team. Their trials, triumphs, and ultimate sacrifice in the days following the events of July 24th, 2552. You play the newest edition to the team, a FNG to replace a beloved comrade, so you’re not exactly welcomed with open arms by everyone just at the start.


But as the plot unfolds you are quickly accepted into the fold. The dialog, pacing, and in general just the basic plot of the story are all quite good. You become invested in the characters, and you feel it when each one dies. And die they will. This game isn’t so much about winning. I mean winning to the extent of having a goal and accomplishing it, yes. Then winning comes into it. But living..not so much. I’m not going to say anything about the very end but…I will say enjoyed the way it was done more than just about any game ending ever. Bravo Bungie. Bravo.
Anyway go check out Remember Reach and check out an interesting concept in game promotion from a few years ago, if nothing else.


Anyone who had a Nintendo game system as a kid remembers these games. #5 brings back memories! http://bit.ly/WwVDIW

Favorite Halo Poll

Make sure to vote in our favorite Halo game poll. Its in the top box on the right of the screen, above About Me.

Might as well dust this off too...

Well look at this shit. When I made this blog Reach had yet to come out, now Halo 4 has been out for like over a quarter. My how the time flys huh? In that time lots of other things have been released (books and such) that I haven't really been able to keep on top of.

Anyway this is a good friend of mine that I've played the various Halo games with since Halo 2. When I first met him he was only like 13 I think, he lied about his age so we would let him play with us lol. Anyway the kid has always been good. One of the best players I personally know. This is a little something he threw together.

It sucks, I bought Halo 4 right when it came out and I've yet to beat the campaign. Just for lack of doing it. I haven't played any games at all in like 3 weeks...weird considering all my extra free time now.

A History Lesson

Alright Emo dawg, this is for you. Ted says to give a brief summery so here goes.

Ok so you have a the Covenant. They're a conglomeration of alien races with a strict hierarchical theocratic society, with each race holding some level of power over the others (or at least being roughly equal to them in some instances) and with (of the known races) the Prophets at the top and the Grunts at the bottom.

The Prophets evolved into sentience on a world which was a former outpost of the Forerunners and on which much of the Forerunners technology survived intact. They considered the Forerunners to be gods and their technology to be divine gifts by these gods and so developed a religion based on them. The first other species they ran into were the Sangheli (Elites) who evolved on another former outpost world but saw the Forerunner relics as sacred things left by the gods that should not be meddled with. This difference in ideology led to war between the two species and after almost being wiped out by the prophets with their advanced Forerunner technology, they finally submitted and thus was born the Covenant.

The Covenant then proceed for the next 3300 years to expand their borders, encountering new races, and in almost all cases, making them submit and join the Covenant on their Great Journey (the search for the Halo artifacts in the hopes of triggering them and wiping out all sentient life in the galaxy...again...because this would take them to heaven). And then they came upon us.

Humanity developed Slipspace technology late in the 23rd century and for the next 230 years rapidly spread out from Earth, establishing hundreds of colonies. But by the start of the Human-Covenant War many of Earths colonies were feeling a longing for a bit of self rule, giving way to a pretty sizable insurrectionist movement. And so were the various SPARTAN programs conceived. Designed to be special forces groups that could quickly quell rebellions by taking out their leaderships. First genetically modifying and augmenting adult special forces volunteers for the SPARTAN-I program. Then kidnapping children with excellent genetic profiles and rigorously training them from age 6 to 14 and then genetically and physically augmenting them. And finally, sometime after the start of the Human-Covenant war in 2525 (the same year the SPARTAN-II's graduated), probably a decade or two, the SPARTAN-III program was started, mostly using orphans from the various destroyed outer colonies.

Ok, so why exactly did the Human-Covenant War begin? Mainly because the High Prophet Truth (essentially the leader of the Covenant) thought that Humanity were in fact Forerunners, or at least the descendants of the Forerunners, and that if knowledge of this were to spread among the rest of the Covenant it would tear their ideology apart. After all, we would be like unto gods to them, and would seemingly have to have been given dominion over them, and the Prophets weren't all about that. So, instead of offering us a place in the Covenant as they did with all other species, they embarked on a course of genocide, in the hope of wiping out humanity and any evidence of a connection between us and the Forerunners.

How we really are related to the Forerunners is a matter of some debate. There is evidence scattered throughout the various media for and against us being directly related to them. At the very least though, they saw us as their inheritors as guardians of the galaxy, the role they had formerly occupied. This alone would really be enough to make us have a place of honor in the Covenant, above an beyond that of the Prophets, and so whether we were directly related to the Forerunners or not is a moot point, as we were still a danger to the leadership of the Covenant.

As to how and why the Covenant were able to make it to Reach, the UNSC's most important world besides Earth itself, they were able to attach a small tracking device to one of the ships which survived a previous large-scale battle with the Covenant (one of the few we ever won, since the beginning of the war Humanity was always at a severe disadvantage, tactically we were superior, but in every other way the Covenant had the edge, technology, weapons, numbers, etc..) which, despite the random slipspace jumps required by the Cole Protocol, allowed the Covenant to find Reach.

Audio Evolved

"HALO: REACH" Game Audio Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

An in-depth look at the audio design in Reach? Yes please! In this video we get to see and hear some of the masterful Marty O'Donnell's compositions being recorded, as well as other more mundane but no less important aspects of Reach's overall sound design.

Even if you don't know his name, you know his work. He's the man who, for the last decade, has given Halo its iconic sound. Apparently this will be the last Halo game his music will be on and as far as I'm concerned, no matter who they get to replace him for the future games, no matter how closely they imitate his style, they will never stand up to what he laid down before the. Just one more reason why I consider this to be the last true Halo game that will ever be made. If you've got 8 minutes to spare check it out, its worth the watch, and the listen.

A New Day Dawns!

With seven days left until the launch of one of the most anticipated games of the year, if not decade, I've decided to star a new blog dedicated not only to Reach and Team Noble, but to all things Halo in general! And so I give you, Reach for Halo. I know I know, campy name, but its a blog so what do you expect?

I think it would only be fitting to kick things off by showcasing one of the amazing promotional videos that the Microsoft marketing division has popped out in preparation for the launch of this monumental game. "Deliver Hope".

















Call me a geek but that vid gives me chills. It's almost on par with that amazing ODST video they released during that campaign. It's odd, not to mention a shame, when a live action trailer for a game ends up being far better than the game itself. Thankfully that won't be the case with Reach. Bungie really seem to have outdone themselves this time. Not hard to understand as this will be the final Halo game that Bungie will be working on, if not the final Halo game that will ever be made. We all know Microsoft is gonna milk that cow as long as they possibly can...

Anyway, check out this vid if, by some miracle, you haven't already seen it. And for god sakes buy the game next week when it drops!

Edit: This is the extended version released sometime last night, even better than the original. Why is there not a movie yet?! More on that later...