Everything GREAT About Halo: Reach!

[Music] i love these matte painting concept art like images being used to introduce us to reach for one it's just some great art not limited by computing power and two you could look at this story as if it's being told after the fall and these images are the last remnants of photos from reach we all know what happens to reach and bungie leans into this heavily showing us glass reach with noble six's destroyed helmet furthermore bungie went through the extra effort to have each selectable helmet and reach work in this shot and talk about setting a tone we know the story and how it ends but that doesn't take away from this opening of all games that have you be a player insert i really like the way reach does it it never feels like you're just existing around the main cast and the few lines of dialog 6 has never feels intrusive upon the spartan you want to create a little fun fact this warthog here is actually being driven in engine someone is having to make sure they hit their marks in line with the camera which is a callback to how they had to achieve most of their cutscenes and combat evolved and that brings me to this being bungie's last halo game and what a game to go out on taking everything they had learned from the previous four halos and building a masterpiece of a closer and and for those who didn't read the fall of reach it's so awesome to live through the story that we only heard about throughout the previous halo games seeing what led to the blind jump and meeting the enough dead heroes is just awesome halo reaches storytelling also harkens back heavily to combat evolved but in a way that's not noticeable at first combat evolved didn't have much character development and it was more a story driven by setting the halo ring the unsc the covenant and we get that here reach in all systems are the main focus of this game which leads into the biggest criticism reach has even i felt this way until diving deeper many people didn't care about noble six and their inevitable deaths felt that there wasn't enough screen time devoted to them which is a fair argument when approaching this game from where bungie did bungie wanted to create a war story where you really dive into the characters and relationships they share allah saving private ryan and band of brothers this concept permeated every narrative decision from start to finish bungie and their developer commentary even stated their goal was to create a human team that could rival master chief and how iconic he was i'd say they achieved their gold laterally noble 6 and chief are seared into our minds but don't occupy the same space if you think there's a strange amount of butt shots in reach you'd be right it was a conscious decision to appreciate the spartan glutes each of noble six is immediately shown their niche the first time we see them june loading a sniper magazine carter communing with noble actual a meal with his kukri kat's prosthetic arm showing her affinity with tech and george well he's just big and strong so his presence speaks for itself he read his file only the parts that won't cover the black ink and six our pcs basically a blank slate that we get to imprint upon commander carter holds the highest rank a spartan ever has at commander even higher than john reach is the first time we see spartans without their helmets the first steps of many to really humanize and get to connect us with noble six spartans but we're a team that lone wolf stuff stays behind there's your setup for the gut punch at the end and bungie wastes no time telling us that this isn't gonna be like the chief games where you're the one man army that can single-handedly win a war reach introduces armor abilities which is a retool of the equipment introduced in three having these abilities on cooldown instead of one-offs offers much more flexibility for the player to express them in the sandbox and introduce controversial things like sprint in a way that doesn't break that halo formula i could just say that the new assault rifle design in reach is sexy and i'm glad it's become the norm moving forward seeing little things like this and gameplay will always be a win emile doesn't know what to make of it and without even looking passes into cat shows the history they have together and respect among their unique skills why are we not seeing explosives residue we know why but it's still cool to watch them slowly discover that it's covenant attacking reach they use plasma so it stands to reason for no residue australians are quivering in their boots at the side of emus with how bad they'd lost the water then if you asked skillup he'd bet money on it being the emu's attacking reach on your knees now they're not rebels they're farmers and so begins the slight tension between george and emile throughout all of reach they're great foils to each other as one was built for suicide missions and is very aggressive in nature and the other being the only spartan two on the team older wiser and more understanding which is the perfect time to talk about emile he's a spartan 3 which were practically made to go on suicide missions and be expendable so his abrasiveness and love of the kill doesn't just stem from we need someone to be the hot-headed edgy but from deep within the lore reach goes to great lengths to establish the more human side of halo one through three we play as the messiah-like figure chief and see the most grandiose sides of the human covenant conflict with each other and the flood here we get to see the direct result of the conflict on regular people like us and the conflict only between the covenant and human it's nice to finally have a story that doesn't revolve around the flood i always love the mission titles thrown into the halo games always so on the nose sometimes maybe metaphorical or just downright funny no disrespect but don't we have more important things to do than round up strays we don't leave people behind emil is always about killing in the big picture reach is a lost cause that transitions into how many lives can we save before the end which is a great arc to watch emil go through as right at the end he's only fighting to help get the pillar of adam off world even in the 26th century you can't have what the ubiquitous fingers on the temple for telecommunications this woman's got a heart like johnson very subtly you can see george noticed the elite just moments before he drops in look at that it's over we've been engaged sometimes martin o'donnell just loves having fun with that electric guitar the rifle only has seven in the mag could be a nod to six being lucky like chief as the two share many similarities and i bet six is using every fiver as being not to compulsively reload like we always do this is a good time to mention the approach to cinematography in reach bungie wanted every shot to realistically be believable that it could have been shot with an actual cameraman which helps ground their story much more in reality and with all the shots coming from security cameras and their helmets at times reach feels like it could be a found footage movie how long question of my life you're in my light commander it's little lines like these that really do a lot of the heavy lifting for these characters if you don't pay too much attention you'll miss all of their characterizations we aren't beaten over the head with a monologue or super derivative dialogue such as matt damon's speech before the final fight and saving private ryan or price talking about how much soap meant to him in modern warfare 3. see what i mean george taking off his helmet is a big brain move trying to connect with her at a human level and remove the civilian versus spartan issue bungie jokes that this ordinance locator is no more than a glorified garage door opener as you can't proceed without grabbing it it kind of goes without saying with halo games but for the time and even now to a degree their sky boxes are mind blown there's a lot of work done to show just how strong one covenant corvette is i'll come back to this i requested your assistance commander and do not need a report on events that occur on my own doorstep for those not in the know i'm sure hearing gen taylor's voice was quite the surprise having it not be related to cortana the leader from the looks of him zealots you're certain there are configuration matched shield strength too i gave the order not to pursue i'm not sure and don't believe it's confirmed but i'm going to head kenneth that the zealot that escaped is the same zealot that kills cat later and that we kill at the end there's some dramatic irony there as carter lets the same zealot go that kills his girlfriend and it makes our eventual death at the end feel a bit better because at least we get some revenge your primary objective commander are you a puppet or a spartan i really enjoy how starkly different halsey is to cortana we've had the whimsy funny lovable cortana and now we get to meet the woman behind her who is not as much so cat holds it for just a second too long for it not to be intentional halsey's probably getting under her skin a bit i could send you to the brig for interfering with my work maybe you'd like to join her i'm sorry we're currently under emergency planetary directive winter contingency i'm sure you're familiar with the punishment for civilian interference with the spartan deployment are you threatening me commander are you threatening me master jedi but hell yeah sticking up for your girl in the most respectful and honest way possible reach was the first time that bungie was able to incorporate mocap into the cutscenes which once again helps add to the human level we view these spartans through assassinations are freaking awesome and so cool to perform every time and then being able to perform them in multiplayer no better way to give the enemy the middle finger nightfall was directly inspired by the combat evolved mission truth and reconciliation i mean one look at it and i feel most of us could surmise why and to have the literal assassin noble six compliment us feels nice stealth has always been a weird thing to try and pull off in halo but you can perform most of this mission without alerting or even killing a single enemy you know this stuff is stolen what you gonna arrest me no i'm going to steal it back the way june says back makes me weak johnson with oh i know what the ladies like and more allusions to the uprisings around reach the marines that pop up on our squad throughout are all names derived from bungie devs you ever seen a hollywood western film the blocking composition is directly paying some homage to the classic shot of the cowboys having high ground on a ridge i feel that bungie waited to do reach until the technology could support shots and missions like tip of the spear never before in halo have we seen such large scale battles not just in the cutscenes but in the gameplay and the surrounding sky boxes everything about reach is balls to the walls bungie was consistently pushing bounds on what their engine could do and the hardware could handle having this be the most vehicles on screen they've ever done before signal lock on the pylon reach makes a concerted effort to stick to the halo soundscape without relying on the main motifs that we know and love was this halo 3 we'd have some dope remix of the halo theme here but i believe o'donnell is reserving that for chief games haven't played odst yet so leave me alone but the choice to do so really helps noble sticks have their own identity and not ride the coattails of the spartan we know and love wilhelm scream and if you look closely our brother hit that wall so hard his helmet went flying off his head cat's a beast for seeing that shot coming and armor locking that explosion tip of the spear is one of my favorite missions because you truly do feel that you're entrenched in a planet-wide battle if you look into the distance the sky box is huge and you can see scorpions and scarabs banshees and hornets all fighting among the far field which brings me to the stakes of reach we aren't fighting for the survival of the galaxy we're just going from place to place trying to maintain hold of our defenses and destroy key enemy targets to win this one battle we aren't the stereotypical hero that saves the universe that heralds praise we're just the calvary here to do our best for one of humanity's strongholds which i keep going on about helps us connect with noble six more yo could you imagine if construction was this quick in real life there'd be universal world peace forever this might be the zealot we let get away but it ruins my sad boy head cannon so i've elected to ignore it reach was the point in the seventh generation that we could finally get some beautiful draw distances and what a better way to show that off than an on-rails turret sequence bungie didn't have to give us jet packs the game could have still been great without him but bungie decided to let us have them and we're all the better because of it introducing a jetpack in a sandbox like this is just begging for players to get out of the map and mess things up so props to them for doing what i can only imagine to be painstaking work to make sure we can fly around without a hitch this is another win for the unsc that starts to make the reach fight seem a bit hopeful but right away this frigate is destroyed in one tap ushering in the constant of one step forward two steps back with the defensive reach and it's not just a high-powered gun in the atmosphere but an entire covenant super carrier that dwarfs what was supposed to be our upper hand who's your money on this time huh you always pick her she's always had him dialed in so more hints to the romantic relationship yes she most definitely is capable but none of the other members surely feel confident enough to challenge anything carter might have to say may i uh yeah no bad call he loves you knife where the hell he's gonna go for this instead of wasting time with the conversation we just cut to us enacting the plan and to keep our inspirations going double six basically gets their own normandy beach landing the saber is actually the first vehicle ever drafted up for combat evolved back in 98. bungie was very happy to get it into the game before they put down halo though it's masked through this cutscene bungie went through a lot of work to have us go seamlessly from the ground to this space combat zone without a loading screen cake by today's standards but back then was no easy task for a game set so far in the future with so much space technology it was probably on everyone's minds when bungie would let us go up there reach was finally able to do that for us and for the one-off mission and their first foray into this type of gameplay it's done amazingly well the saber handles better than even some modern flight controls i'm looking at you far cry 5. and it doesn't overstay it's welcome if you weren't sure about the scale of this conflict this shot is sure to put that in perspective george is just a couple pixels flying through the air as we watch the covenant begin to glass reach and though reach has a lot of similarities to earth on the surface looking at it from space has this beauty and it's vastly different from anything we've ever seen echo two good to go echo three systems and before we can start a trench run we've got to do the classic star wars-esque sound off want to know the painstaking work that bungie went through to simulate low gravity oh what all they did was slow down the cutscene well sometimes development is as simple as pressing ctrl r on premiere we'll initiate uppercut phase two i like that this operation is aptly named uppercut noble6 coming from the ground aka beneath the corvette and slamming it with all they got yes there is supposed to be no sound in space but sometimes adhering to real life is boring i mean we've already got aliens and spartans so why draw the line at sound of space with that said i like the middle ground bungie chose having all the sounds just being severely muffled until gravity is restored it'll be a small theme that when a spartan discards his helmet that's it for them don't deny me this damn george is sneaky using his indomitable strength to not let six get a choice in the matter and check out this shot being from the camera and george's helmet it's inspired camo work like this that makes me love the art form i'm sure at least one person thought their tv messed up with this shot we're picking up anomalies and then there's the true horror of reach and i do mean absolute horror terror and dread look how much work it took to take down one carry and now there's more that we can count the chills this scene gives me is indescribable knowing george died for nothing and that reach truly is helpless we aren't even allowed to know the courtesy of exactly how many super carriers just entered reach's atmosphere just the disembodied voice saying slip space rupture detected it's the fear of the unknown compounded with the emotionlessness dot countered with the screams of men that seals this scene as my favorite in the game reach consistently uses these beautiful wide shots to really just let us marinate in the destruction the battle has wrought which lends more credence to this story being about reach itself and not just noble six more butts but also rest in peace george and to further hit home just how desperate this situation is all we get is this single magnum and this is the first time we've ever had civilians in a halo game i like that we can only provide a bit of support to these marines and we just have to watch them take on the brutes we can't save everyone the scene was cut so many times as they had just rendered the scene and were just hoping and praying that o'donnell would give the scene its weight through the music and i'm really glad it stayed in though six was able to save some people this really just hits it home about the amount of life lost in new alexandria in scenic six do all that alone carter told him at the start none of that lone wolf stuff watching six just sit there with the small movements we don't even need to see his face to know what's going through his head less is more and through the beautiful score and direction we are communicating everything we need to know about where six is at once again we were given some great unique mission design really never before seen in a halo game a giant sandbox where you got to use the falcon to move between each building and if you want to get crazy on four-man co-op you can have four of these sun bits flying around [Music] this goofy elevator music was entirely o'donnell being a goofball the music here is actually from his old days of creating tracks for commercials yes i know about the goofy nightclub easter egg and no i don't have footage of it he gave his life thinking he just saved the planet we should all be so lucky one of the best lines to come from reach and let me point out what you already know each of noble team's deaths are ironic carter goes down saving what's left of the team cat dies with a shot through her big brain george dies believing he saved reach to repay how good she's been to him emil and cqc june survives as a long-range sniper wood and six dies alone as a lone wolf where does he get off calling a demolition of priority once and just like that cat is gone mid-sentence reach does not glamorize war at all there's no heroic moment for cat and is taken out like any other marine she may be a spartan but a single bullet out of nowhere is how so many soldiers meet their end it's heart-wrenching and of course it's carter holding cat in his arms i love the lighting here retreating from the doomed red of the planet being glassed into the calm safe blue the blue of cortana 1000 feet underground i didn't bring my shovel you may not believe me and it blew my mind when i first learned this there is more geometry in the single load car than the entirety of combat evolved crazy how exponential technology is commander you've been wondering what your spartans died for they died for this please halsey has been abrasive and rude all game and this is the first time we ever hear her say please if she was gonna be this nice it has to be for a good reason this cortana is purple just like the comet of old version not the anniversary edition oh donal the first time they go all in on some of the old motifs is to find cortana or what i like to call her in chief's love theme upon discovering her it just sends chills to my entire body take it lieutenant she has made her choice a little not giving it to carter fake out and makes chief and six feel even more connected through this it makes the player feel more empowered do you have it yes say the words please i have it emile's a badass doesn't even look it just sits on the edge of the pelican it's not exactly a hog run but it may as well be the scarab even kind of dies like you'd see an actual bug trying to grasp onto the ledge bungie really went all out with this final mission these last couple of areas are the biggest they've ever created with the highest amount of active ai working good to see you spike good to see you keys pete stacker coming back to reprise his role is always welcome emil gets absolutely obliterated by the energy sword and is still able to grab his kukri and kill cat's murderer i only wish i could do that multiplayer the matte gun is so sexy the lighting of the blast the slight delay in the shot how everything feels like it slows down after firing they could have just said future spaceship go burr but bungie didn't still grounding the unsc a bit having the autumn need boosters to get off the ground and the autumn is actually that size they built it to scale for this mission this is the exact shot using the same assets and audio from comet evolved even the halo ring was dug up from the bungee vaults to really just bring this full circle and what a beautiful send-off for the company creating their perfect trilogy with the fun of odst side story and reach to cap off their journey and that's not the end of reach's story we get six as the lone wolf carter asked him not to be fighting an unwinnable fight there is no secret ending no way to win just how many can you take down with you and it's perfect for the story of reach and six tosses his helmet on the ground which we know spells the end for a spartan even even on the ground sixx puts up a noble fight before the blade connects we are taken to that opening shot and it's it's it it's just perfect i don't think i need to explain to you or try to and that anal it it's so [ __ ] good accept your courage that you gave to us and with it we can rebuild and though reach is such a dark story because the sacrifice of noble team chief was able to beat the hero we know and love without 6 the galaxy would have been destroyed and i love that it's 6 that passes the torch to 117 the direct number after him this could have had a depressing ending but this one scene reminds us that in the end none of them died in vain not even george well that's halo reach not my favorite of the series i know that'd be controversial but [ __ ] great anyways i loved arbiter and two and everything about three and three is definitely my favorite but choosing one feels like deciding between my favorite kids i know odst is a part of the bungee games and i'll get to it but i'm so happy and satisfied to have finally played these games and it was so much fun to play them all with you what did you think of reach and if you want to get crazy what is your opinion on the bungie and 343 side of things in contrast with each other would love to hear what you guys think and remember drive the speed limit drink some water and love one another pizza my ticket wiggies [Music] you

Channel: GamingWins

Views: 316,079

Keywords: gaming wins, gamingwins, game wins, gamewin, game review, everything great about, everything great about halo reach, everything great halo reach, halo reach gamingwins, halo reach gaming wins, gamingwins halo reach, halo reach retrospective, halo reach 2021, everything great about halo reach gamingwins, halo reach analysis, halo retrospective, halo reach story recap, halo, everything great about halo, everything great halo, Halo reach, great halo reach, gaming wins halo reach

Id: gpVjjhuNNEY

Length: 23min 15sec (1395 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 04 2021