Reaching for the Stars

Alrighty, I don't want to hammer on the Reach stuff too much, but I had already typed this once Chilly P had done his... so I will go ahead and post my stuff that I typed yesterday. I won't edit it or change it to ensure authenticity.

Upon reflection, my initial "debbie downer" approach to Halo: Reach might not have been entirely fair. I was very upset at the lack of strength with the majority of the guns (still am), but I have played the game a bit more to uncover a handful of things that make the game fairly enjoyable.

The Pistol-

The pistol is actually not as bad as I initially thought. To be honest, it is a viable option and my new go-to weapon when playing this game. If you are smart with how you shoot it, meaning patient, you can see delicious results. At a distance, you are able to knock someone's shield down with 4 or so shots, and then dink them on the dome for the kill. But as I mentioned, the pistol's (as well as the DMR) effectiveness depends on your patience with the gun. I first thought the "recoil" on this gun wasn't a big deal. The more I use it, the more I realize that you must wait until the pistol comes back square before firing your next shot (when shooting at a distance). When you do this, it feels astonishingly like the ol' Halo 1 pistol (not nearly as powerful, but still).

A quick note- Running the trigger when in close range is shockingly effective as well. I am starting to actually win battles (regularly) when using it against "spray and pray" guns.

The DMR-
Same goes for this gun, timing is everything. But different from the pistol, I think the DMR might actually lose strength when you don't allow it to gain its composure, so to speak. When you are completely calm and collected, and fire when the gun is perfectly accurate, it is a strong and impressive gun. Yet if you fire this bastard when the reticule isn't completely centered, the accuracy is laughable as well as the damage seems to drop as well. So here again, having poise is key.

-SWAT is still awesome. Despite an amorphous and sometimes confusing hit box for head shots, this gametype still is a lot of fun.

-Stockpile is about as fun as reaching your hand into a bag of dicks. I hate the premise, and I hate the randomness with the spawns of the flags. There is a strange aspect of offense/defense that I don't enjoy, so I rarely find myself smiling when playing this.

-1 Flag ctf is also not something I like to play. Halo 1 (the original daddy) never had offense and defense gametypes, and there was a good reason for that. It is a stupid fucking gametype unless your name is Counter-Strike. Reach tries to slip it in there occasionally, and you end up having to endure 2 minutes or so of hectic gameplay that results in everyone using sprint and running around like a bunch of assholes.

-I wish the game made a noise when voting was going to begin, because all too often I am on my computer not paying attention, and the next thing I know I am being visually sodomized by fucking stockpile.

Alrighty, that is enough for now.


SC