Reviews// Halo: Reach

Does the control system make sense? Does the cover system work? Is the environment consistent and non-disruptive? What's the AI like? Does it sound good? Can I understand it and therefore enjoy my time with it? These are the things I look for in first play-through. I'm going to start with the last one first.

Be warned that there will be times when orders are being given, or directions being offered, or general chatter occurring when you won't be able to hear what on earth the details are. I turned subtitles on, but they only come into play with the cut-scenes. I tweaked the audio settings in order to increase the top end as I attempted to hear through the crackle and pop, to no avail.

I simply had to put up with the fact that every so often I was going to have to live without knowing exactly what was going on. This, on occasion, lead to me getting entirely lost and being told to 'Rejoin the battle in 10 seconds' – a little disjointing to the old suspension of disbelief – and yes, I'm knocking a score or maybe more for that.

Now, the control system. Perfectly acceptable. Not a problem. As this is not an official walk-through, it's a review, I'm not going to detail the controls other than to say that whether you're on the ground, using the much-anticipated jetpack, flying around in space combat or zipping along the terrain in a nifty little Covenant Revenant (think fast-paced bumper car with a BFG, and I don't mean Big Friendly Giant), the control system is perfectly, unworryingly, adequate.

When it comes to the Warthog (a Jeep with a rear-mounted machine gun) however, things go to pot. I thought, “This is a joke, right?” on my first encounter with the flipping flippable, comedic to steer Warthog. I was mistaken. The Warthog, I am reliably informed, is as iconic as a UNSC helmet or a giant The Covenant's ability to stumble silently up behind you and beat your brains in.

Fair enough. I found myself seeking out Covenant vehicles when on the ground though. Bit of a lone wolf me, I don't like being driven or driving other people, not even if they do stand on the backseat firing off several thousand rounds per minute as per the Warthog.

Space combat and its vehicular goodness, well, it is so much fun that I was almost back playing Wing Commander. This is no-frills; it's steer, swap weapons (missiles or machine gun), after-burn, and fire. Bungie's obviously gone for the “Let's make this integral to the plot, but also one hell of a good time” when it comes to the space combat. It's a big, big plus.

Ground combat (and aside from the plot-driving and thankfully brief cutscenes, it feels like 90% of the game is combat) is fluid. There is, however, one flaw for the new-kid (or in my case, new-old-man): I found myself having to consult the manual in order to discover whether the weapon I was thinking of exchanging for one of my two available weapons was better or worse than my current arsenal. Not only that, the fact that there is no way to tell whether the new weapon had more or less ammo than the current stock, lead to some sticky situations.

As criticisms go, even I've got to admit that these are weak ones. They bug me but they didn't stop me ploughing more than 14 hours in one sitting into moving from slaughter to slaughter.

Sure, I was reviewing the single-player so you'd expect me to put the hours in – but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to go back and replay it for giggles. I must also admit, that despite my huge frustration at my own clumsiness (Jetpacks don't descend gently from great height), I never once thought to blame the game while I screamed “Oh, FFS! You can't do that, you big bug bastard!” at the top of my voice.

The AI, you see, does that to you. It's quite formidable, with the occasional slice of “I was not expecting that”. The one that stands out for me concerned trying to disable a large (no spoilers here), well, thing that had to be disabled. Unlike most of the other setpiece combat missions, this was a solo job. Try as I might to take out everything in sight, the mission was proving tricky (I kept getting slaughtered, and as I died hearing some of the little Covenant members apparently laughing at my still warm corpse). My frustration grew as I tried tactic after tactic, and strategy after strategy.

Finally, I opted to ride a Revenant vehicle (think pimped up floaty scooter with a BFG, and I don't mean Best Friend's Girl) through everybody and in through the entrance. Expecting it all to end in tears... of laughter from the Covenant, as all the foes who had been defending the thing-to-disable descended on me, I was surprised. Not by hundreds of Covenant enemy, but by the fact that they all appeared to shrug (I couldn't see them, so I can't be sure) and wander off.