What? Halo: Reach, fourth and last Halo game from Bungie.
Where? The Giant Parisian office of Microsoft, where for one day, under the vigilant views of the guard, brought an almost final version of the game.
Halo is one of the main icons of the modern gaming industry, the main (and for many are the only one) over the past ten years, the reason to buy Xbox and almost the most tender protective brand of Microsoft Ubercorporation.
And if in Russia and other PC-oriented countries, where the first two parts of Halo appeared with an unforgivable delay of several years, this game is related to distrust, then for players from the USA and Western Europe “Haylo” has long been not just “the best in the world shooter ", but also a serious cultural phenomenon.
In addition to four games, in Halo-united today there are more than a dozen thematic novels, comics, and even full-length anime films. Based on Halo, the second five-year period has been released by series of the most popular comedy machine-series Red VS. Blue, the wax figure of the master of Chif – the only one of all game heroes – stands in the Madame Tussauchery Museum. And at least once a year, American television pleases the millionth audience with the next report with a wedding of some particularly enthusiastic fans, on which the priest dressed by the gathered by the gathered repauns and declares not those who want to get married not to “husband and wife”, but “eternal partners, while death, while death, while death will not separate you ".
And yet, despite the popular love around the world, the authors themselves are very carefully treated by their universe. After the end of the trilogy about the Great War of mankind against the aliens of the Bungie carpets, they signed a contract with Microsoft with only two new Halo games, released the Halo spin-off and now the final strokes above the prequel Halo: Reach, which will appear on the regiments of this In the fall. The next game from the famous studio is a new, still not even announced “multi -platform project”, and no one knows what will happen next to the famous universe.
Gloom
We decided not to miss the chance to see the last “classic Halo from Bungie” even before the release, and, as soon as the authors ended up in our part of the Earth, to show the final version of the reach of the European press, “gambling” immediately intercepted them in one of the quiet Cabinets of the Giant Parisian Office Microsoft.
The developers have something to be proud of: unlike ODST, which was in development a little over nine months, on Halo: Reach people from Bungie have been working without breaks for the past three years and – although no one talks about it openly – they were going to make this game a little from this game Isn't the real Halo 4. For the sake of these goals, a completely new graphic engine was even written, which, however, is not to say the top of the technology: from the side of Reach shows all the same simple but colorful and bright picture, as in the last two games.
However, behind the facade of the usual Halo design this time hides a much more complex and subtle inner world. Reach is planned as the most gloomy and harsh game in the entire series – to replace the Shutovsky cosmoblockbuster of the original trilogy and the gloomy mood of ODST comes the absolute, total fatalism and universal foreboding of the quick apocalypse.
However, there is why: in Halo-chronology, the Reach action takes place on the planet Rich of the same name shortly before the massive attack of the carpets on distant worlds colonized by people. The focus of the whole story is the elite platoon of cosmopers under the code name Noble Team, where we act as an nameless soldier under number 6, secondly a few hours before the invasion of the invasion.
The action takes place a few months before the events of the very first game of the Halo series: Combat Evolved. The war with the carpets is in full swing, all the "distant worlds" of earthlings were captured by the aliens during the first hours after the start of the attack, but the planet Rich (on which seven billion people lived at the time of the attack) still holds the defense. The giant orbital grouping of earthlings, as well as all the ground forces of defense, fight to the last and as a result die almost in full force: there is nowhere to retreat, reconnaissance reported that the purpose of the carpets next after Rich is the land ..
What is doubly interesting, NOBLE Team members are not simple cosmopers, but graduates of the Secret Military Program of Spartan, developed for training Super -Soldate. Of course, they are far from the super -minute and practically unable master of Chif (the best copy of the Spartan 2 program), but in comparison with the flimsy warriors from ODST, these at least stand up for themselves at those moments – as it is customary in the world of Halo – Suddenly three dozen aliens are landing.
In Paris, the developers showed only the first half hour of the Reach plot part, but this was enough to evaluate the level of production. The scale of the local apocalypse has increased significantly, and compared to the battle for Rich, the entire Epic Halo 3 looks like a stupid children's fuss. The levels have become more physically more: at certain moments, we will be able to observe entire armies of people and aliens fighting among the open species of the planet Rich.
However, in Reach there will be plenty of not only combat scenes: the first shootout in the game, God forbid, the field of starts in twenty minutes, and all the time before that is dedicated to the Nagon of Judas and Saspens. Mysterious rustles under the ceiling, hidden in the shade of the carpet, jumping with a wild screech on your back – we seem to have not yet seen such a gameplay in any Halo.
The fall of Troy
Of all the cultural phenomena generated by Halo, the book of Halo: The Fall of Reach, published in 2001, literally two weeks after the start of sales of Halo: Combat Evolved in the United States. Planned by an unnamed marketer as an ordinary “fiction -based application to the game”, this book of the authorship of Eric Nilanda unexpectedly became a hit and parted over a million copies (which was an absolute record for such literature). At one time, The Fall of Reach praised not only for an interesting plot and a living syllable, but also for exhausting explanations of almost all questions that excite fans.
How easy it is to guess from the name, the plot of the book is very intertwined with the action of Halo: Reach. The focus is the last hours of the planet Rich, which is attacking the superior forces of the carpets. In addition to the large-scale scenes of the apocalypse, the book contains a lot of details about the childhood and youth of the master of Chif, the main character of the Harry’s Casino entire Halo-united. Among other things, for example, it turns out that at eight -year -old secret agents stole it from the family and, together with other children, gave it to the secret military laboratory of the Spartan project, which was initially not created to reflect an alien invasion, but to disperse intergalactic “disagreed” and suppressing anti -government uprisings in other worlds.
In general, if the universe of this series is not highlighted for you, then this book has been considered the main source of knowledge about Halo for almost ten years now.
Archetypes
Also, during the Paris presentation, we spent the whole hour behind the “branded” multiplayer, which does not change from the series to the series in all Halo games for nine years. In Reach, the already ideal scheme under the code name “landfill with tanks and grenade launchers” was brought almost to perfection. Basically, we fought in Firefight mode, such a variation on the theme "Left 4 Dead about carpets". Four players in limited space reflect one attack of carpets after another. The number and forces of the attackers increase with each new wave, and the number of respowns is strictly limited, the task is to hold out the allotted time, interrupting all the attackers.
According to the latest fashion trends, classes appeared in the multiplayer: now before each new respuna you can choose a character with a certain set of weapons and special capabilities. All varieties of fighters easily fit into simple and understandable shooting archetypes – “tank”, “sniper”, “intelligence”, “soldier”, etc.p.
And, of course, Halo is played, sorry, Halo-we can hardly imagine what human words this lilac and purple dump of tanks, marines and carpets can be described, in which the gameplay changes almost from a tactical shooter to a primitive Ultra -Rost Arcade with Jumping and Missilers.
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When you read these lines, before the game the game will remain a few weeks. The selfless people from the Bungie company have been doing the same for the past ten years. But here is an amazing thing: instead of finally bending in the stream of self -cycling, they found the strength to get out of the topic beautifully. And now the last time they perform in the genre “Best and Favorite about Halo”, in order to leave with their heads raised and forget about all these carpets and workshops. Halo: Reach – the benefit of these beautiful people and, possibly, their best game in the whole series. If you are not at least a little indifferent to the genre, do not miss.
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