14 DAY TRIAL // It's nice to be back in powered armor, after the frail human skin I inhabited with my Halo fan persona in Halo: ODST, the moody, jazzy shooter that Bungie experimented with last year.
Reach appears to be a last hurrah of the epic, macho, powerful franchise and as far from ODST as two titles in the same series could be.
The Spartans are back and there are few creatures around that are not wearing some sort of bulky armor (the way it looks on the heavy weapons guy, Jorge, is really impressive).
There are plenty of familiar vehicles to use and to take out, although most of them still control weirdly, with the Warthog behaving mostly as a hover boat even if it clearly has wheels that touch the ground for most of the time (the way the Artificial Intelligence drives can drive a gamer nuts).
The levels are also at the same time familiar and impressive, with the same combination of verticality and guidance that fans remember from Halo 3 and the first game in the series, and there are firefights with Brutes and Elites that pose and challenge and offer a clear sense of relief and progression once they are over and another cutscene is playing.
I'm only five hours into the campaign but even the story seems to be better than usual for Bungie, with no religious or mystic references yet appearing and the overall feel being that of a well executed Dirty Dozen clone with Spartans instead of convicts and the Covenant as the threat which feels bigger than anything humanity can face.
There are a few rough spots that are already noticeable, like the dumb tactical choices that enemies sometimes make, like chasing the player character around even if that means getting shot to bits by the other members of Noble team.
But Bungie really seems to have done a great job of putting together a Halo video game that fans will love for years and will cement their legacy as a great shooter creator.