Zodi Plays: Halo Reach (Reach Out And Touch This Guy)

[LaZodiac]

I return from the brink of death to bring you more shooty content with me and Em! Today we're starting Halo Reach, a game seemingly about how humanity failed to prevent the Covenant from destroying a planet. So that'll be neat to play through- as well as a perhaps more realized squad unity thing than ODST tried. It'll be interesting to see how that goes!

Zodi Plays: Halo Reach [1] Noble Well Actually

Video Length: 31:34

And that's the first level! A pretty decent affair, though getting used to fighting dolphins again will be tricky. They're a bit more... averse to damage than the monkeys were.

[Lord Raziere]

Reach Profile: Noble Six
Spartan B-312 has no birth date. No planet of origin. These are unknown. Whether they are male or female is up to the player. Early career only says they were taken out of Beta company (a group of Spartan-III's that succeeded Alpha company) immediately after training, two months before Operation TORPEDO (A UNSC operation to eliminate a covenant refinery on Pegasi Delta, successful but Beta was effectively annihilated as a fighting force)

Later in their career however, Noble Six gained a reputation as an efficient lone-wolf assassin, single-handedly making entire militia groups disappear and breaking organizations, they were also a test pilot for a top-secret project, used these skills for counter-insurgency on Mamore, and B-312's superior once called them "my own private grim reaper" and was reluctant to reassign them to Noble Team.

Thoughts:
Honestly I'm surprised they gave Noble Six this much of a background. Who your playing Zodi, is the truest, purest self-insert character for the player that exists in the Halo universe. Noble Six is entirely customizable, being the blankest slate ever given to a Halo player and one other thing- their skills are described as being equal of Master Chief themselves. Explicitly. Your playing the only Spartan in the entire UNSC who can match Master Chief in a fight. The only details given about their personality is that they're a lone wolf....much like the player often is when playing through a campaign, going off and fighting alone, getting whatever weapon they want but still winning. everything about them is to pretty much explain why player behavior and thus gives a plausible insight into what a PC looks like in-universe with their behavior: as this grim reaper of living death who somehow wins great victories all on their own that people don't exactly entirely like because of their disobedience. This is important, because Noble Six is set up as just as great as MC, just as deadly, just as blank slate as MC.....but for one important detail, and that detail is what I'd argue this entire game is about: Luck

Halo Reach Log 001:
See? M is demonstrating the maverick nature of Noble Six quite nicely by attacking an ostrich.

Yeah skull guy's a little crazy. he put that on his freaking VISOR. thats got to screwed up his field of vision unless he was really careful to figure out how to not block his own sight.

I mean sending in waves of troops rather than going in all at once is a known military thing they do, and militaries don't have unlimited resources. the Covenant probably know there are Spartans there and aren't committing their forces too much as they know that sending too many might just get them slaughtered with nothing to show for it, but if they send just enough that might plausibly kill the spartans but aren't a huge loss if they don't, then why not?

yup, the wrong way- probably like the lone wolves you are! the character trait accounts for the gameplay decision.

aaaw, thanks I like to be informative! so lets see what WINTER CONTINGENCY is (the all caps is how they spell it on the wiki): its as M says., its an official UNSC emergency plan that deals with situations where covenant forces have become aware of or are invading a UEG colony. Reach's particular situation has a few supplemental orders for ONI agents to follow which might or mifht not be spoilers, would you like me to inform you of those as well? anyways civilian interference during a Winter Contingency punishable by at least imprisonment. as for what qualifies as a Winter contingency the Halo Alpha wiki says:

Events which may be classified as WINTER CONTINGENCY include:

Intercepted Covenant communications that refer to a UEG colony by name.
Discovery of hard physical evidence of Covenant activity.
Abandoned or discarded material.
Residue and/or damage consistent with directed energy weapon usage.
Detection of multiple in-system Slipspace rupture events.
Engagement in combat with Covenant forces.

So basically any sign at all that the Covenant are coming count, and its the highest priority in the UNSC reporting structure, meaning if its called, this takes importance over everything else. Basically, Reach is on the highest alert possible right now.

what it actually is.....well nothing actually says what it is, but its a contingency plan. its a plan that they thought of in advance in case the Covenant ever finds a colony and thus put it into action when its called as mobilization and specifically planning for this and that takes time, so it helps to have it all planned out beforehand to make sure everyone knows what is going on. its probably just "use all available military resources we have to defend Reach, destroy all our records of other star systems on the planet so they don't win" things like that. plans like these, I imagine, are generalized like that because you can't predict when or where they will be called, so its probably basically a bunch of protocols letting everyone know what the situation is and how hard they should fight.

[Rynjin]

Man I love Reach. There's some debate over whether 3 or Reach is the best game in the series, but I fall firmly on the latter side.

[DataNinja]

Woohoo! Reach!

This one's easily my favorite Halo Game. This is the game (ish) that ODST wanted to be. At least in my opinion. You can already see it with the distinct squad members, and there will probably be some similarities you might notice in a few other places over the course of the game. ...other people may not agree, of course.


Fun fact: If you kill any of the farmers you encounter, you instantly die! Karma!


The plasma repeater has a special ability for Plasma weapons: It will never overheat! Instead, it'll just slaw the rate of fire and you can vent it. It's fun. Otherwise, it's basically the same as a plasma rifle, but consumes about one power per two bolts instead of 3, IIRC?


Needle rifle shots actually do home in slightly, but they move so fast it's barely time to make a difference.


...so, I have a funny story about the courtyard after the helicopter drops you off. So, my first Halo experience was this game, going to a game store where you could rent time. We'd do, like, a half hour, and play Halo - myself, my dad, and I. We never figured out that you all had to be inside the bunker until we got it at home. Tried killing all the enemies, tried shooting down the banshees (a pain with limited small arms), tried hijacking them (it's impossible)… yeah. Felt real stupid after learning later.


The DMR (Direct Marksman Rifle) is the canonical predecessor to the Battle Rifle. Doesn't have the 3-round burst, but makes up for it with solid power. All but the toughest enemies can go down in a headshot or two with it.


Bungie did try and make the Reach Covenant feel more archaic, though. You won't notice the Covenant speaking any English, barring perhaps a line or two from a Grunt, for instance.


To clarify for Em: The mission "Noble Actual" is only the beginning cutscene. The only Halo mission I've beat on Legendary. "Winter Contingency" is where the game actually begins.


Raziere covered a lot of stuff relating to in-game, so I'll give some facts about out of game. There actually canonically is a Noble Seven, merchandise-wise! Exclusively for ComicCon 2010, they don't actually have anything about them. I just think it's funny.


And, a bit more detail about the prior Noble Six - which was originally planned to feature more in the game, but was cut. Thom-A293 featured in the Deliver Hope trailer for Reach, in the battle where Kat lost her arm. He sacrificed his life to take out a Covenant ship with a landing force in it - Kat and Carter both blame themselves for his death.

“S-320 is now convinced that S-293’s death rests solely on her own shoulders (S-259 is likewise convinced that he is solely responsible for S-293’s death). Eventually I hope to be able to get it through their thick Spartan skulls that Thom is dead because he chose to pursue a group of enemy combatants ON HIS OWN rather than wait for backup.”
— Colonel Urban Holland, in his Noble Team performance reports.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Alright, Reach! This should be good.

I seem to recall that there's an achievement for killing all of those moa (the ostritch things). It sticks in my mind because I had to replay the level several times to get it...

The DMR (Direct Marksman Rifle)

I believe that is actually designated marksman rifle. As in, the rifle to be carried by a fireteam's designated marksman.

[DataNinja]

I seem to recall that there's an achievement for killing all of those moa (the ostritch things). It sticks in my mind because I had to replay the level several times to get it...

Don't need to kill them all, just seven. Though, ones that you splatter with the truck do not count.

Another fun fact: The truck's designation is "Spade", which seems to make sense for a civilian work truck... but actually it's named after the Spadehorn, an animal native to Reach and which was going to appear in the game as ambient fauna. That was cut, though.

So, yep, still continues the animal theme.

I believe that is actually designated marksman rifle. As in, the rifle to be carried by a fireteam's designated marksman.

...you are correct, my good ninja. That is what I get for commenting at 11pm at night.

[LaZodiac]

Once more, into the Halos!

Zodi Plays: Halo Reach [2] Sword Haver Base

Video Length: 27:20

Episode two, and it seems that Em's comment about the game not being as candy shop as Halo 3 is... perhaps a little off? Not that I mind, gaus Warthog and the Concussion Rifle are all great, and the uh... special weapon we acquired is ALSO pretty damn cool. Calling in an air strike will never not be satisfying, with the only caveat that some of these situations feel like they actually might be better single player, which is... odd, given Reach seems way more adept at the whole multiplayer thing, given you can watch cutscenes together. Just an observation that Playing With Another Person means you share the Being Cool.

[Lord Raziere]

Halo Reach Log 002:
Guess there is a reason why the Mildly Military trope exists....

the air strike gun in this makes me wish there were more targets for Euclid's C-Finder in Fallout New Vegas to shoot at...

yeah, videogame rocket launchers work best when you aim at the ground, many enemies can move fast enough to get out of the way so you want to aim in such way the explosion goes off immediately rather than sailing off into the sky. its pretty much never a good idea to fire a missile upwards.

I don't really view it as good and evil in this instance: Halsey is a scientist and is trying to get them to see the wider picture of the war. the Covenant aren't exactly doing all this for nothing, they have an objective and methods to achieve that objective. and Noble One is a soldier and during a Winter Contingency military is in control to protect everyone, so a civilian bossing them around is kind of dangerous to them all because if a soldier goes off and does something strategically inadvisable because some civilian want them to do something that could lose the whole battle. at the same time, Halsey isn't just some civilian, she is one of the brightest minds of the UNSC, works in ONI and probably knows more about how Spartans work physiologically and psychologically than anyone alive because she made them. so its this dynamic where she is incredibly vital to one of the UNSC's greatest assets, has a better idea of what the covenant are doing than almost anyone and can do things with technology no one else can, but a lot of what she does goes against what is strictly military protocol, but I don't recall any instance where Halsey's meddling really screws things up for the worse, and threatening someone trying to give you more intel with prison is kind of a jerk move.

[DataNinja]

Yeah, the Conc Rifle is so much fun. It's not very strong, but it's so fun to throw around Grunts and Jackals and stuff.


So, the Skirmishers are a subspecies of Jackal! They're both Kig-Yar, but the jumpy ones without shields or sniper headgear are a different type than those encountered thus far. The "standard" ones are known as Ruutian, while the new-to-Reach ones are T'vaoan. The explanation, by the way, for why they never appeared in any later games was that Reach dealt such catastrophically high losses to them that their ranks in the active forces were almost completely wiped out.
(Does that likely make sense numerically? Probably not. But shhh.)


Ahahahahaha. You had exactly the reaction I hoped to the Target Locator. ...it's really weird in this mission, where it sometimes seems to recharge, and other times it doesn't.


There's a fun little quirk you can do with the Anti-Air gun in this level. ...turns out, if you hit the Phantoms at all, and the gun kills them, they count as your kill.


The Revenant is super fun. It is hands down my favorite vehicle to just tool around with. Gauss hog is fun, but you need two people. Revenant is way faster than a Wraith, more powerful than a Ghost, and just... you can nyoom around by yourself in it.


Gauss shots bounce if the angle is shallow enough, IIRC.


Yeeeeah. Hunters are pretty powerful in Reach. I like it. Good Worm Boys deserve it.


I see you noticed that they do varying melee animations.


Ah, Fireteams. A weird mechanic they do absolutely nothing with...


I love how you absolutely failed to notice the cloaked elites running around in front of you while you were shooting down Banshees.


Re: Sharing the cool: Absolutely, it is a thing where often there's just One of Cool Stuff. However, Reach is still usually pretty good at giving you a bunch of cool stuff to play around with. It doesn't matter that only one person gets the Target Locator for instance, if someone's grabbing a sniper rifle, and there are often enough cool vehicles that there only being one of something isn't too bad.

...I'm mostly disappointed, to be honest, that this segment doesn't give you enough time with the Gauss Hog.


So! Halsey. Now is probably a good time to discuss the fact that of Noble team, only Jorge is one of the Spartan IIs that we've come to know and love. The rest of Noble are Spartan IIIs. Unlike the IIs, they were basically taken from orphans who all had a grudge against the Covenant. The quantity to the IIs quality, really. Rarely as good, and often taking heavy casualties... they were far, far cheaper to produce. While Noble team uses Mjolnir armour, the majority of the more expendable IIIs were in the far cheaper "Semi-Powered Infiltration" Armour, or SPI. Lacking the shielding and the majority of the augmentation enhancements, it does have chameleon properties, acting in many respects as a counterpart to the Covenant Active Camo.

Most importantly, rather than Halsey, the project was the brainchild of her rival, Colonel James Ackerson. So they have none of the "familial" loyalty that the IIs show Halsey.

Anyways, the purpose of the IIIs in Lore is elite cannon fodder, but in Reach they were bootstrapped into being a justification for "hey, yep, let's have a lot of Spartans here even though we canonized there are only 75 successful ones, and in teams of 3, so how would we justify 6 of them being here at once for a routine operation?"
(Hence why Noble wears Mjolnir. To give them that true Spartan gravitas.)


(Also, grumble grumble, not a good story. I have some words, missy... )

[LaZodiac]

I'll elaborate a bit more on it next video and as we go on most likely, but I'm sleep about this political **** waving contest Halsey is having with Noble 1 and Jorge. I'm here to watch the desperate attempt to save a planet from being glassed, not to watch a corrupt scientist nag me into saving data that we know the Covenant get their hands on, by my understanding.

Also thanks for the clarifications from both you and Raziere, it helps a lot! It also confirms what I was thinking; Jorge's subtitles says he's saying ma'am but he's definitely just calling her mom.

[Lord Raziere]

Whoa, Halsey is many things, but I wouldn't call her corrupt, she's kind of a big chunk of the reason why humans have MC and survive the war and thus save the galaxy in the first place. she's not a paragon of goodness, but she isn't taking bribes or anything.

[DataNinja]

I'll elaborate a bit more on it next video and as we go on most likely, but I'm sleep about this political **** waving contest Halsey is having with Noble 1 and Jorge. I'm here to watch the desperate attempt to save a planet from being glassed, not to watch a corrupt scientist nag me into saving data that we know the Covenant get their hands on, by my understanding.

Nah, I totally get it. It's definitely the most... eh part of things. Welcome to ONI. Where they just try and pull rank for self-importance while explaining themselves nada. It's infuriating to people in universe, but it doesn't make it any less annoying out of universe.

It doesn't really bother me in the end, but it does feel... a little unnecessary. You may feel more strongly about it than I, though.

Also thanks for the clarifications from both you and Raziere, it helps a lot! It also confirms what I was thinking; Jorge's subtitles says he's saying ma'am but he's definitely just calling her mom.

I'm pretty sure that's his accent, but absolutely I 100% thought the same thing until subtitles. And frankly it makes enough sense, because she pretty much is their mother figure. And, frankly, Bungie can't tell me otherwise.

[LaZodiac]

Whoa, Halsey is many things, but I wouldn't call her corrupt, she's kind of a big chunk of the reason why humans have MC and survive the war and thus save the galaxy in the first place. she's not a paragon of goodness, but she isn't taking bribes or anything.

Admittedly the "corrupt" comment is based purely on this initial meeting and my understanding that the Spartan's being kidnapped children is something she would know and have no moralistic qualms about. I'll likely change my opinion of her as we go and she's given a chance to do something that isn't "berate everyone for something they didn't know about, all while inside her self important protection bunker while everyone else died to death."

Nah, I totally get it. It's definitely the most... eh part of things. Welcome to ONI. Where they just try and pull rank for self-importance while explaining themselves nada. It's infuriating to people in universe, but it doesn't make it any less annoying out of universe.

It doesn't really bother me in the end, but it does feel... a little unnecessary. You may feel more strongly about it than I, though.


I'm pretty sure that's his accent, but absolutely I 100% thought the same thing until subtitles. And frankly it makes enough sense, because she pretty much is their mother figure. And, frankly, Bungie can't tell me otherwise.

Aw, Jorge is just a big mama's boy. Adorable.

[DataNinja]

Admittedly the "corrupt" comment is based purely on this initial meeting and my understanding that the Spartan's being kidnapped children is something she would know and have no moralistic qualms about.

...she didn't so much know as it was her idea.

[LaZodiac]

...she didn't so much know as it was her idea.

So we all agree that Halsey is EVIL, right?

[DataNinja]

So we all agree that Halsey is EVIL, right?

Oh, absolutely. Like... no questions about it. She is very… ends justify the means. What are 75 children to all of humanity? Except, oops, it totally wasn't about humanity, it was just about winning the civil war for one side.

You can almost forget about it when you read about how the Spartans look up to her. How she was one of their parental figures, and she cared. ...but then you remember she abducted these children. She may genuinely "care" about them, but... yeah. She was the one who put them in that position in the first place. So that zeroes out everything times a million.

Unfortunately, in later books... while she does get called out on stuff, it ends up feeling like just the author yelling at her rather than realistically how the characters doing it would react to her in-universe. Everyone just interjects thoughts randomly about "I hate Halsey" stuff, and it gets really annoying. And other characters do 180 character flips. Yaaaaay.

[LaZodiac]

Oh, absolutely. Like... no questions about it. She is very… ends justify the means. What are 75 children to all of humanity? Except, oops, it totally wasn't about humanity, it was just about winning the civil war for one side.

You can almost forget about it when you read about how the Spartans look up to her. How she was one of their parental figures, and she cared. ...but then you remember she abducted these children. She may genuinely "care" about them, but... yeah. She was the one who put them in that position in the first place. So that zeroes out everything times a million.

Unfortunately, in later books... while she does get called out on stuff, it ends up feeling like just the author yelling at her rather than realistically how the characters doing it would react to her in-universe. Everyone just interjects thoughts randomly about "I hate Halsey" stuff, and it gets really annoying. And other characters do 180 character flips. Yaaaaay.

The Halo novel writers, desperately realizing they have to make their fascist super soldier characters likeable in any way: ah **** oh jeez we gotta... make them hate their evil mom or something, quick!

People should hire me to write their stuff. We'll get some real traumatic pathos of knowing every single negative in your life stems from one person that you cannot help but feel affection for.

[DataNinja]

The Halo novel writers, desperately realizing they have to make their fascist super soldier characters likeable in any way: ah **** oh jeez we gotta... make them hate their evil mom or something, quick!

People should hire me to write their stuff. We'll get some real traumatic pathos of knowing every single negative in your life stems from one person that you cannot help but feel affection for.

Actually, they rather like Halsey... in most novels. Under competent writers. And most of the Spartans tend to come off as affable and likeable. They can't help their circumstances, and they're casual about attempting the impossible. They're not inhuman, though, and they have relevant human emotions. So it's easy to get more attached to them than, say, a Space Marine.

...so, I'm not usually one for railing against Authors, but it really seemed like when Karen Traviss moved from Star Wars to Halo, she changed her Mandalorian Love to Halsey Hate. And AAAAAAA. Please, woman. Just stick to writing about the clone troopers. I liked those novels for the most part.

So that tended to resolve in things like "oh, let's make the military guy who never raised a single objection and was basically the Spartan's dad figure call out how wrong this is, and how much he hates Halsey for doing that stuff, years after the fact, when he was complicit the entire time in everything." Kinda takes the bite out of everything when it happens that way.

[DataNinja]

...okay, I know I promised myself I wasn't going to go on a diatribe about Halsey, but... well, turns out having nothing to do at work gives you a lot of time to rattle things around in your head.

Tldr; Halsey is a bad person, a good character, and the writers have no idea what to do with the interesting stuff she brings forth.

Spoiler: A bad person.

Show

Catherine Halsey... best known for the Spartan program. Even just with that starting position, she's already clearly amoral. But she is the worst kind. The kind who can't be diverted from her path, because she believes she's right. And history has ended up accidentally justifying her. Well, "justifying," in that the human race would have been killed without the Spartans, in one way or another. But, nonetheless, it's an inexcusable act, intended only for the use in civil war, against people merely desiring freedom from Earth's control.

But that isn't the only thing she's done that people would look askance at. She was instrumental in helping create the newest generation of "smart" AIs (ones that can learn, like Cortana, rather than the "dumb" AIs that are unable to learn, like The Superintendent or Noble's Auntie Dot). ...however, she also included backdoors into them. In one of the novels, she overrode her own AI's ethics subroutine to accomplish her own goals. And later used a backdoor self-destruct program on both that same AI and another one who was in her way. (Not all AI have these backdoors, apparently, just "the ones that matter.")

And on that matter of AI? Smart AI are created by scanning the brain of a dead human, being based on their neural network. They can often get quirks from that, such as feeling the phantom sensation of a brush through their long hair. Halsey, though... well, it can't be done on a living human. So she had her own brain flash-cloned. Then used those to create her own AIs. Cortana is one of those. The one who had its ethics overwritten was another.

And, frankly, she just feels she can do whatever she wants, with no regard for others. She stole/kidnapped a mortally-wounded cryo-frozen Spartan in order to hope to be able to get some medical done and have a Spartan helper on one of her missions, for instance. And, as you've seen, prioritizes her own work above everything, and deemed the lives of civilians "irrelevant."

As an aside, Halsey's daughter went so far as to change her last name to her father's, and not speak to her mother for several years. That girl was Miranda Keyes (née Miranda Halsey). Oh, yeah, Halsey and Keyes had a brief relationship. I don't think that's ever brought up.

Spoiler: A good character.

Show

Despite all of this, though, she's a good character because she's an instigator. She does terrible things that turn out to have been necessary... though she did that with zero knowledge or ability to know that's how it would turn out. So that's a dichotomy that can be played with. She pushes the plot along, and the other characters can wrestle with dealing with the fact that this objectively terrible woman is solving things. She's important to the Spartans, being their mother figure, and that can drive conflict. So, there's lots of potential for drama here!

...well, in theory.

Spoiler: The writers have no idea what to do with her.

Show

In a lot of the early novels, it's mostly from either the Spartans or Halsey's perspective. So... things are coloured by that, writing-wise. So she mostly acts as a catalyst, or an antihero - pushing things along, but doing a lot of iffy things along the way.

...the later books (read: written post Halo Reach, so in 343i days... expect this qualifier a lot) seem to have all jumped on board the "Halsey is a terrible awful person and everyone hates her regardless of if it makes sense or not." It's obvious that she's not a good person, of course... but a lot of established characters just randomly decide to hate on Halsey. In a way that's annoying and throws you out of the story, because it really feels like the author wants you to know "she's a terrible person, y'all!"

So that's all she is now, really. A source of hate. Because they want her around, I guess, as a legacy character. And she's important, lore-wise, but... they just don't know what to do with her. So she's just become meddlesome and hated as her only traits. There's nothing interesting. No wrestling with dilemmas, or anything. Just "okay, war won, guess we can all suddenly hate Halsey now."

Sorry, rant over.

[Lord Raziere]

Well um....

huh Halsey seemed less horrible in my head, but when you guys put it like that....huh.

I dunno, for some reason I just don't feel all that strongly about her.

[DataNinja]

Well um....

huh Halsey seemed less horrible in my head, but when you guys put it like that....huh.

I dunno, for some reason I just don't feel all that strongly about her.

I mean, it's mostly because she's put very inoffensively whenever she comes up. The horrible things are kinda glossed over in the novels. You just get the supersoldier training with her as the mother figure. You see her in her best light, through her and the ones she shaped. You have her justifications to herself.

I know for me, I didn't really think much of it when I first read the books... I just wanted the hologram people and the supersoldiers.

It's only later on that the exact magnitude hit. "Wow, that was all kinds of messed up, wasn't it?"
(Doesn't help that the series kinda primes you to think of the Spartan as the unequivocal good guys, so clearly their past can't be that bad, right? It's all nice and shiny!)

[LaZodiac]

Well um....

huh Halsey seemed less horrible in my head, but when you guys put it like that....huh.

I dunno, for some reason I just don't feel all that strongly about her.

For reasons I cannot properly explain, the entire scene with her grated on me in this... "she is a Smarter Than You character and is berating you for failing" way, and it immediately put me off on her. We'll see if my opinion changes (be it positively or otherwise) or if it remains the same low grade annoyance at her condescension.

[DataNinja]

For reasons I cannot properly explain, the entire scene with her grated on me in this... "she is a Smarter Than You character and is berating you for failing" way, and it immediately put me off on her. We'll see if my opinion changes (be it positively or otherwise) or if it remains the same low grade annoyance at her condescension.

...no, no, that's a pretty good descriptor of her. She is self-important.




Although, uh, she is still somehow the lightest shade of black in the ONI spectrum of morality. So, take that as you will. The rest of them saw her sentimentality towards the Spartans as a weakness. And thought she shouldn't have shown them any kindness at all.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I think it is worth noting that while Halsey did create the Spartans to preempt a civil war, she created them as alternative to the existing plan: "overwhelming military action". ONI's working plan to prevent the civil war was invasions and orbital bombardments to crush the morale of the would-be rebels and their ability to wage war effectively. Halsey was opposed to that, and so created the Spartan II project as a more surgical tool, for eliminating/capturing strategic targets without collateral damage (which they actually do as their first mission, just before the Covenant encounters humanity for the first time).

She's utterly ruthless and mostly amoral, but unlike much of ONI, she's almost always working towards what she sees as the greater good instead of towards maintaining her own power.

On a different note, I think her meeting with Noble Team is also the first time she even realized Spartan IIIs existed.

[DataNinja]

I think it is worth noting that while Halsey did create the Spartans to preempt a civil war, she created them as alternative to the existing plan: "overwhelming military action". ONI's working plan to prevent the civil war was invasions and orbital bombardments to crush the morale of the would-be rebels and their ability to wage war effectively. Halsey was opposed to that, and so created the Spartan II project as a more surgical tool, for eliminating/capturing strategic targets without collateral damage (which they actually do as their first mission, just before the Covenant encounters humanity for the first time).

She's utterly ruthless and mostly amoral, but unlike much of ONI, she's almost always working towards what she sees as the greater good instead of towards maintaining her own power.

Yeah, as I mentioned in my edit, she's the lightest shade of ONI black. ...but that's still a horrible thing objectively. "Could be worse" still doesn't make a person much better.

On a different note, I think her meeting with Noble Team is also the first time she even realized Spartan IIIs existed.

Per the pre-Reach EU, yeah, this would be that, given it's earlier than the prior meeting point. However, given her nonchalance to them compared to her realization at Ackerson's everything in the novels, I assume it's probably safe to say that she was aware that they existed. Since the post-Reach EU seems to establish them as a bit more of a public operations (well "public"), rather than a completely black-ops unit.

(Reach kinda… screwed with the established EU continuity. Definitely made for a better game, though.)

[LaZodiac]

Shh, it's a sneaking mission today...

Zodi Plays: Halo Reach [3] Nightfall Down

Video Length: 27:57

In this one, we... well, do a sneaky mission. We've gotta find out where the Covenant base is on Reach, and we go looking for aliens to shoot until we just kinda meander into where the base is. Truthfully I have no idea how this happens, even listening to the dialogue it just seems like we kinda... randomly stumbled onto everything in this. If anyone could elucidate that'd be appreciated.

[DataNinja]

So, here's the gist of the mission: There's a Dark Zone on the planet. Where nothing electronic is able to penetrate. No satellites, no radar, nada. So, Noble's getting sent in to use the Good Old Mk 1 Eyeball to find out what's being hidden. Since it's obvious the Covenant is hiding something just not what's being hidden. It's a lot harder to pick up, though, since most of it's through the dialogue that isn't subtitled.

This is the conversation that plays immediately after the cutscene at the start with Jun ends.

Catherine-B320 (COM): "Recon Bravo, the sector ahead is dark to electronic surveillance."
Jun-A266 (COM): "Covenant can block our instruments?"
Catherine-B320 (COM): "So it would seem, and Command wants to know what they're hiding."

---

The "special rounds" are an explanation in-game for why you're able to go above the normal max cap with the starting rounds, but not with refills later.

Spoiler

Show

So, the "Godzillas" are Gúta, the largest indigenous fauna to Reach. These two are the only remnants of what were planned to appear elsewhere - resources were lacking, so concepts such as them as battlemounts, or with weapons, or the ability to chuck grenades in their mouth had to be cut.

This is thus the only place they appear in the game.

Ahahahahaha. I was wondering if you were gonna mention the Datapads. They're the lore thing for this game. Do not go for them. They're all a pain to get, and are tiny and easy to miss. There's one for Easy/Normal/Heroic, and one for Legendary. I never managed to stumble upon one in the regular course of the game.

Let me give you an example of one of the datapads (the one I always remember). The Legendary one for the first mission: You know when you approach the first house after the farmers, and there's mention of motion? That's actually there, on your tracker. It's a Skirmisher jumping away. If you're super fast, you can see it, and if you kill it, it drops the datapad.

You get one shot at it every time you play the mission.


The Battle Rifle is not in this game, I'm afraid. And, yeah. Conc rifle is really weak, but makes up for it with knockback and explosions. It's way better when used against cannon fodder - especially getting around Jackal shields. The knockback makes people in the air fairly helpless momentarily, and can even flip vehicles up to Warthog class! It is however better for the AI in Campaign, since disorienting and much faster fire.



See, this is another reason I compare Reach to ODST. Reach tends towards shorter levels, with a particular theme. Winter Contingency was very "vanilla", Sword Base gave you cool toys plus a variety of vehicles and allies, and now this Stealth Sniper mission.

[Lord Raziere]

I just watched Demon Slayer: Mugen Train and it was...beautiful. it deserves all the praise it gets. But now more Zodi.

Halo Reach Log 003:
I dunno, I can see just fine in this darkness.

yeah, this was a recon mission, which basically is "send this smaller force to wander around silently until they find something important"

would it be spoilers to tell you when you get your jetpacks?

yeah I like it when mobs go down all the same path so that I can shoot one after another in a conga line of death, which happens often in bethesda games.

[LaZodiac]

I just watched Demon Slayer: Mugen Train and it was...beautiful. it deserves all the praise it gets. But now more Zodi.

Halo Reach Log 003:
I dunno, I can see just fine in this darkness.

yeah, this was a recon mission, which basically is "send this smaller force to wander around silently until they find something important"

would it be spoilers to tell you when you get your jetpacks?

yeah I like it when mobs go down all the same path so that I can shoot one after another in a conga line of death, which happens often in bethesda games.

To each their own re darkness.

It would be, though I'll note we recorded two episodes this session

Everybody line up for your complimentary forehead perforation. It does the body good!

[DataNinja]

To each their own re darkness.

One thing that does help with night vision is that any still-living enemies get a faint green outline, making them a bit easier to pick out. ...but, yeah, visibility still varies.