I have to completely disagree with: [quote][The story] was still well written and the music superb.[/quote] Let's start with the concept of the fall of Reach - the day that changed everything in the Human-Covenant war as one of the last strongholds of humanity, the birthplace of the Spartan-IIs, was eradicated. At what point was any of this [i]actually[/i] felt, beyond maybe New Alexandria and Lone Wolf? A great deal of emphasis in the ViDocs and Weekly Updates was put on the new technology for this game allowing up to 60 AI and 20/40 vehicles on-screen at a time, which [i]really[/i] would have supported the theme of a planet under seige. The first sign that this was crumbling into the ground for me was a [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5tJfoR8nqI]video at PAX[/url] in 2010 where Bungie showed off things in the game that didn't make the final cut or were merely used as concepts. At 1:17 into the video, you'll see 'Global Battle' show up, with a Spartan atop a building seeing a Longsword crash in plain view while a Scarab is dropped from orbit and buildings begin to collapse all around you while the Scarab uleashes hell on the player. Then at 1:33 you'll see another global battle with a UNSC Frigate and several Covenant vessels dominating the scene, surrounded by a vast barren landscape littered with Covenant AA-turrets, flanked by Wraiths, as an all-out assault with Warthogs, Pelicans, Ghosts, Banshees, Hornets (etc) all participating in this chaotic, meandering battle. This was accomplished as an interactive gameplay segment with the Halo 3 engine. This appears in Reach at the start of Tip of the Spear on a much [i]smaller[/i] scale as a minute-long cutscene... I don't want to call it false advertising since they said that much of these things didn't make it into the game, and that's a major failure for Reach's campaign. First time I saw that video, I got goosebumps, it was like the Halo 2 E3 2003 Demo all over again for me, it captured the kind of scale we'd never seen in a Halo game before and the ViDocs showed off all this new technology that could handle all of these things - as an upgrade from Halo 3's engine, how could it not when Halo 3's engine was able to handle it? Yet it completely failed to deliver. [url=http://www.halopedia.org/images/4/46/Warthog_Rough.jpg]This[/url] is what you see instead, and it's all so far off in the background you're never in-deep with the action. You're very much stuck on a more linear path where everything is broken up into sections, which heavily contradicts with the principle of Reach [i]feeling[/i] like a planet rather than just a series of staged environments. So yes, we can certainly attribute expectation to be a factor in this, but it ultimately comes down to falsely advertising the power of the engine in the game. The only level which is even close to the global battles in that video is New Alexandria. Other levels felt overly linear, ironically the ones that were the most linear were Tip of the Spear and Exodus, which appeared to have the largest environments. The campaign level design was disappointing because its potential hadn't been met, ODST managed to capture scale with much more finesse than Reach - take the ONI Alpha Site mission for example where you're in the thick of an all-out battle in the courtyard, under fire from multiple Wraiths and Phantoms while Hunters and Chieftains charge after you. Yes, ODST was linear in structure too, but overall the battles you were actually in during the flashback sequences captured scale beautifully - especially Kikowani Station where you fly through much of the city in a Banshee. But enough about that, let's talk about the plot. There wasn't one, not until the end of The Package at least. When we finally [i]did[/i] get a 'plot', it was so contrived and horribly done it just came off as an artificial attempt to inject the 'nostalgia factor' into the minds of the players by shoehorning in Captain Keyes, Halsey and Cortana. They [i]never[/i] felt like they were actually relevant to anything and this represents a divergence away from the central concept of the game - the fall of Reach. This was utterly abandoned, it became about a race to the Autumn to deliver Cortana to the Autumn because she had... [i]something[/i], something which was never actually explained. Then the concept of the fall of Reach was convoluted further by showing it completely revived just 30 years later, it felt incredibly unrealistic from a narrative perspective and was (like much of what happened in the game) completely contrived. Reach was about [i]sacrifice[/i], the sacrifice that Noble Team made, the sacrifice that the Savannah made, the illustration of the fact that all the sacrifices in the world couldn't halt the Covenant juggernaut from demolishing the planet. The Epilogue scene should have depicted the planet still glassed rather than magically revived, and this is the point where people will come in and say "well look at it from a symbolic perspective". Well, I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, since we're getting it presented in a [i]literal[/i] and canonical way rather than as an abstract possibility that can make it an interpretation rather than fact. So let's conclude on the characters, since I've gone on for quite some time now. The only character who was even remotely interesting was Kat; Jorge had potential but he was just a copypasta of Kurt from Ghosts of Onyx, and he died like half way into the game. Everyone else was bland, sterile and one-dimensional. I never felt anything for Noble Team, there was no history explored. Bungie said that they wanted to deliver a "human story" (Marcus Lehto's EXACT words) with this game... SO WHY MAKE THE PROTAGONISTS SPARTANS? Not only that, but why Spartan-IIIs? Reach is the home of the Spartan-IIs, the IIIs are totally irrelevant at this point in the story, and it's worsened by the deliberate canonical breaches that resulted in the creation of these archetypes. They seldom actualy reacted to anything around them, the only time they did was when Halsey was around - and that was twice for a grand total of 5 minutes in the game. Did Bungie not pay any attention to what they did best in ODST? Their narrative method in that game was flawless, absolutely masterful in the way they drew direct inspiration from classical literature like Dante's Divine Comedy and the film-noir genre to create a compelling, fractured story. The characterisation was told through the music and the atmosphere for the Rookie, we heard what he felt which allowed the player to project themselves into him by drawing on our emotions as we played through the game. The Rookie was a conduit, an open suit for the player due to having absolutely no established backstory beyond the fact his occupation (ODST) and birthplace. The rest was done well with the squad banter, cringetacular at times but still there and it showed a lot about the characters we were dealing with. Seeing things from THEIR perspective for half the game was a major way of developing them each and ultimately made me care about them. The music in Reach did [i]not[/i] support the atmospere in most level IMO, there were the occasional gems like the start of New Alexandria and Lone Wolf which are still amazing, but beyond that there wasn't much - nothing even close on a scale from 1 to ODST. Why weren't Six and Kat friends? They were both from S-III Beta Company, why wasn't there any meaningful interaction between these two characters who would have grown up together? How about a scene where Kat is torn between going to save Six or Carter and throughout the game we see flashbacks to both her time on Onyx with Six and her time in Noble Team with Carter. This kind of thing would show a great deal of character development, as well as getting the player emotionally involved and wondering what happens next. The story of Noble Team is devoid of substance. I've prattled on for a long time now and I salute you if you have read this far, these are just my collected thoughts on the issue and I hope I've been somewhat informative on various aspects of Reach's campaign.