Crackdown 2 (8/10)

Crackdown 2 boasts enough exploration-fueled action to entertain despite its many flaws.


Pacific City is under siege. Terrorized nightly by a legion of mutated monsters and daily by the rebellious Cell insurgents, this metropolis needs your help. As a superpowered law enforcement agent, you traverse the city with great leaps and subdue your enemies by any means necessary. Your abilities increase as you explore and complete objectives, bringing you new powers, guns, and vehicles. Sound familiar? If you played its predecessor, then you have a good idea of what's in store for you in Crackdown 2. This sequel retains the appeal of Crackdown while adding a few twists that help make things feel different. Yet none of these additions are terribly innovative, and there are plenty of issues with which to contend. The scant plot leaves the campaign devoid of momentum, and as you spend most of the game accomplishing the same handful of repetitive objectives, Crackdown 2's problems become more and more noticeable. Though almost every kind of fun you can have in this game is tainted by flaws, the fun of running amok as a supercop remains remarkably addictive, making Crackdown 2 an entertaining open-world romp.

Geographically speaking, this is the same Pacific City that players explored in the first Crackdown. It is still quite large and full of places to go, but time has not been kind to it. Buildings are crumbling, roadways are disrupted, and it generally feels like a more conflict-torn environment. The visuals are improved, and once again the cel-shaded outlines mix well with more realistic textures, creating a distinctive look. Yet Crackdown 2 looks grittier than its predecessor, and while the environments are richer and more complex, the effect isn't always good. Environmental details don't stand up well to close inspection, and explosions, of which there are many, don't look very good at all. Still, it is fun to explore the city and blow stuff up, and the absence of loading times makes doing both easy.

Exploration is one of the most entertaining parts of Crackdown 2, thanks largely to the liberal placements of attribute-boosting orbs throughout the city. Green agility orbs perch on rooftops, encouraging you to climb to new heights, while white hidden orbs reward curious and thorough explorers. Most orbs are stationary, but two new types of orbs flee from you, baiting you to give chase on foot or in a car. Every orb glows brightly, and once you've spotted one, it's very difficult to resist grabbing it. Collecting orbs is immensely satisfying, and there are hundreds of them scattered around the city. Whether you're leaping impossibly high or zooming around at unsafe speeds, it's easy to get caught up in an addictive orb-snatching binge.

The unpleasant reality of these binges is that, while leaping high into the air is exhilarating, climbing structures can be aggravating. The visuals can make it tough to tell what parts of a building you can grab on to and what parts you can't. After a while, you develop a good eye for the environment, but there is still the looming problem of Crackdown 2's inconsistent ledge detection. You will often jump at the side of a building to grab what you know to be a ledge, only to fall impotently to the ground many stories below. Or you'll climb a series of windows but inexplicably fail to grab the exact same kind of ledge from which you just jumped up. Sometimes your leaping skills allow you to regain your position easily, but the higher you climb, the more time and effort you stand to lose as a result of this flaw. This makes climbing tall buildings nerve-wracking; not just because it's tricky, but also because at any moment, you could fall victim to Crackdown 2's inconsistency and plummet to the earth.

Though it is aggravating, this problem isn't bad enough to ruin the appeal of exploration and orb collection, and there's a lot of fun to be had in just roaming around. The other collectibles to be found in Pacific City are audio logs. They come in a number of varieties and shed light on your enemy's agenda and other threats to public safety. These voiced snippets are the only substantial form of plot development in Crackdown 2, but they are few and far between. There is some mild plot intrigue, but unless you scour the city, the opening and closing cutscenes are pretty much all the plot you're going to get. Instead, you get a disembodied narrator who accompanies you wherever you go, who is initially helpful and somewhat amusing. But after a while, he starts to repeat himself and say things that aren't necessarily related to what you are doing. Then he becomes annoying and obtrusive, driving you to turn his voice off. Yet if you do shut him off, you'll also shut out the audio log voice-overs, which are actually worth a listen. You could manually switch the option every time you come across an audio log, but that's an inelegant solution to a bothersome issue.

Fortunately, there are plenty of bad guys to help you vent your frustration. The enemies arrayed against you come in two varieties. Your human enemies, the Cell, are dedicated to fighting you and your agency; your zombielike enemies, the Freaks, viciously slaughter anyone they see. At the outset of the game, you are told about both factions, assigned a few different combat-based objective types, and set loose in the city. Fighting men and monsters can be enjoyable while increasing your available arsenal and melee strength is rewarding. The deadly sticking power of the harpoon gun and the Jedi-like area effect of the UV shotgun are highlights, and the weapons you find in the environment can be just as fun. Bashing enemies with lampposts, bus stations, and park benches is an enjoyable way to flex your power, and throwing vehicles is an evergreen source of amusement.

At the same time, combat in Crackdown 2 is pretty simplistic. In the early going, you can shoot and punch your way through enemies fairly easily. And when the going gets tough, the tough jump around with a rocket launcher and duck behind buildings to regenerate health. Laying waste to lots of enemies is still inherently satisfying, as long as you don't get caught by knockdown attacks or explosions. Both cause you to rag doll and roll around limply for an annoying amount of time, leaving you powerless to defend yourself against repeated attacks. Ultimately, the problem with combat is that it is centered around repetitive objectives. You can only clear out so many Cell strongholds and Freak lairs before they begin to feel the same.

You can mix things up by driving around the city in any car you choose or by summoning an agency car at a drop point. The agency cars handle the best and have special abilities, making them the most fun, though other cars have radios installed so you can hear actual music while you drive. The cracked pavement can give you some trouble, but races, stunt rings, and renegade orbs provide good incentive to get behind the wheel. These objectives not only encourage you to broaden your exploration, they take you places that you wouldn't otherwise travel on foot. Just be ready for some trouble if you drive during the day. Pacific City's civilians think nothing of gathering en masse and wandering into the street in an effort to become roadkill and especially love to congregate on broad street corners. It's very difficult not to massacre civilians while driving, and violent police retaliation against you is the annoying result. Of course, police intervention is just another excuse to indulge in some superpowered mayhem, which is one of the chief pleasures the game offers.

The Crackdown 2 campaign can be played cooperatively over Xbox Live, letting up to four players romp around one city at a time. If you join a game, you can keep any orbs you grab or attributes you improve, though only the host keeps campaign-related progress. There are some bonus orbs that can only be collected with at least two players present, and there's more than enough opportunity for cooperative (or not so cooperative) fun to make teaming up worthwhile. Playing chicken in stolen trucks, punching your buddy off of a rooftop, or having a corpse-throwing contest are just some of the amusing activities you can improvise in this open world. The competitive multiplayer is not nearly as amusing, offering a paltry three modes that cover the basics (shoot each other, shoot the guy carrying the thing) but don't offer a particularly enjoyable or deep experience.

What Crackdown 2 does offer is a whole bunch of room to have fun. Exploring the vast city, grabbing orbs, pulling off stunts, and flexing your abilities can keep you entertained for hours, and it's even more enjoyable when you have some friends along to add their own sparks of diversion. The lack of a narrative makes the campaign feel directionless and repetitive, and the different flavors of action are all tainted in one way or another. This game doesn't significantly build on or vastly improve any of the features of its predecessor, so those with high hopes for a stellar sequel will be disappointed. Still, Crackdown 2's core action and appeal remain very strong, and there is great potential for cooperative mayhem, making this a fun stop on your summer videogame tour.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior (6/10)

Poor AI and insane difficulty gets between you and the sniping in Sniper: Ghost Warrior.


Snipers are some of the deadliest and most frustrating soldiers to deal with in shooters, so it's very appealing to be the one behind the scope in Sniper: Ghost Warrior. The trouble is that a lot of design miscues by developer City Interactive make it almost as aggravating to play a sniper here as it is to try to avoid the insta-kill headshots that snipers deal out as bad guys in other first-person shooters. Maddening difficulty, irritating enemy AI that hides its stupidity by being prescient, and terrible stealth mechanics make the game as annoying as a mosquito in your bedroom. Only good shooting mechanics, sharp jungle visuals, cool slow-mo camera effects that let you get up close and personal with bloody headshots, and somewhat promising multiplayer save the game from being a total disaster.

The story behind the Sniper: Ghost Warrior campaign deals with some kind of revolt in a banana republic. Details are sparse, with you being filled in on a need-to-know basis through brief orders from HQ during missions, but it seems like the bad guys have taken over this tropical paradise and the Yanks are on the way to restore order. Faster than you can say "Hey, that's just like what Reagan did with Grenada!" you've got your boots on the ground as a Ghost Warrior, an elite covert operative with a sniper rifle and a plan. Well, you've got to assume there's a plan behind all of it. You're never given the whole picture aside from random tidbits about drugs and a nuclear program, although you are handed out clear orders in the levels and sent off to kill various baddies, rescue captives, mark targets, secure data, and clear out bases. Objectives are also marked out with onscreen dots and a gauge that tracks distance from goals, so you can never get lost even in the densest jungle foliage.

Individual mission objectives are quite varied. While the majority of the game focuses on traditional sniper duties, like shooting sentries in the head via your telescopic sights, some levels mix in stealth and others deal with straight-out shooter carnage that is all about going to town with the budda-budda-budda stuff. At times, you bounce around to different parts of battlefields, seeing how fights play out from different angles. One moment, you're on a tower taking out enemy snipers to protect an incoming assault team. The next, you're part of that assault team, shooting up all and sundry. Levels feature lush jungles, ancient ruins, sandy beaches, and tin shacks, making your sniping exploits look a bit like clips from somebody's slides during an off-the-beaten-path vacation in Cuba. That's not to say that Sniper: Ghost Warrior is bleeding edge or anything, as there are some real rough edges, like extremely blocky shadows. Still, the game looks more than respectable, even featuring a slow-mo bullet cam whenever you make a headshot or kill two enemies with one pull of the trigger. An array of jungle noises and Spanish enemy chatter further build a Caribbean atmosphere, and really come to life in the living room if you've got a good 5.1 surround system, although the audio is marred by chintzy weapon sounds.

While the different styles of gameplay and scenic locales keep things fresh, nothing is pulled off particularly well. Regular sniper duties are the most enjoyable part of the game because they're straightforward and offer that peculiar shooter satisfaction that comes from turning an enemy's head into a red geyser from a mile away. You have to deal with wind, heart rate, breathing, and gravity as well, which adds a hint of realism to the action. Aiming is actually much easier in the Xbox 360 version of the game than it is in its PC counterpart. Although the sight jerks all over the place in tune with your breathing on the PC, here, the movements are more measured. You seem more like a real sniper and can make perfect headshots much of the time without breaking a sweat. Sneaking around remains annoying, however. The game tracks how hidden you are from prying eyes with a meter that clears when you're skulking through the jungle and climbs into the red when you're spotted by an enemy. It's a solid idea but poorly implemented. Cover isn't tracked well either. Sometimes you're spotted when you're buried in jungle; sometimes you're invisible behind a couple of weeds or a thin tree that even Paris Hilton couldn't hide behind. Even worse, you're often totally blind in the midst of a bunch of big green leaves while enemies can see you perfectly and fill you full of holes.

And then there are moments when Sniper: Ghost Warrior descends into utter stupidity. Much of the game is plagued by terrible enemy AI, which is most notable in the shoot-'em-up sections. Sentries freeze in place, get stuck running into walls and rocks, and sometimes pause for a good three Mississippis before shooting even when they have you dead to rights. But when they're smart, they're too smart. If one enemy is alerted, everybody often knows exactly where you are instantly. Allied AI is also bad, with squadmates that are absolutely worthless. They do little but stand out in the open firing shots that never seem to hit anything. Difficulty is all over the place. In numerous levels, you run into brick walls thanks to insanely hard sequences where you have to kill a bunch of targets in no more than a handful of seconds (at one point while on a raft bouncing around in choppy water) or one target with a perfect shot instantly. One level even ends with a ridiculous section where you have to run for a chopper while invisible enemies take shots at you; then, when you get through this deadly gauntlet, about a dozen enemies appear out of the brush out of nowhere to mow you down.

Many of these flaws are somewhat mitigated in multiplayer, where you don't have to deal with the AI issues or the crazy difficulty. The game's Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and VIP (one player is designated the VIP, which makes him a more valuable target) modes don't offer anything earth-shatteringly different from other shooters, but intricate maps with countless hidey holes and shadowy spots make matches intense, and the connections run fast and lag-free. You have to be aware of your surroundings because enemies are tough to see unless you've gained a good sniping position looking over the map. Even these locations don't allow for much camping because they're watched by experienced players and regularly cleared out with grenades. With that said, gameplay is an acquired taste and the learning curve is high. Until you learn the maps, you spend a lot of time getting gunned down by enemies you never even see. This seems to be scaring off some Live players, as there aren't too many people on the servers and it can take a while before team matches fill up. It's too bad there is no cooperative option here because being able to play sniper-and-spotter with a buddy through a campaign against AI enemies would seem to be the best multiplayer feature that a game like this could offer.

While Sniper: Ghost Warrior has a few pluses, they're hard to spot buried under the many design flaws that make the game one frustrating rumble in the jungle. It's awfully gratifying to line up a perfect kill and be rewarded with a bullet-time slow-mo sequence that shows what happened to the bad guy's head after you squeezed the trigger. But annoyances like the punitive stealth sequences, and insane difficulty spikes make the satisfying moments few and far between.

Mafia 2 (8/10)

Mafia II's exciting action and uncompromising mob story make for an impressive and violent adventure.


Vito Scaletta, Mafia II's conflicted leading man, does not lead an easy life. War, murder, and betrayal are common themes in his complex existence--the prices paid for booze, money, status, and sex. Like most aspiring made men, Vito knows the risks of his lifestyle, but the lure of earthly pleasures is too great to ignore. Mafia II, the game he stars in, is also an earthly pleasure, as well as a cerebral delight that any fan of great storytelling will revel in. The twisting narrative is almost certain to draw you in, and superb dialogue spoken by a talented voice cast brings the characters they portray to life. It's easy to get engrossed in this world of tenuous allegiances and pompous personalities, though there are a few oddities scattered about that may occasionally yank you back to reality. Most notably, Mafia II's detailed open city is curiously underutilized, giving you few reasons to explore it and providing precious little to do outside of the main story. Yet while Mafia II is not the fully featured open-world game it seems to be at a glance, the tremendous story, the fantastic action, and the lovely city overflowing with striking visual touches make for an exciting mob drama.

The story kicks off in 1945, and you meet Vito Scaletta, the son of Italian immigrants who, along with his smart-mouthed best friend Joe, seeks out the fastest ticket to a big fortune. The duo starts small: a jewelry store heist, black-market sales of gas coupons, working over some uncooperative dockworkers, and so on. Eventually, the stakes are raised, and Vito and Joe prove they've got the guts to whack a guy just because a mafioso with the moola tells them to. Vito's occasionally stoic, occasionally fiery demeanor makes him an excellent leading man. He and his cohorts are not Italian caricatures, but are thoughtful and (yes) moral men who adhere to principles that may seem barbaric to most people but provide a strict ethical framework within "the family." Mafia II never holds back when depicting this world's everyday violence. Whether the murder is a cold-blooded, no-questions-asked assignment or a vicious execution driven by Vito's seething rage, the killing is typically accompanied by copious spurts of blood and profane deathbed curses. Vito and Joe are showered with hedonistic rewards--alcohol, women, even houses--and never delude themselves with a greater purpose. At one point, Vito reminds Joe why they do what they do: to have stuff. And you have to appreciate his honesty.

But of course, a life of crime has consequences, and a few plot twists ensure that Vito is intimately aware of them. Allegiances change, underhanded intentions are exposed, and eventually, the macho duo find themselves in over their heads. Vito asks his associate Henry if he has ever considered getting out of the business, and Henry responds that this life is a part of who he is. This excellent dialogue expresses Vito's dilemma in a nutshell; his moral compass demands he rise above his reckless behavior before it's too late to turn back, yet mob life is increasingly irresistible. Every line of dialogue sounds authentic while still always driving story and character, and there are even subtle and satisfying winks to the audience. (Joe's remark about how Vito's diet must help him heal so quickly is one such delightful reference.) The pressure builds in the final chapter, only for a somewhat unfulfilling conclusion to turn down the heat. The ending is thematically consistent in a game that depicts a difficult lifestyle that comes with cruel consequences. Yet too many story threads and emotional strands go unresolved for the finale to feel particularly satisfying.

Empire City plays a supporting role in Mafia II, rather than taking center stage. That isn't to say it isn't a beautiful place to roam, however. The game's initial chapters take place in the winter of 1945, when the streets are coated with snow, and ladies in overcoats stroll with gentlemen sporting fedoras and chain-smoking cigarettes. This first act seems as if it were lifted from a Norman Rockwell painting and represents an idealistic wartime America. The radio spouts gasoline conservation propaganda declaring that "when you ride alone, you ride with Hitler," while black-market ration coupons provide organized crime syndicates yet another source of income. As you drive a variety of old-timey vehicles about the town, it's hard not to notice all sorts of pitch-perfect visual details--the couple struggling to get their dead car started, the way the snow that accumulated on your vehicle's trunk slips away in the wind, the lamps hanging above the street in Chinatown. It's a United States as imagined through old Life magazine photos: a memory you don't have, but one that you wish you did.

The clock eventually ticks forward to 1951, and the visual touches transform but are no less impressive. Pink flamingos now bedazzle your pal Joe's apartment, and the bulbous vehicles get a little more streamlined. The radio announcers aren't concerned with carpooling but rather with recent scientific studies suggesting that smoking might be hazardous to your health. The music you hear on car radios changes as well, from Frank Loesser standards to hits from The Monotones and Rusty Draper. The music is evocative, but much of it is anachronistic; many of the tunes you hear didn't exist until six or seven years after the time period portrayed in the game, which is an odd blemish in a game so concerned with meticulous period detail. But Mafia II nevertheless layers on the fine points. Rain showers cast a gloomy pall over the later, more violent missions. Screeching to a halt in a speeding convertible produces a cloud of dark smoke. The creaking of bedsprings betrays a nearby couple's intimacy. There are some minor differences here and there, but the game looks and sounds fantastic regardless of which version you buy.

It's with this explorable world that Mafia II commits its most egregious crime, however: Empire City goes largely underutilized. As with almost any open-world game, you can make your own fun (get the cops on your tail and then engage in a shoot-out) and pursue a few side activities (collect Playboy magazines and view the centerfolds in all their naked glory). Otherwise, you simply move from one story mission to the next without following any tangents along the way. There are no side missions to take. You can sell vehicles, but there isn't much to do with the funds you earn. You can buy new clothing from the freaky-looking, unblinking shopkeeper, but there aren't a lot of outfits to pick up. You can buy guns, but because your enemies drop ammo and a healthy variety of weaponry, there's no reason to ever visit the weapon shop. You can pick up one of the pay phones marked on your minimap, but unless the mission demands it, there is never anyone to call. This is essentially a linear, story-focused game that happens to take place in a big, beautiful city that incessantly teases you with potential never brought to fruition. If you're a PlayStation 3 owner, you'll be glad for the free day-one downloadable content (The Betrayal of Jimmy) that puts you into the shoes of another character and sends you off on a series of timed side missions. It's excellent, action-packed stuff, but it also underlines how limited Mafia II feels in the company of games like Just cause 2 and GTA 4, which put their big worlds to good use.

The good news is that the missions are generally excellent and emphasize Mafia II's three pillars of gameplay: shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and stealth. The shooting is similar to what you would find in a third-person cover shooter. Most encounters are best tackled by sliding into cover behind a wall or under a window and popping out to blast away at your potty-mouthed enemies with a tommy gun, or peeking out long enough to lodge a bullet in your foe's brain with a Magnum. A great sense of weight, powerful sound effects, and convincing animations make shoot-outs incredibly satisfying, and your enemies put up a tough fight. Memorable shoot-outs occur in a Chinese restaurant, in a hotel bar and hallways, and in a meat-packing plant. These are thrilling sequences made even more exciting by the destructible environments; glass flies everywhere, boxes providing cover may splinter, and vehicles explode, which gives the action just the right amount of chaos. Outstanding orchestral swells in the soundtrack, and scripted events like sprinklers going off and fires spreading through the building, contribute to the tension. The only downside to the gunplay is the need to press a button to extricate yourself from cover. This is the most minor of quibbles in standard gunfights, but it's a bigger nuisance in a boss fight of sorts in a dock warehouse, during which you may wish you could move out of cover with greater ease.

Your fists also do some damage in Mafia II. Hand-to-hand combat is simple, but as with the shooting, great animations and potent sound effects give one-on-one brawls a great sense of impact. You land light and strong jabs, block incoming strikes, and finish off your opponent with a ferocious series of slow-motion punches. Smartly, the missions requiring you to flex your muscles in this manner are those in which Vito has a particularly personal stake, such as in a confrontation with an unfaithful husband. The camera pulls in close and might obscure your view during some of these encounters, but the outcome of your fight won't likely be affected by this bit of clumsiness. Not every mission requires brute force, however: you get a few chances to sneak your way to success, using the cover system to your advantage and choking unsuspecting victims from behind. You can even drag bodies and hide them where you hope they won't be seen. It's too bad there are so few opportunities to put your stealth techniques to good use, but it's hard not to appreciate how fully fleshed out this element is. In fact, it's a wonder that all three of these ingredients--the shooting, the melee action, and the stealth--feel absolutely complete and never half-baked.

It's unfortunate that you don't do more of those things in Mafia II. You spend more time driving from one place to the next, often only to trigger a cutscene, rather than to engage in some of these action-packed activities. Luckily, the vehicles strike a good balance between feeling authentic and being fun to drive. The driving in the original Mafia often felt like a chore rather than a pleasure. Fortunately, the sequel's vehicles are speedier and handle better (it's a few decades later, after all), and the police no longer pull you over for running a red light. They will, however, be none too pleased if you roar past the speed limit. You can lose them, pay a fine or bribe them, or resist arrest. If you've run over a pedestrian, robbed a jewelry store, or committed some other serious offense, the cops even set up blockades, though if you're chased down, it's not usually too difficult to shoot your way out of a bind. Or for the easy way out, lose the cops and change clothes, or steal a new vehicle.

If you aren't driving to and fro, you may instead be loading some crates, selling contraband smokes, cleaning a men's room urinal, or mopping up a puddle. The story offers good reasons for these tasks, but they're as thrilling as they sound. Yet while some undertakings might have you longing for Mafia II to deliver more action, the context granted by the story gives some of these mundane jobs an intriguing sense of urgency. A drive to the doctor's house may not seem all that interesting, but it is when you believe someone's life is on the line. Cleaning a window with a squeegee isn't all that electrifying, but it feels a lot more tense when you know an explosive turn of events is imminent. A few car chases with Joe hanging out the window taking shots at your target help speed up the pace. You might run into some weird annoyances during these vehicle-focused sections, however; the cops could arrest the driver you're discreetly following if he collides with a police car, for example, which ends the mission through no fault of your own.

Mafia II is an excellent return of a franchise with great promise. Vito and his associates are memorable characters in a city bursting with subtle visual details and violent undertones. The story pulls no punches, neither glorifying nor demeaning the difficult lives its protagonists lead--just presenting them with brutal honesty and letting you reach your own conclusions. After the 15-or-so hours it might take you to gun through Vito's story, it's hard not to come away with the sense that there should have been more to do in this beautiful city. Yet while you might be disappointed with what Mafia II doesn'tdo, it's hard to be disappointed by what this excellent game does do: deliver fun shoot-outs and pockets of shocking brutality in a world you're delighted to be a part of.

Halo Reach (10/10)

Halo: Reach is the culmination of the superlative combat, sensational multiplayer, and seamless online integration that are the hallmarks of this superb series.

Before the discovery and destruction of an ancient alien ringworld, before a teeming parasitic enemy threatened Earth, before a soldier called John-117 made a new name for himself, humanity fought to defend the planet Reach. And though Halo: Reach is a prequel to all the Halo games that have come before, it represents the evolutionary pinnacle of the series. From the expertly tuned combat to the expansive level design and from the innovative online integration to the robust creation tools, all the pillars of Halo's success are in top form here, tied together seamlessly by an elegant and intuitive menu system. While the core mechanics remain very familiar, invigorating new elements and extensive customization options make it so there are more ways to enjoy yourself than ever. Halo: Reach is one of the most fully featured games on consoles today, and it's also one of the best.

One of the first things you notice about Halo: Reach is the refined menu system. In addition to presenting the main gameplay modes, the main menu displays the status of your friends who are playing Reach and allows you to peruse their service records and invite them to your party with ease. Entering a mode, tweaking options, and starting up a match is an effortless process, and your party members can come with you almost everywhere you go. The interface allows you to easily explore game types, customization tools, and user-created content without getting swamped or overwhelmed. It's remarkable that everything is this easily accessible, because Halo: Reach is absolutely packed with great content.

Halo campaigns have traditionally had epic aspirations, and Halo: Reach is no different. Whether you play solo or cooperatively with up to four players, you play as the newest member of Noble team. Your first mission is to investigate a distress signal in a rural mountainous area, and it's no surprise when the source of the distress turns out to be the Covenant. Small skirmishes and reconnaissance missions soon escalate to all-out war as humanity tries to repel the alien invaders. Anyone familiar with the Halo canon knows how that one ends, but it's thrilling to be a part of Noble team's efforts. You undertake missions of increasingly crucial strategic importance, and this urgency is conveyed without any reliance on previous Halo knowledge. Instead, the characters you interact with help set the tone, and your squadmates have unique personalities that go a long way toward keeping you emotionally invested in the action. There are some cliches and a few cheap moments, but the story successfully channels the forthright heroism of soldiers who are committed to their cause. This earnest appeal makes Halo: Reach's campaign one of the most satisfying in the series.

The campaign also benefits from great pacing and a cohesive sense of place. The slow burn of the early levels explodes into frenetic large-scale conflict, and some good dramatic turns and an engrossing musical score keep the pace from fizzling out as the game builds toward a climactic ending. Your missions take you through a rich array of environments, from rural farming communities to high-country military outposts and from dry, rocky steppes to battered city streets. Throughout these diverse locations, the mountainous geography of Reach remains a constant presence that helps you connect with the land you are fighting to defend. Levels are often expansive, offering stunning views and allowing for some nice gameplay diversity. In addition to a number of classic vehicles that still handle marvelously, there are a few new rides that provide some kicks of their own. There's also a space-faring first for the series, and though this sequence is a bit shallow, it doesn't overstay its welcome and features some gorgeous orbital vistas.

The campaign provides excitement aplenty, and adding some friends to the mix makes it even more enjoyable. Picking your own routes through the battlefield is more exciting when you know your buddies are doing it too, and it leads to some great moments of teamwork, both planned and unexpected. Though the friendly AI is generally harmless, it has trouble when it comes to driving, so you're better off driving yourself or trusting a friend behind the wheel. If you want to spice things up a bit, you can keep score individually or as a team, using skulls (now found in an options screen rather than hidden in levels) to modify battlefield conditions and boost your scoring potential. And if you don't have any friends available to join you, the online campaign matchmaking can easily set you up with squadmates. These options, along with the stellar core action, the excellent level design, and the well-balanced difficulty levels, make this great campaign supremely replayable.

Back after a very successful debut in Halo: ODST, the Firefight mode once again offers up to four players an arena to take on increasingly difficult waves of Covenant enemies. This is largely the same addictively entertaining experience, though it now boasts full online matchmaking support. Frantically fighting off hordes of enemies is as exciting and satisfying as ever, and the new maps and gameplay variants offer many different ways to enjoy this mode. You can take on a tougher challenge by choosing to defend generators in addition to killing Covenant or add a bit of levity by fighting hordes of grunts that fling confetti into the air when you shoot them in the head. You can even have some players play as Elites and try to thwart the remaining Spartans. If you want to tweak one of the built-in variants or create something entirely different, the extensive game options let you customize the makeup and toughness of each enemy wave, the weapons and shields available to you, the strength of gravity, and a lot more. It's a lot of fun to mess around with these options and see what you can come up with, and if you're not the tailoring type, you can easily download user-created variants by browsing popular variants or searching for keywords.

Extensive customization options are also available in competitive multiplayer. In the Custom Game mode, you can tweak the conditions of any game type beyond recognition or use subtle changes to spice things up. As in previous Halo games, the possibilities here are vast, and the intuitive interface makes them all easily accessible. Competitive matchmaking is once again a standout in Halo: Reach. Before you jump in, you can tweak a few variables in your psych profile to indicate that you prefer team players to lone wolves or want to avoid chatty teammates. It was hard to gauge the effectiveness of this system at the time of review, but just having such a system in a prominent location bodes well for being able to find an agreeable crowd with which to play.

Though there are just six competitive multiplayer lobbies, a revamped voting system lets you choose from a few different maps or variants, potentially turning your Team Slayer game into Team SWAT. This built-in variation may irk some purists who don't want their Slayer game to turn into a Mongoose race, but it's a great way to build in some variety without spreading the player base between too many lobbies. There's also a ranked arena that functions as a competitive league, assigning players a ranking based on their performance while cycling through discrete blocks of time called seasons. And, there's a new objective-based mode called Invasion that pits Spartans against Elites, challenging one team to capture a series of positions and abscond with a valuable item. The progressive structure is a nice change of pace, though ultimately, it's just another way to enjoy the best part of the game: combat.

Halo: Reach continues the series' tradition of superlative combat and movement mechanics. This consistency isn't likely to excite those who have disliked Halo in the past, but those who have enjoyed it before have a new twist to contend with in the form of armor abilities. These special abilities operate on a cooldown timer and grant players a specific power that can give them an edge in combat. Whether it's a quick burst of speed to close the distance between you and an enemy or a jetpack that grants you the power of limited flight, these abilities add an intriguing new tactical element. Active camouflage aids in stealthy maneuvers, while armor lock can help you survive a grenade explosion that is too close to evade. And while the advantages of being able to create a running decoy of yourself may seem obvious, deploying the decoy effectively is another matter.

When these abilities are in play, they change the every-soldier-is-equal dynamic that has long defined Halo multiplayer, but they do it in a very specific and knowable way. Once you see your opponent tumble laterally in an evade maneuver, you know exactly what kind of ability you are dealing with (at least, you do until he respawns). Rather than creating an imbalance in the battlefield, these armor abilities enrich combat and offer even seasoned Halo veterans new ways to flex their strategic muscle. They also go hand in hand with the concept of loadouts. Rather than always spawning every player with identical equipment, Halo: Reach often lets players choose which guns and armor ability they want to equip, sometimes offering new loadouts as the match progresses. The ability to change loadouts can cause strategic shifts in the battlefield, forcing players to reevaluate their combat options, and figuring out the many tactical possibilities of each armor ability is an engaging challenge. These invigorating new elements inject a new energy into one of the traditional strengths of the series, making Halo: Reach's competitive multiplayer better than ever.

Doing well in online multiplayer, the offline campaign, and most other gameplay modes earns you credits that can be used to buy new, strictly cosmetic armor pieces for your Spartan. It can also earn you progress toward commendations and daily or weekly challenges, which in turn earn you more credits, a higher ranking, and of course bragging rights. Your service record displays your Halo stats and accomplishments to anyone who cares to look, and the Theater lets you capture a screenshot or video clip of any moment that you care to show off. Halo: Reach automatically saves your recent matches regardless of what mode you play, and watching replays is a lot of fun even if you don't care to preserve them for posterity. Recording clips, taking screens, recommending them to your friends, and uploading them to your file share is as easy as ever, and the only real drawback to the Theater is that you can't bring any party members along with you.

You can, however, bring friends with you into Forge, the amazing editing sandbox that gives you astonishing creation powers. There are nine Forge-able maps, including the massive Forge World, and they are all at your mercy. From building a brand new level structure to tailoring an existing one to fit your unique game variants and from stacking absurd quantities of objects on top of each other to engaging in all-out vehicular mayhem, Forge ranks among the most impressive and versatile creation studios available on consoles today. And even if your interest in Forge is limited to spelling your name in the sky with traffic cones, you can't help but be excited by the possibilities. Since its introduction in Halo 3, the Forge community has generated a lot of clever, exciting, and downright fun content, and Halo: Reach promises to continue this trend into the foreseeable future.

Halo: Reach is not only brimming with excellent content, but it's also bursting with possibilities. The exciting campaign, addictive Firefight mode, and dynamic competitive multiplayer make it one of the best shooters around. The extensive customization options, powerful Theater tools, and staggering Forge capabilities make it one of the most malleable and socially engaging games on consoles. And the slick menu system brings it all together with remarkable simplicity. Though its deep roots may not win over those who haven't enjoyed previous games in the series, Halo: Reach is a towering achievement that delivers an enormous amount of engaging content that players will no doubt be enjoying for years to come.