at://jaystevens.me/social.popfeed.feed.review/3lzkanabsqs2o

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{
  "$type": "social.popfeed.feed.review",
  "containsSpoilers": true,
  "createdAt": "2025-09-24T00:51:38.998Z",
  "creativeWorkType": "video_game",
  "facets": [],
  "identifiers": {
    "igdbId": "990"
  },
  "isRevisit": true,
  "rating": 8,
  "reviewText": "(Trying out this Popfeed thing!)\n\nWatched a friend play Halo: Reach for her first time a couple weeks ago, as her first-ever Halo game.\n\nSeeing that brought me back to waiting at the midnight releases for both Halo 3 and Halo Reach (and I have the cat helmet/statue to prove it).\n\nBack when Reach came out, I remember thinking it was a big step back from Halo 3. Something about it just felt... off. Everything looked gritty, the abilities just didn't play as well as the equipment from Halo 3, and I remember disliking the campaign quite a bit.\n\nSeeing it again 15 years later (through the eyes of someone else's first Halo game), a lot of my criticisms kind of hold up - but others less so.\n\nMy friend only ever used the Sprint (and Jetpack) abilities because the at-the-time-derided sprint is just industry standard now. I still don't think I'm a fan of the artstyle when compared to other Halo games.\n\nThe story is... fine. I enjoyed it more this time, and it was fun watching my friend build a relationship with Noble Team. There are some elements I still feel are out of place, some sections which go on for like 2-3 encounters too long, and so on.\n\nI will say, working as a professional dev nowadays I can usually see the seams in games. That little bit of exposure as to how the sausage is made kind of makes artifacts of the game-making process shine through in most games. Not so much in Reach - there was one case where an AI spawned in a wall (lol) but honestly it looked great at a technical level and I never felt like I could at-a-glance understand what was happening under the hood. Everything seemed fluid and immersive.\n\nThe gunplay is as good as ever, and I am reminded why Halo is my favorite shooter of all time (we ignore everything that came out after Reach). Honestly had a great time watching this nostalgia hit.",
  "tags": [
    "Favorite",
    "Genre-Defining",
    "Must-Play",
    "Immersive",
    "Good Gunplay"
  ]
}