Before you answer please consider this. I have never been a fan of Halo on xbox live. I loved the campaigns, but I played Halo 2 online for about 2 weeks before I moved on and never touched it again. Halo 3 only lasted me about a week after I finished the campaign. I didn't even bother with ODST. For whatever reason, I was just not able to get into any of those games' multiplayer components.

However, many years ago there existed a basement. In this basement there were two identical rooms. Each room contained 2 couches, 2 big screen TVs, 2 xboxes, 2 copies of Halo, and 8 controllers. This basement is where some of my greatest memories of video gaming were created.

Playing the original Halo with a large group of people, (10-16) with each team getting their own room, was a phenomenal experience for me, especially when Halo was a brand new thing. We would get together about once every week or two and just have these epic battles that raged on throughout the night. For me, those were the glory days of Halo.

Sorry if I am starting to ramble on, but my question is this: Should I buy Halo Reach? Is the single player alone worth buying it for? Is the multiplayer good enough to make me forget that I will most likely never be able to replicate my Halo 1 experience? How is it different from Halo 3? Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Totally. You can run this time. Awsome graphics. Good gameplay!

I never played Halo 1 or 2. I did a little bit of Halo 3, but not much. I bought Reach recently and I have to say the campaign isn't amazing, but it's pretty awesome.

Forge world is pretty cool, but takes some patience. Firefight is awesome with all the customization. Matchmaking is fun and isn't very annoying like games like BC2 and CoD, being that nothing is overpowered because everyone starts out essentially the same. This is mostly the same as Halo 3, but Reach tweaked a few things.

Melee now only and always takes out the shield first, so there aren't anymore moments where two people are shooting at each other, and one uses melee to score that cheap pummel through the last of your shield.

No more dual wielding, which isn't essential in any way but it opens up use for the new armor abilities. The armor abilities are a bit of a slight changer, as you don't know what your enemy has up his sleeve in a firefight.

Elites are now gametype specific, because they now act like actual elites. This being that their shields are larger, their health regenerates, and they have access to the Evade (barrel roll...) ability.

Oh, and your health doesn't regenerate. Your shield goes down and your open for death unless you find a health pack after a fight.

Sorry if this wasn't much help at all... it's 11 o' clock and I'm about to go to bed.

I'll improve of Pig said, most of what he said is accurate.

Firstly, if you enjoyed Halo: CE then you'll enjoy Reach's aiming system, as it's very much similar in terms of the original Halo.

However, given armor abilities and a new selection of weapons/vehicles, the game play will be at least 75% different if not more. Though if I must say, it's vastly different then any Halo multiplayer as of date, it requires a completely new strategic approach then any of it's predecessors. I've noticed for one thing, it actually requires more group effort to succeed.

The campaign will lead you straight into Halo: CE's campaign, so if you're big on the story.. you'll very much enjoy the campaign. Though as said above, given the new game elements it is a 100% different approach to the actual campaign game play.

Forge is amazing, hands down. Reach has so many features I wish Halo 3's forge option had. If you're a creative individual then you'll have a very high output of respect for the map editor. As a plus, you're also given a huge canvas to build upon, with a enormous amount of stuff to build with. The budget's a lot larger then Halo 3's as well.

As Pig said, you're Health is very much similar to Halo: CE's. Health Packs are necessary. However, your health can actually regenerate if you've only lost 3 bars. If you've lost less then 3 bars then it will not regenerate at all, and at that point you'll need a health pack. It's an interesting approach to be honest. Say 2 people are battling it out and they both have full shields but one has weaker health. If they both deplete each others shields at the same time, then the guy with less health will die first. Think of the shield as armor, and your health as.. you're health.

There's loadouts in Reach. Each loadout having a different armor ability attached to it. Depending on your game type, loadouts may have different weapons also.

I think Halo: Reach is an amazing game, but I've been with Bungie from day 1 with the start of their flash games, to Marathon, to their anime ONI games, and then to the Halo series. There hasn't been any game I've disliked to be honest.