After over a year, I decided to put Halo: Reach back into the XBOX and see what it's like compared to Halo 4. I first checked the H4 population before doing the switch. About 19,545 players were active on H4 when I switched Discs, Reach had about 21,000 players roughly. I started playing a couple of matches of Team Slayer and started to enjoy the game, I immediately noticed that Reach plays overall a lot slower then H4. H4 matches seem like an andrealine rush, seeming to last very quickly. The gameplay from 4 was also more reckless, simply charging forward screaming your opponents name before you likely die, very little retreating and tactics. Reach on the other hand seemed to pack much longer matches, which in the end held more options. Whilst in most situations in 4 you would be unable to back out of a fight. Reach gave you some opportunity to step back, throw a grenade, reload, and step back into the fight. You could retreat altogether and find a new method of attack. I managed to pick up the DMR a few times and was quite taken aback by the bloom, H4's M395 DMR was consider OP due to its high accuracy, you could literally fire that DMR at your maximum rate and still be able to hit your target nearly every time. Reach's M392 DMR was far less accurate. That's when skill came in, as I shifted into the BTB matches for a couple, I slowed down my pacing, waiting for the reticle to settle before firing the next shot. Allowing me to keep the fire on enemy players without having to get descoped, and it felt very satisfying to get those longer distance kills without retaliation. Then the vehicles were far better in Reach, my first BTB match made me quit due to the enemy team decimating us with Gauss Warthogs, Splasers and the Wraith. With little in the way of plasma grenades to stop them. Almost all Halo 4 vehicles are near useless except the Mantis and Banshee. But proberly the most curious thing was the sounds. The Rocket Launcher actually sounded like a proper Halo Rocket Launcher rather then the insane sound 4's rocket gives off for example. So, it leaves me to think, what do Halo players want Halo XB1 to be most similar to? 2? 3? Reach? 4? Me? Reach, I never played H2 multiplayer and the only good thing about CE was massive maps. H3 seemed a little... Naked or thin to me, not enough to keep it interesting. H4 was basically overweight with content that soured its performance. Reach though seems to have the best balance of the old and the new, the only thing we need is dual-wielding and it would be perfect. Discuss.
Halo CE. Mostly because of its sandbox. Put the Halo CE sandbox into any other Halo game and it instantly becomes a much better game. There are good things from the other games too, though. I'd like to see a ranking system as effective as Halo 2's, playlist organization similar to Halo 3's, the custom options of Reach, and the hit detection of Halo 4. Put that all together and you have one hell of a good game.
I do feel like Reach was the strongest due to the sheer scope of what was offered for all things multiplayer and forging. It's a shame people couldn't looks past things like bloom or AA's to see how solid it really was.