So… the Halo: Reach(henceforth H:R) Multiplayer Beta started Monday. Now, when it started it was… rough to say the least. The servers were up and down like a pogo stick. Even when the servers were up it could take 20-30 minutes to find a game. After some heroic work by the folks over at Bungie things smoothed out quite a bit. Now, the Beta is running incredibly smoothly and the first day headaches seem to have been cleared up.

First things first, for all the Halo fans out there who, like me, got tired of Halo 3 and moved on to other games your prayers have been answered. H:R has everything we loved about the previous games, and has fixed most of the glaring issues. I’m actually having an incredible time playing Halo again. I even don’t mind playing objective game types(CTF, Stockpile, KotH, etc).

The New Weapons:

Thats right. The awesome Magnum pistol from Halo 1 has returned. It works fairly well in close quarters out to medium range. It really shines though is in Team Swat games. Headshots halfway across the map with the pistol? Easily done. It also works great after you’ve taken someone’s shield out. Get that headshot in and they are going down. I’ve been trying to spend a lot of time playing with just this as I can see it becoming a very good “go to” weapon for all around carnage.

The Battle Rifle from Halo 3 has been replaced by the DMR(Designated Marksman Rifle) and honestly… I love it. It’s a great medium to long range single shot semi-automatic weapon. This is not the weapon you want for close combat as it is virtually useless at short range. This is the other weapon you are given in Team Swat games and is truly almost sniper rifle accurate. Overall this is a great evolution of the Battle Rifle. It took a little while to get used to, but now that I’ve got the hang of it it is really a great weapon.

The Needle Rifle is the Covenant equivalent of the DMR. Another single shot semi-automatic medium to long range weapon. Again, this weapon is horrible at close range. Overall though this is another very good addition to the Halo arsenal.

The Grenade Launcher… it does just what it sounds like. It launches frag grenades and has a single shot before you need to reload. It takes a few times using it to really get used to how it works, but once you do it can be quite a powerful weapon.

The Plasma Launcher is the Covenant equivalent of the grenade launcher. Due to the Covenant’s superior technology though… it’s much much better. It shoots out those pretty blue-white plasma grenades… up to four at a time. However, unlike the grenade launcher these grenades track you and then stick to you before they explode. Yes, you read that right. This weapon is extremely high powered and can seriously screw up a teams well laid plans. Luckily, this gun has a very limited power supply as it would otherwise be very overpowered.

[ Focus Rifle image will go here when I grab one]

The Focus Rifle is a revamp of the old Covenant sniper rifle and it is a major change.  Instead of single beams when you pull the trigger like sniper rifle bullets you now get a focused beam(hence the name Focus Rifle). The beam lasts as long as you pull the trigger. This is a good weapon for just about any range. It can be used at short range but it isn’t great. At medium range the weapon is quite powerful. Following an enemy and keeping him in the beam is quite easy. It does a very good amount of damage and works equally well against players and enemies alike.

The Old Weapons Revamped:

The Sniper Rifle. (Different than the Halo 3 sniper, and in my opinion… much better.)

The Assault Rifle.

The Needler.

The Rockets.

The Shotgun. (Much better than the Halo 3 shotgun. You can’t kill someone from a mile away anymore with it.)

The Plasma Rifle.

The Armor Abilities:

Bungie has introduced new Armor Abilities which allow your armor to do some pretty sweet stuff. When I first heard of these I thought they would be extremely unbalancing and over powered, however they have implemented them in such a way that they just seem a natural extension of what the MJOLNIR armor should be able to do. In flag game types  if you are carrying a flag you cannot use your armor ability or you will drop the flag, in the same way that you can’t throw grenades or use your weapon. This was my main concern when I first saw the abilities and their solution is simple, but works great.

Armor Lock makes you completely invulnerable to any damage while you keep the ability active. This ability really shines when you have a teammate close by to finish off the person you are fighting. If you are by yourself and need to use this, you are most likely dead. People have quickly learned to back off when someone uses this as you can come out of it quickly and kill someone if they are too close to you.

The jet pack gives you the ability to fly. This has quickly become my favorite of the armor abilities, especially on Sword Base(A multi-level asymmetrical map similar to Boarding Action from the original Halo). It allows you to fly until the ability runs out of energy but be careful… fall damage is back. You can easily fly high enough that you drop to your death if you run out of energy.

The Sprint armor ability is exactly what it sounds like. It allows you to run very quickly for a short while. Very good to get to a flag first, or get your butt out of a highly dangerous situation at speed.

The Active Camo armor ability is again, just what it sounds like. It allows you to become invisible. One great thing that Bungie did to this ability to make it usable, but also not completely broken is that the faster you move, the more visible you become. If you are standing still you are pretty much completely invisible, but if you start to run you become more visible and use more of the energy. An useful ability to get in to areas and definitely great on King of the Hill games. You can hide in a hill almost completely unseen.

The elite armor ability, which I really like, is the evasive maneuvers. You know all that cool dodging and crap elites get to do in the campaign? Well, you can do it in multiplayer now. It’s very great to get your ass out of hot water.

My thoughts on the beta:

Well, it’s awesome. As I said earlier, I’m having a ton of fun playing Halo again. I recently played Halo 3 to try and get back in to the feel of Halo and realized… it’s just not fun for me anymore. But starting out playing H:R I was just happy to be playing Halo again. The game feels like a natural evolution of the Halo experience and when Bungie said they pushed the system to it’s limits with this… I feel they are completely on the mark. It’s beautiful. The controls are very responsive and the game just feels well put together. And this is just the Beta.

Currently there are only three choices of playlist. Arena, Grab Bag and Free for All. The Arena playlist is all slayer all the time. You get rated on your performance and once you’ve played enough games you get put in to an arena bracket. I believe there are four(Onyx, Gold, Silver, Bronze) but I haven’t played enough to get put in a bracket yet so I don’t know. I’m enjoying the arena games but I’ve mostly been playing a lot of Grab Bag. Grab Bag is a whole slew of 4v4 game types including various CTF, oddball, King of the Hill, and slayer game types. One of the new CTF variants they have added is Stockpile. In this game type there are multiple flags spread throughout the map and each team has a collection point. Your goal is to gather flags in to your collection point and every minute they are collected. First team to 10 flags collected wins. It’s a really fun game type… but I keep playing it over and over and over again. Come on fellow beta players… vote for some new games! Free for all is just what it says. Eight player free for all game types. Lots of fun and extremely hectic. Great fun… but I’m more of a team player so I haven’t played too much of this.

Currently there are only two maps available to play, Sword Base and Powerhouse. So far, I really like both. I can’t wait to get some more maps though. Hurry up Bungie!!

Overall… I’m extremely happy with what the H:R Beta is showing me. Bungie has truly stepped up and gotten this one right. If you were ever a Halo fan I recommend going out right now and buying Halo: ODST so that you too can participate in the beta. Not only is it a truly great time, but you get a nifty little avatar shirt letting the whole XBox Live world know you got to participate. If you are in the beta and were wondering how to get it, you need to also have Halo: Waypoint installed and you get it from there. I hope Bungie gets the new map and game types put up quickly so that I can get some good time in on those, and I’ll update this with my feelings on them once they are available for play.

I have yet to find any glaring issues with the Beta(No extremely overpowered weapons, no weapons that seem useless, etc). So far the map designs seem well thought out without any major faults. The armor abilities and new weapons all seem to be well balanced and useful in the proper situations. I haven’t found any one load out that is useful in all situations, which is as it should be. The entire multiplayer experience seems very polished and darn near ready for release. I am betting it only gets better once the actual game is released.

My final thought on Halo: Reach… I for one will definitely be picking up Halo: Reach when it is released this fall and you should too.

Update(To add things I forgot to talk about or that are new since my original review)

One major thing that has changed from Halo 3 is how the game type is decided. In H3 you were given a single choice and you either accepted it or vetoed it. This was a major gripe I had with the matchmaking system. A lot of times you would veto a game only to have the exact same game on a different map, when what you truly wanted was a different game and map. In H:R you are given four choices and the players vote on them. Three of those choices are different game types and maps. The fourth choice is “None of the Above”. This system has really changed what types of games I play. I’ll see interesting game types and map choices and vote on them as opposed to just being stuck with what random choice the game decides I want to play.

So Bungie flipped the switch on the Invasion playlist. I have to say, this has quickly become my favorite playlist. Invasion is 6v6 Spartan’s vs Elites. The goal of the main game type is for the Elites to disable two sets of energy shields and then steal a navigational core from the Spartan base. The Spartans have to stop them. Currently the playlist is set up to only have a single round so for each game you play as only the Spartans or the Elite. They have stated that in the final release the game will do multiple rounds so that you play as both races in a single game. You can also choose “Invasion Slayer” while voting which gives you a 6 on 6 slayer battle to 100 kills. One interesting thing Bungie has done is instead of having two large teams of 6 you have what they are calling “fire teams” which are 2 person teams. Each side gets 3 fire teams. One of the mechanics that the fire team model works very well for is the choosing of spawn points while playing. There are set spawn points within the level that you can choose from, but you can also choose to spawn on your fire teammate. However, if your teammate decides to quit(or is disconnected) then you are stuck with the level spawn points. I don’t know if it will be that way in the final game but it really is quite a pain. I’ve spent many a game running from the spawn points to the action taking place halfway across the map. The fire team model may seem confusing, but just think of it as every person gets  a partner. The fire teams are not their own teams. While each pairing gets their own color and team name they work together. In Invasion Slayer all three fire teams scores are added together for the team score.

The Invasion playlist also came with a new map. Boneyard. It is by far the biggest multiplayer map Bungie has ever made… and it is awesome. It is just huge. But, the size of the map is offset by one of the great features of Invasion. In the regular game type each phase(marked by the objectives the Covenant must complete) brings with it new player loadouts and adds vehicles to the map. In Invasion Slayer there are territories that each side tries to capture. Whichever side captures the territory gets a weapon or vehicle drop(depending on how long the game has been going on). It takes 10 seconds to capture each territory and then 15 seconds after capture the drop occurs(with markers on the map and times on those markers). This provides a very interesting dynamic to the game. I’ve seen many games where the Spartans will let the Covenant capture a territory and then pick them off for the drop before it occurs so that they can get the Covenant weapons and vehicles.

Overall, I’m still loving the beta. It’s a great evolution of the Halo gameplay and I am sure plenty of Halo fans will be buying this and truly enjoying it come fall.