Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta Preview

Words by: Ivan Cronyn | Posted on: Wednesday 21st April, 2010 | Filed under: Features, Previews.

My hands are sweaty and I can’t stop them shaking. I’m nervous and my pulse is racing. Yet I walk down Oxford Street in the sun with a smile on my face. I want to stop strangers in the street and tell them the good news; I have seen the light and it is Halo: Reach!

On 3rd May 2010, anyone with a copy of Halo 3: ODST will be able to participate in a multiplayer beta of Halo: Reach, the latest in the best-selling Halo series from Bungie and Microsoft. Earlier this week Xboxer360 was lucky enough to be invited to a hands-on press preview of the beta. Yes, I played Halo: Reach multiplayer for two hours.

The first thing I need to emphasise is that the game is still definitely Halo. Journalists all over the Intertubes will be writing today about how Halo: Reach borrows from other shooters; at the press event I heard the names “Modern Warfare”, “Battlefield”, and “Tribes” bandied about. They’ll write about how load-outs and armour abilities (see below) are just Modern Warfare classes and perks with a different name, about how the jet pack is “just like Tribes”, and about how similar the Invasion game-type is to the popular Battlefield games. This is all true, but not one of these games plays like Halo. Only in Halo do I forget that I am using a controller. Only in Halo do I feel the thump of a grenade as I leap away from it, then the burn as my shield goes down. Only in Halo do hours of fierce competition condense into “thirty seconds of fun”, repeated in infinite variety. Only in Halo do I feel the need to refer to my opponent as a [********] [********] piece of [********] [********] who deserves to be [********] and [********] (CONTENT REDACTED. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE – EDITOR).

My hands are shaking again.

The New

New to Halo: Reach is the DMR, the Designated Marksman Rifle. This replacement to the Battle Rifle is a medium to long-range weapon, great for headshots, designed to take out snipers. I liked it – it has a very similar feeling to the Battle Rifle – four shots to the body, one shot to the head – BLAM!

Elites have been changed substantially. They’re bigger, tougher and faster, so most of the game-types will be restricted to Spartans only.

Also new are armour abilities, these are persistent but have a recharge time. Spartans get to sprint and Elites get to evade, diving into a roll. Active Camo, Armour Lock (a personal invulnerable shield, producing an EMP blast when it collapses) and Jet Packs also feature. Jet Packs provide a boost, sending you soaring into the air for several seconds.  It’s an amazing feeling, and it reminded me of parachuting or hang-gliding. Unfortunately, it turns out that what goes up must come down. It also turns out that flying people are bullet magnets.

I’d read about load-outs before, but hadn’t appreciated how much they would change things. Every game-type has a set of pre-configured load-outs, very much like dynamic classes. Every time you respawn you get to choose a new load-out, which means that each multi-player match features players using a range of different weapons, grenades and armour abilities. Rushing across a map to get the rocket launcher or sword will still be important, but gone will be the days that every game starts with a rush for one of the two Battle Rifles. Experienced teams will be able to coordinate their load-outs, combining their armour abilities and weapons strategically. Another interesting feature of load-outs is that they can change during the course of a game. Some game-types start with only two load-outs, with additional options offered as the game progresses.

The Missing

Dual-wielding is gone. The addition of armour abilities and loadouts added complexity to Halo: Reach, and Bungie decided that the combat needed simplifying. So you only get to use one weapon at a time.

The SMG is gone, as is the Battle Rifle. According to Bungie the DMR (see above) is intended to be a replacement for the Battle Rifle, and they didn’t want two weapons in the game that do the same thing. Without dual-wielding (again, see above) the SMG is just a poor Assault Rifle, so that had to go too.

Gone too is invulnerability from falling. Fall from a medium height and you’ll be stunned, fall from higher up and you’re dead. This is especially important to bear in mind when using the jet-pack. Like Icarus I must have flown too close to the sun. I hit the ground like a sack of meat.

The Maps and Game-Types

Four maps will be included in the beta, Powerhouse, Swordbase, Overlook and Boneyard. Powerhouse and Swordbase support all major game types, while Overlook and Boneyard will be playable only in the Generator Defense and Invasion game-types. Generator Defense and Invasion are both attack/defend scenarios, Spartans defending and Elites attacking. Generator Defense may not make it into the final game, and Bungie are treating the game-type as a network test. Invasion is played on Boneyard, the biggest Halo multiplayer map ever created, and features several phases and vehicle combat.

I especially enjoyed Swordbase, probably because of its vertical nature. It’s a series of bridges and walkways across and around a central atrium, with Man Cannons at the bottom. The action was fast and furious and concentrated in the atrium. Powerhouse was also fun, a mainly outdoor map set in a hydro-electric power station. I found out that it has a cliff by falling into it.

Kill You Later

My time is up, and I haven’t even mentioned all the new match-making features like active roster, queue joining, social settings and the improved veto system. I haven’t even told you about the Arena, and how it will change the way you think of competitive Halo gaming. I haven’t mentioned game-types like Headhunter, where you kill enemies for their skulls, and Capture The Flag variants like Stockpile. There isn’t even any time to tell you about the Grenade Launcher (aka the Pro Tube), the Covenant Focus Rifle or the Plasma Launcher.

But I’ll show you what an Assassination is when I stab you in the throat on May 3rd, when the beta opens.

About Ivan Cronyn

Ivan is an occasional contributor to Xboxer360. He writes software for "the hedge fund that shall not be named", and is working on a novel and an Indie game. He plays very loud electric guitar, rather badly. He prefers first person shooters and RPGs, and avoids strategy games and MMORPGs; he considers Age of Empires and Asheron's Call to be "hard to put down" in the same sense that crack cocaine is "moreish". Ivan doesn't remember anything between August 1990 and February 1992. Twitter: @cronyn

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