Yeah, sure, this is dropping the day the Beta dies, but we wanted to be thorough. Or something. Besides, you know you're sitting there lamenting the fact that you're going to have to play something else from now until September. Personally, I'm thinking about taking a four-month vacation from gaming entirely. TDrag's got the lead. LB and I are just along for the ride.
Two Ranks and a Rookie take on the Halo: Reach Beta
“So, got five beta codes for Halo. Who wants to suck my dick?” ~ Doodirock
I’m not sure how LB and Drost got their beta access, but I waited a few extra days until the public beta went live with my Halo: ODST disk. We’ve played it. We’ve discussed what we like and don’t like. We’ve compiled our impressions from our three different perspectives toward the Halo franchise for you to enjoy.
But, before we share our thoughts, let me introduce our players. If there’s one thing I know about Halo – it’s that stats mean everything. To give you a flavor of our gaming styles, here are our reviewers' Halo Bios and Halo: Reach beta stats:
Drost, “The Angry Competitor”
Halo: CE was the second game I bought for my original Xbox after Madden 2003. Madden got traded in so I could buy more controllers to plug in so as to memorize all the spawn points on Hang 'Em High and Prisoner. My friends and I LANed the hell out of that game. Halo 2 birthed Profanity and our subsequent joining of 2o2p. It was my first 2o2p ladder experience that forged me into the competitive jackass Halo player I am today. We thought we were all right, but we got whipped by F1R3 and some others from OMM (at the time). After that, it was full-on competition mode. I got into MLG-type playing, learned to BXR/BXB/RRX, even tried playing at an MLG event, and was never the same after that. I fully expect to beat the crap out of the other team, even in social settings. No one likes to play with me, and I don't blame them. Learn your fucking call outs, noobs.
LB, “The Social Slayer”
Like the "Angry Competitor" my first sip of the Halo Kool-Aid came from Halo:CE. A buddy of mine got the Xbox and said I need to try this Halo game. I had played Quake and Doom in the past so I thought "why not?" I went over to his place around 7 pm and left his house at 5 am and my eyes bleeding. I have been hooked every since. I enjoy the competitive side of the game, but after 20 or 30 games straight of it, I don't mind switching things up to larger maps with vehicles. It's a nice change of pace to break from my clannies screaming at me (Drost/Chibby, Die in a fire asshats!) for not having perfect call outs every second of game play.
As of the writing of the article I have nearly 400 games played on the beta, over 4400 games played on H3 and over 13,000 games played on H2.
TDrag, “The Fucking Noob”
I’ve played all the Halo games starting in 2003 when I bought the original Xbox. I loved playing Halo: CE in the mini-LANS Dean and I would hold among friends. When I bought an Xbox 360 and started to really evolve into a more multiplayer-focused gamer, the Halo franchise never quite stuck with me. I’d play the campaigns and a few weeks of multiplayer, but I’d always return to some other multiplayer game where my social network was more established or my playing skills were more adept.
Even though I’ve never considered myself a “Halo Player”, I’m always attracted to the new Halo releases as they lead up to launch. Nobody can ignore Bungie’s approach to game development or how they’ve fostered and grown the Halo community to the machine it is today. With each new release, I think that THIS will be the Halo game where I finally start to love the franchise. As I share my thoughts on the Halo: Reach beta, we’ll see if I’ll stay true to pattern, or if Reach will finally turn me into a Halo player.
Now that you know your 2old2play Reach beta hosts, let’s break this game down from start-to-finish.
The Lobby System
The Social Slayer says...
Just like previous Halo titles, Bungie takes the next step in lobby advancement. You still have the typical workings of a Halo lobby, invite friends, set lobby limits for total number of people and choose friends/invite only/open for access to others. But now you can see your friends that are online playing Reach while you are in setting up your lobby. You do not have to use the Xbox navigation blades to search your friends list. If they are on your friends list and playing Reach, they show up. One draw back is FoF (friends of friends) lists are a second level of interaction, so you will still have to use the Xbox function to check out if anyone else is online. Also if your buddies are in a game with someone not on your friends list they only show up as occupying a spot in your buddies' lobby, not who they are. So if you are trying to see if that douche you are trying to avoid is playing with your buddy, you are just going to have to send a message to them over live to find out who they are playing with.
Visually the lobby is really nice. Well, as nice as a lobby can be without pictures of tits in the background, but they get an “A” in my book for looks anyway.
Your veto option has now been replaced by a vote option for the map/game type in the pregame lobby. This is pretty awesome, you get multiple choices of game types and maps to choose to play. One of the drawbacks you have is you start with a default choice of the top option, so if you are checking out your l337 stats from the previous game or decking your spartan out in the latest accessory fashions you could be stuck playing that god forsaken 1 flag CTF game on power house and sword base. Die in a fire playlist dude at Bungie for putting that steaming pile of corn filled shit in the grab bag playlist. God help you if I head up to Kirkland and find you in a dark corner!
The Fucking Noob says...
I love this lobby. It pisses me off that other game developers can't swallow their egos and just copy (be inspired by?) Bungie's innovative, socially-focused lobby. The "join party" feature that allows you to enter a queue to join a friend's game is perfect. Players just need to be cognizant of setting their rooms to invite-only if they don't want any old fucking noob joining in to their competitive games and cramping their style. I also wish the lobby showed FoF level of interaction from Halo 3 so that I could avoid douchebags...Douchebags that are angry...and ultra-competitive. They make me nervous.
The Angry Competitor says...
What's not to love about the lobby, really? It's the next iteration of the Halo 2 lobby, a lobby which still hasn't been bested by any other live game not named Halo something-or-other. I love that I don't have to use the Xbox button to bounce out to the blades (as that totally fucks up the "flow" of the game). Again, Bungie seems to understand that integrating these kinds of make-it-easy-for-the-players features into their game UI is a much better (and faster) option than using the standard MicroSoft crap.
What has me most excited about the lobby isn't actually there yet, but it's suggested. Remember when you first got onto Reach and it asked you which Friends list you'd like to use, and there was just one option -- your XBL friends list? Well, duh, you had to pick that one. There are no other kinds of lists. But the fact that they're giving you the option seems to suggest to me that Clans are indeed going to be making a return. If not clans, then some kind of system whereby you're able to sort your friends list, which amounts to the same thing. I'm betting on Clans. Make sure your East coast members get on in a hurry and get your clan name.
About the only thing that annoys me about the lobby is that you're unable to see who's in other parties with your friends. I need to know who those people are before I start spamming for invites.
I suppose this is also where you'd talk about "voting." How fucking sweet is this? No more will you have to endure 15 minutes of wasted game time to one of your most hated gametypes. Again, why hasn't someone done this in a console game before? Seems obvious.
I'm also sorry Tara feels like she has to avoid people like me. Sad face.
Gameplay Mechanics
The Social Slayer says...
For a Beta the mechanics are pretty damn good. You still have a little bump here and there in the geometry of the map, but it is far and few between the times you run into it. The accuracy of the weapons is very good and are spot on for your distance weapons. You need to learn to pace your weapons especially at distance. If you go full retard and just jam that trigger as fast as you can your aim will suffer and you will probably end up losing the fight.
Fall damage is back, but it is not really too much of a hindrance on your health level. What is way more fucking annoying is you are temporarily stunned from a large drop. So if you find yourself in the position of trying to chase down the asshat that just took your flag and you are at the top of Swordbase wanting to drop down in on your pray like bird of prey looking to gank his dinner, you are going to find yourself “stuck in the mud” for a few seconds while screeming at your Spartan to get the fuck going.
Vehicles seem to be more sluggish in the Beta, even more so then in H3.
Grenades/Stickies. Lets just say you do not want to be trapped inside a room or a dead end corner and have the other guys loob these spheres of death your way. They are pretty damn powerful and can take your out pretty damn quick. The visuals of the fuse being lit and the “tink-tink-tink” of the nade bouncing of of walls/floor/ceiling are great, with the accompanying BBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!! (yes it is a much louder explosion then in previous Halos) causing your man/woman parts to jiggle from your subwoofer!
Jumping is still a big part to the Halo game play, but you cannot jump as high as you did in H3. Some people would complain about this during game play, but it is part of Halo. I would agree with other though that they do need to increase the height of the current jump. Remember you are a biologically enhanced human with heightened strength and stamina, I should be able to jump up to a wall that is 4 feet tall.
The Fucking Noob says...
I go full retard and jam triggers. I like stickies.
Most of the tweaks that some of the hardcore players might complain about, I welcome. I like that jumping is bitched. I'd rather see variety in gameplay than the same ole' nade/shoot/jump routine. I do get tired of the duels where each player empties an AR clip and follows up with a melee only to both be killed. It's simply unsatisfying and inefficient. I like my quick kills in CoD. Perhaps that why I enjoy the SWAT game variant that most noobs would probably shun.
One of my favorite upgrades is the increased audio depth. There's a lot less pew-pew-pew and a lot more BOOM! It still doesn't have the raw feel of CoD - but it's outer space shit, so I'll give it a pass based on improvement.
The Angry Competitor says...
I'm going to sound like I'm picking on Tara, but I'm not. The thing I like about Halo games is the fact that just because someone gets the drop on me, they don't get to immediately win the fight. Killing someone in CoD is easy. Point. Shoot. Dead. Some noob who's just bought the game, day one, has a pretty good chance of killing someone who's a level 10 prestige. A day 1 Halo player is not going to take out a lvl 50 Halo player without the divine intervention of a sniper round or a rocket. That makes sense to me. Killing someone in Halo, in absence of the power weapons, is difficult, which is where differences in skill at the game are rewarded.
That said, I do wish they'd left things at the theoretical four-shot-kill threshold. Five shots gets tedious sometimes, and it opens the fight for more random shenanigans. I'm sure they did this to slow the game down, perhaps because of the implementation of things like sprint, but there was never anything wrong with the pace of the game in the first place. Fast enough to change momentum, slow enough to have tactical, chess-like battles between teams. Still, it still feels like a Halo game, so it's not entirely broken.
As far as "game mechanics" go specifically, I like that I feel like strafing is back. In Halo 3, it always felt like Chief had an extra quarter-hitch in his strafing. The movement was not precise enough, especially in comparison to Halo 2. Amongst competitive players, sometimes you live and die by the stafe. In Halo 3, it just didn't work properly.
Which leads me into reticle bloom. That is a new game mechanic, the theory of which is something like, the faster you fire, the more innacurate the weapon becomes. I'm not sure how that figures into the fiction. Fictionally, you have a 1,000 pound (armored) super soldier who's been genetically enhanced to be faster, smarter and stronger, while additionally having those biological abilities further enhanced by the amplifying power of the armor itself. I'm thinking recoil and precision are going to be somewhat mitigated by those traits. Bloom? Gimmie a break. It's hard enough keeping your goddamn reticle on your target without making the weapon itself go squirrely on you. I don't see the point. Technically, I guess it's the same mechanic as making the weapon only fire so fast, but at least that sort of makes sense.
From a basic control standpoint, this is a Halo game. The controls are fluid. The button layouts make sense. You can generally hit what you're aiming at. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. As for the reduced jumping height... whatever. I don't give a shit how high he can jump. In the long run, that has little effect on the outcome of a match. Be happy that you can jump.
What else? Ah, the new radar. On the one hand, I like that it's evolved. You can now determine whether they're above you, below you or incoming. That said, I still hate the goddamn radar. I'm used to playing without it, and to me, it's just a distraction that often times baits me into over-pursuing, which isn't a good habit to get into.
New Gametypes
The Social Slayer says...
I am liking pretty much all the new gametypes. They are a great change of pace and combine some of the existing gametypes into one new game type. One flag ctf is the exception to this and it is more the maps that have to do with it than the gametype itself. As of now this gametype sucks giant donkey dong. The defending team spawns near two big time power weapons and has the advantage of limited entry points. Some will say, "well dumbass you just are not using the right strat." Bullshit, I know the strats and the strats only work on other people who do not know the strats. If you know the strats then the game turns into a session of intense masochistic back and forth. I'd rather put my johnson on a hot anvil, slam it with a 10 lbs sledgehammer, then pour half a gallon of salted lemon juice on it ... F.U. 1 flag ctf on Powerhouse and Swordbase!!
I prefer the pro version of slayer. I like starting with a DMR over that pos AR any day of the week. Plus the limited load outs put more necessity on team shooting and team work (which I really like). I am the objective type guy on the team, my slayer skills are below average (well, below average for my clan anyway), so I do not mind dying a billion times if I can move the flag/hold the ball/ get time in the hill for my team to win.
Slayer Covy is a lot of fun, rolling around like a pinball in a pinball machine is good stuff, while the hole time saying "wort wort wort wort."
I hated swat in H3 because of the randomness of "yeah that headshot killed that guy, but that headshot did not." For some reason in the beta the game seems to record my headshots better (maybe because of the lack to bullet spread or something, but I have no idea why), so I am enjoying it much better. Plus there is something very satisfying sprinting into a dude looking down a hallway and taking him out with a Donkey Punch.
Invasion is fun now that they have evened out the starting load outs. A good amount of the people I played with did not like Invasion cause they could not win when they were the Elites, but I was about 50/50 of wins and losses as an elite. My advice to them was to turn down the suck and have some fun with it.
I only played a few games of Headhunter and I think this gametype has potential as a comp game, but as a free for all game it is just a giant cluster fuck and the usual winner is the dude just vulturing for skulls.
Stockpile is a great "strat" game that can be won by more then one play style. I prefer it on Powerhouse then I do on Swordbase due to the fact of less chances of the "dude just sitting in your base with the shottie" start.
The Fucking Noob says...
I will pay LB to abuse his Johnson if it means I never have to play CTF again.
I prefer plain ole' death matches in any shooter which is why I spent most of my time in the Arena. I like all the variants of death match games - SWAT, Pro, Covy, Invasion, SvE. They're all fun. I especially enjoy the addition of the evade with the elites. There's a touch of a Gears of War feeling to rolling around. Objectives games are...not so fun. I wanted to quit the game where I got the flag and I had four people yelling at me the directions on where to go in Sword Base and I had no fucking clue. It brought back memories of Halo 3 when I carried a flag a foot away from scoring all the way across the map to the opponent's base - so embarrassing. My face gets hot thinking about that game. Stockpile was only fun during the first few matches when people didn't know how to play - easy wins. And Headhunter was a clusterfuck that I didn't enjoy a single minute playing. I hope there are better playlists in the final version.
The Angry Competitor says...
I played one match of headhunter. Went 5-1, didn't manage to capture any skulls for points. Lost. I think that was my one FFA game. The rest of the time I spent in Grab Bag or Arena. Obviously, I prefer Arena. I can pretty much avoid dogshit like 1 Flag CTF (which we never fucking play in comp circles anyway).
As for the new gametypes, I think LB's right. I think there's some competitive potential in Stockpile. Lots of stategic philosophy potential. Do you try to cap a few early, then spend the rest of the time fucking them in their base, or do you try to get 10 caps? Do you send one guy to rob their flag spot over and over again? There's something here that could work. I assume MLG will think it's "too random" and will not use it. That'll make me sad. At some point, MLG is going to have to do more than slayer, CTF and oddball. They've already killed King of the Hill, right? Meh.
What else is new? Elites vs. Spartans? I like it, actually. Sort of adds some of the campaign flavor to multiplayer. I like Invasion, theoretically, and would like to see it on some smaller maps, perhaps. Seems like we're only playing on half of Boneyard (by design, apparently). I think it's sort of a MP version of Firefight, at least the objective version. In either case, I'm not sure I can see it developing into a serious "comp" style gametype. I've often thought some 6v6 "comp" Halo would be a good time. Maybe this'll finally bring that to fruition.
Generator Defense could be cool, I think, but I can't really tell since Bungie is purposefully making it lag fest. Good for them testing the net code. They're onto something because I've had very few games with any sort of lag (though I have had games were the host sucked for me), but by and large the experience has been much better in Reach than Halo 3.
Headhunter as a comp 4v4 game? Yeah, that could be cool. It'd be really random, however, and again, that's not something MLG typically embraces.
I still love SWAT, but then I always have. With the return to Hit Scan weapons in Reach, I'm seeing people die like I think they should. Much fewer headshots that apparently aren't headshots in Reach. Bang, fuck, they're dead. One thing I love about SWAT in Reach is that slowing down is now a viable strat. Slow those shots, keep strafing and juking, and line that headshot up, and you'll win the fight. Also, just to throw this out there, sweep shooting with the DMR/Sniper still works. Comes in handy in SWAT.
Obviously, my favorite "gametype" isn't a gametype, but a playlist. I love Arena. I love that I can avoid most the random shit in Grab Bag. I love the divisions (though I'd like a little more transparency on what it takes to achieve a particular division). I love most of all Slayer Pro. Slayer Pro requires your team to keep within visual distance of one another, to move as a group and to communicate. You're not distracted by that goddamn radar (the number one reason people become "chasers"), and you are rewarded (by score) for team play. This shit is like Halo ambrosia. Now, give me that goddamn onyx star.
Loadouts and Special Abilities
The Social Slayer says,
LOVE THEM, LOVE THEM, LOVE THEM!!! I also love the fact that no one armor ability is "the only one people use."
Sprint: This is my go to load out, versatile in attack or defense situations and has saved my ass more then once by gtfo out a fubar situation.
Armor lock: I think this is better as an attacking/offense weapon then it is for defense. 75% of the time someone use this as a defensive situation on me at distance just delays the death. I will usually just back up and bit, wait for them to either exhaust the lock to throw a grenade on them/near them or just make the call out that I need a team shot on the dude that is about to come out of armor lock.
The time it is most effective against me are the times my enemy uses it at the last second when I am about to land the melee for a kill. The use the lock a split second before my melee, take down my shields and health then proceed to punch me in the junk for the kill.
Jet Packs (otherwise known as Jango Fett..well at least that is what I am calling them): This loadout is either pretty effective or the suck. A skilled user can move about maps to obtain better shooting positions or weapons. The obvious counter to this is team shooting. If you have a team that works together at all, all these guys are is skeet practice.
Camo/Invis: Meh..Everyone knows when you are using it and it gets called out pretty quickly. There are a few situations where it can be used effectively, but for the most part you are just like a fart that needs to be aired out.
The Fucking Noob says,
I appreciate the gameplay depth the special abilities add, in theory. It’s going to take research and help from my rank friends to put that depth into practice intelligently. I found myself using the sprint ability on default because it helps bridge the gap to the more CoD-like speed I prefer. The airborne ability was only useful to me when I’d die and repeatedly spawn long jaunts away from the action. I’m sure there’s some strategic redemption to the guard ability I have yet to uncover. But I found the 3rd person lag annoying and it seemed too easy to time a grenade to easily kill players using guard. The stalker ability was helpful to gain that extra second to get in close with a shotgun or sword and I appreciated a few Zen moments interspersed in chaos. It didn't seem like any one ability was over-used, but it was retarded to occasionally play teams where everyone was running airborne and all targets were in the air.
The Angry Competitor says...
Yeah, what they said. I generally run with Sprint. In fact, it's become second nature for me to sprint to the point of when I pick a different ability, I invaribly hit the button expecting my Spartan to haul balls. This is one of those things where you sort of sit around and wonder where in the fuck it was all this time. Imagine the CTF games on The Pit if you had sprint to get back into the fight... okay, no one would ever score. Moving on.
Guard I never use, for the reasons I mentioned above. I prefer mobility. That said, I've seen it used very effectively by people who seem to understand that using it to hunker down isn't the way to go. Short bursts to stave off an immediate attack, and then countering out of guard seems to be the most effective tactic. Guard vs. the rocket, shoot the fucker while he's reloading. Or, better, pop guard as you're about to be meleed, come back out and punch the fucker after his shields have taken the hit from attacking you.
The rocket pack... I understand it's strategic value on maps like Sword Base, but I still think of these guys as target practice. If I have a DMR or Needle Rifle and they jet up into the air, they might as well have yelled, "Pull!" at me. But it sure does get you to the plasma launcher quicker. Golly.
Invis... meh. You can use it if you want. Sometimes, if you camp a bit, you'll get some surprise kills. Wa-hooey. I like that Bungie is smart enough to make invis unavailable in games like Slayer Pro where you don't have radar. That said, it brings up another intersting point.
In past Halo games, there was always the struggle for the powerup -- OS, Invis, etc. -- in addition to the fight for the power weapons and map control. They've taken that dynamic out of the game entirely. We're not going to be timing OS, or timing Invis because we already have those things, correct? The question, I guess, is whether or not that's mitigated by the addition of armor abilities. I dunno. I like that we're going to have the option to change all of this shit in customs. Cannot wait to play with this stuff on our own.
Maps
The Social Slayer says...
The look of the new maps is great and each map has a gametype that is fun to play on. The opposite is also true in that some gametypes on these maps need to die in a fire (1 flag cty on powerhouse, stockpile on swordbase).
The Fucking Noob says...
Whatever. They're maps. They're Halo maps. I like that there are map section names at the bottom of the screen to help with call-outs. But it's also fun to come up with names with your friends.
The Angry Competitor says...
You know, she's right. They're just maps. They're prettier than all the other Halo maps before them, but speaking for myself and my comp brethern, we don't really give a fuck what a map looks like, we just want it to play right. We want the "arena" maps. I'm not sure how Powerstation and Swordbase play into that. In our parlance, smaller is better. We don't want to have to run around to find a fight. Bungie really did not give us this in Halo 3. Most the maps in that game pale in comparison to those in Halo 2. Sure, the H3 maps look better, but... who gives a shit about the water. I am concerned that it's going to be more of the same, based on what I've seen so far. Sure, these are only four maps, but... writing's on the wall.
Weapons
The Social Slayer says...
I am finding that almost all the weapons are useful in the beta (except for the AR, still sucks 90% of the time). The audio for the weapons is much better in Reach than in H3. I am finding more of the "oh shit wtf was that" feeling then I had in H3.
My favorite new weapons so far are: the DMR and Plasma Launcher. I am loving the adjusted damage fir the pistol and it is a great secondary (if not primary when you have that POS AR) weapon of choice.
The Fucking Noob says...
There's no way I can't intelligently debate the merits of the famed Battle Rifle versus the new DMR. There is a huge difference in the pace and intensity of gametypes that spawn with new Marksman Rifles - slower pace, faster death. I'm too much of a noob yet to have a preference. I have no fucking clue how people get headshots so effortlessly with the DMR. As the beta progressed, I did get better but not as adept as I need to be to like a game. That's right, I only like doing things that I'm marginally good at. Right now, I pretty much pick up anything I find and see if I can get at least one kill in before I'm killed. A favorite of mine is the Needler, though. It's nice to get kills with one clip unlike the AR. I hope that doesn't mean it's unbalanced.
The Angry Competitor says...
Jesus H. Christ on a chariot-driven crutch, did you two just gloss over the goddamn guns? The weapons are the thing that makes or breaks this whole Halo experience. I know Bungie talks about this mythical nade/gun/melee triad of fun, but ... it's the guns, stupid.
First and foremost, thanks for making the human weapons hit scan again. The BR in Halo 3 is a pile of trash with its non-hitscan firing method and three-burst spread. You throw in a little latency and the BR became a potato shooter instead of a precision rifle. In Halo 2, the BR was hitscan, so if your reticle was on them when you pulled the trigger, all three bullets hit. Sure, that's less realistic, but it made for a more predictable outcome. What they've done with the DMR is make it just like the Halo 2 BR, save that the fiction of the three-shot burst is gone. If all three rounds were going to hit anyway, why not just make it one that does the same damage as the three did, right?
As for the DMR itself, I love that gun. I love the way it sounds. I love its accuracy. I really don't even have any problems with the depth of its clip. I reguarly get five-shot kills with it, and even prefer it in closer range situations than it's intended to be used. I get that I'm supposed to be using the pistol (or, god forbid, the AR), but the pistol seems squirrely and inconsistent to me compared to the DMR. Sure, it fires slower, but I don't feel like I'm scrambling to line up the head shot with the DMR like I do with the pistol. The pistol handles like a MW2 gun. Almost. The pistol'll do in a pinch, and you can use it to pick off Jango Fett if you haven't found a needle rifle or DMR. I think you're still 50/50 with it vs. the AR, however.
They actually have made the AR viable in close range fighting, though it's essentially a bullet hose. It does allow you to overcome shitty aim vs. a pistol or DMR in close range situations. I hate getting killed by that fucking gun. I'm always thinking, "that fucking guy can barely aim that thing and he managed to kill me with it," but it really just means I need more time working on my pistol skills.
If given the opportunity, I'll pick up a needle rifle in exchange for my pistol. It feels more accurate and has almost as fast a rate of fire and much more range. I'll take a DMR over the Needle Rifle any day, however. Thing about the Needle Rifle... I never know how many shots a kill is with it. I feel like i just have to keep firing until that sonofabitch dies. Being a long-time Halo player, there's a shot-counter in my head that tells me when someone should be shields down and about to die. That fucking clock is broke when I'm using a Needle Rifle. It is, however, very gratifying to see them get EMPd when you're using it. If you don't get the headshot, that is.
The Reach version of the sniper is badass. No complaints at all. The other night, I killed Chibby from one side of Boneyard to the other. Dude looked like he'd been clotheslined. More, please. The needler is still an awesome, humiliating weapon to use on someone. It's nooberific. Get tone, mash trigger, watch bitch explode. Outstanding. It's also awesome that the noob combo is once again viable. I missed that combo. A lot.
The Plasma Launcher is fun to use, less fun to get killed by. I feel like I need the Banshee aerobatics button on my Spartan when I hear the screeching of that goddamn gun. Let me stop, drop and roll or something. Fuck.
The rockets are thankfully no longer neutered. You shoot, they die. None of this bouncing across the map bullshit. If they're in the vicinity, they're dust particles. Which is sort of similar with nades now. Those things are like pocket nukes. You want a good CTF Powerstation strat? Have everyone on your team save their nades, then toss all of them in the two doors into P2 at the same time. Every fucker in the room should be dead after that. Ugh. I'd actually like to see the area effect reduced slightly for retail.
The one weapon I really fucking hate, and it's not necessarily the weapon itself, it's the weapon used in conjunction with sprint -- the goddamn Sprint Hammer. There's no fucking skill in this. You just sprint around the map hammering unsuspecting people because they can't fucking hear you coming up behind them because the audio cues for people behind you suck ass.
Conversely, the sword has been nerfed in all the right ways. You can now pak sao that fucker and give yourself a fighting chance. How awesome is that? You can block the sword. I hope they leave that shit in the retail. Totally awesome.
Anyone missing dual wielding or the Brute weapons? Yeah, me neither.
Vehicles
The Angry Competitor says...
Fuck vehicles. Fuck them in the ass. The appeal to me as a Halo player is for skill to win out in any particular encounter. Having a tank sort of unbalances that equation. I'd rather stick to small maps, small teams and even footing. That said, I understand the importance of commanding the vehicle resources in bigger battles.I hate how the warthog now handles like a pig, and how it's gun takes time to spin up to speed only to overheat. I think the ghost is the same crappy Spartan battering ram it's always been. I do like, however, how much easier it is to destroy all of them -- wraiths, scorpions, 'hogs, ghosts. They all blow up real good now. That said, I think while they have their spots, they're all still rolling death traps. They sure do look and sound purty though.
The Fucking Noob says
I'd like to be able to comment on vehicles, but I crashed every Banshee I hopped in almost immediately (did the control scheme change?) and I only had the pleasure of zipping around in one ghost (which was fun). Otherwise all my dickhead teammates in Invasion stole the shit I rightfully earned or the opposing team blew up the vehicle before anyone could take control. So yeah, fuck vehicles right in the ass (until I get to drive one, that is).
The Social Slayer says...
I am liking the vehicles, but I am a little disappointed in how sluggish the warthog and ghost are. It is nice that teams now have a chance against vehicles (wraith and scorpion) with a few plasmas stuck to them.
The Banshee is still my favorite vehicle, and it has got a bump in its pitch and roll abilities.
Theater
The Social Slayer says...
Bungie has kept all the great things about its theater mode from H3 and made things better by being able to add games to your file share on the fly from the mp lobby. No more of that BS having to back out of your mp session, go to theater, then save the awesome game you just had and then go back to MP.
I do wish you had more minutes to your render "bank" for the bungie pro account. This is one area where you really get fisted with by Bungie or MS. Not sure who to blame for this. Some people might say well it is only 8 bucks a year and you get 5 minutes a month to render your vids. Well if you are going to cap a hole game your are screwed and will need to buy more minutes and if you are a person that chops down your game saves just to the juicy bits, that will help a bit. But you need to remember if a clip is 3 seconds or 59 seconds it still costs a minute of your render bank.
I would suggest just saving up for a cap card for your comp or products like the Hauppauge HD-PVR to cap your games and then convert them to upload to your choice of online video service.
The Fucking Noob says...
Give me a forward control for videos and I'll be happy. Most of the time I didn't want to sit and watch 10 minutes of my shitty gameplay just to get to my solitary 3-second bravo moment. Other than that, it's hard to say how much time I'll use theater. I'd rather play the game.
The Angry Competitor says...
I'm happy they added the ability to save films from your options menu while you're still in the game lobby. Seemed an oversight that you couldn't do it before. Other than that, I'm just happy to see it back.
Bungie.net Stats
The Fucking Noob says...
There's no way the stats page is complete. If so, total step backwards. Limited data, no aggregates, stupid.
The Social Slayer says...
Well looks like the fucking noob has a little bit of the "user error" bug going on. The stats page has a ton of aggregated states and filters for you to get your stats fix on. Not to mention you can now post to facebook and RSS feeds your most recent domination of timmie!!!
DIE, TIMMIE ... DIE!!!
The Fucking Noob ALSO says...
Where is my total, across all gametypes k/d? All I see is a k/d (not really, I still have to do the division myself) per play list. If I'm missing a click somewhere, school me.
No, Noob, I think you're right. It's per-playlist. Weird. Also, there are no assists per-game that I see. Assists are just as important to me as keeping track of my k/d. I'd hope to see some enhancement, but it's unlikely. The trend since Halo 2 has been fewer specific in-game stats with more bells and whistles. This is continuing in that direction. Personally, I'd like to be able to sort my stats by game type. I want to see how inflated my overall k/d ratio is in Grab Bag because of SWAT.
I'd write longer, but my attention for this is waning. Yay, Bungie's online stats are teh awesomo! ...
Shit that’s fucked up
The Social Slayer says...
Well the hit detection is fubar right now. I want a more visual clue as to where the fuck I am being shot from. I use Astro headphones and that helps a lot, but the visual cues are "teh suck" in the beta.
Bungie also needs to adjust the automated vote for the top game type in MP. I rather have it set to none of the above then to the default top choice. Most of the time that shitty ass One flag ctf is at the top. (can you tell I despise that POS game type right now).
Plus there is not enough time from the end of the previous game to the next game. If you are looking at your stats or answering a message from a buddy you can easily get trapped into a game type you did not vote for.
The Fucking Noob says...
The spawns are fucked. I die a lot so I notice these things. All spawns near the top of the grav lifts should be moved. I had several occurrences of being assassinated by people that went up the lift as soon as I was spawning. It's really fucking frustrating to be beat down within 2 seconds of spawning.
Also dumb, armor customization. I like playing dress-up with my XBL, so I *should* enjoy armor customization. But it's just a selection of different geometric shoulder pads...lame.
The Angry Competitor says...
What's fucked up? Not much. Not enough to nitpick more than I already have. This Beta is better than 90% than pretty much all the other console FPSs out there. Bungie could release this right fucking now, making fucktons of cash and get shiny 9.0+. I really don't want to go back and suffer through another four months of Halo 3 or MW2. I may just take the summer off gaming.
Overall
The Social Slayer says...
If no changes at all were made to the final release of Reach from what we have now (except by adding campaign and more MP maps), I would still buy the game. The graphics a decent (keeping in mind Bungie has said they are not even close to the current version they have now) and the audio is great. The changes in MP and weapons are a welcome change from H3 and I can't wait for the final version they will put out in the fall. With that said, I hope they do not go full retard and try to nerf the pistol or DMR from what they are now. If they do manage to do that, then things will definitely be the suck.
The Fucking Noob says...
I'm buying this game. The beta wasn't enough for me to determine if I'll continue to play past the three-week mark that I usually last on Halo MP, but Reach is more promising than H3 was. I can see myself splitting time between Black Ops and Halo this fall. However, the ultimate indicator of what I play usually comes down to invites from my friends list. See ya in September.
The Angry Competitor says...
Here's the thing. This is the best of the Halo games. I know there'll be those purists who scream for Halo: CE or Halo 2, but be honest here guys. This is all the best from all of them. It's the deepest, most feature-rich, most nuanced and prettiest. It's far and away the most polished console FPS I've ever played, and this is the fucking Beta. Halo 3, from a gameplay standpoint, is a steaming fucking turd compared to this. I hope they give us some good "arena" maps, and I hope they polish it up until you can see it from orbit. As for me, I'm going to go pre-order that edition with the cool fucking statue. I'll put it on the bookshelf next to my Master Chief Helmet and Snake-eyes statue.
So burger guy was wrong. Halo: Reach isn't failing by diversifying. There's tremendous improvement in all facets of the game and better yet, there's influence that is evident from several triple-A titles we're all playing. Whether you're a noob, a social butterfly, or an uber-comp that picks on noobs, there's something new and different in Halo: Reach that you'll enjoy. Way to go Bungie for taking some risks in an industry that shuns evolution over the sure-thing sequel.
