Halo: Reach Beta Hands-On

by Ryan Geddes - IGN.com | 21 April 2010 12:00
 
We've played Bungie's latest multiplayer effort. Find out what's in store.
 
A public videogame beta is a beautiful and powerful thing. It's the point when a development studio blows the airlock on a multi-million-dollar years-long project and delivers it for testing to a fan base both ravenous and skeptical. Part demo and part research project, a beta brings players and creators in closer contact than at any point in a project's development cycle. I'm a big believer in public betas as the best way to create a stellar multiplayer experience, and Bungie is planning to go big when it opens Halo: Reach up for a public test next month.

I recently dropped by Bungie Studios to take an early look at what's in store for Halo fans next month, and I'll fill you in on what I've seen in just a bit. But first, a quick primer on what Reach is and what's involved in the beta. The madness starts on May 3 for those with a copy of Halo 3: ODST, the standalone Halo 3 expansion that was released in September 2009. When the magic date rolls around, you'll see the Halo: Reach beta option pop up in ODST's extras menu. Download it, launch it through ODST, and you're in. Through matchmaking, custom games or system link, you'll have four multiplayer maps to explore when the beta launches. In addition to classic Halo multiplayer game types including Slayer and Free-for-all, Reach introduces a number of new modes, four of which will be playable in the beta. Some of what you'll see will be instantly familiar, but make no mistake – a lot has changed.

Pssst. Behind you.

The world of Reach is brutal and unforgiving. Just ask the millions of people who died there when the Covenant attacked it in 2552. Actually, you can't ask them, because they're dead. And fake. But you get the idea. In the Halo universe, Reach was humanity's most important colonial outpost. In some ways it had, in fact, become more important than Earth itself. The Spartan program was born there, and Master Chief John-117 grew up there. When it fell, it fell hard, under gargantuan glowing spirals of overheated plasma. At the end, Reach was a mean, dangerous place. And so is the Halo: Reach beta. Consider the Covenant Plasma Launcher, one of the new power weapons available in Halo: Reach. Picture a hammerhead shark, squeezed and molded into a streamlined armful of metallic alien polymer. Its cartilaginous protuberances have been repurposed into trigger, stock, scope and muzzle. It's missing the shark's organic glisten, but it's just as dangerous. Fire the trigger once and it launches a sticky plasma grenade at its target. Hold the trigger down, and more grenades (up to four) will be added to the launch queue. Let them fly, and they'll gently track to the poor sap caught between its crosshairs. It's a gun you'll want to keep your eye on. And it's not the only one. The Covenant Focus Rifle is equally nightmarish. A cross between the Beam Rifle and a Forerunner Sentinel laser beam, it fires a stream of pink death across the map, slicing and dicing as it goes. But the Covenant aren't the only ones with deadly new toys. Spartans go into battle with the Grenade Launcher, a new addition to the UNSC arsenal that hurls, well, grenades. But there's a twist. Hold down the trigger and the projectile will stay dormant where it lies, primed for explosion. Release the trigger at an opportune moment and it goes blammo at your beck and call, throwing out an electromagnetic pulse blast for good measure.

Assassinations. Now more humiliating than ever.

In addition to new weapons like these, the Needle Rifle, and others, there are also re-tooled blasts from the Halo past making their appearance in Reach. The Designated Marksman Rifle is the UNSC replacement for the Battle Rifle (thank the Ancients), and it's a headshot magnet in experienced hands. The Magnum is also back, and it's better than ever. Five steady, well-timed body shots with this little hand cannon will get you a satisfying kill. It's deadlier than it looks. Respect it. With all these new boomsticks lying about, you're going to need some protection. But rather than armor your Spartan up even more than he was in Halo 3, Bungie has gone back in the Halo: Combat Evolved direction. That's right, health packs are back. In Halo: Reach, when your shields get whittled down to nothing, your health bar will start to chip away. The only way to restore it is to find a wall-mounted health pack (similar to Halo 3: ODST) and shake it off, Marine. There are two bright spots in the health-and-wellness realm. First, your shields are still regenerative and they're a bit heartier against melee attacks than in Halo 3. A smack from behind will still net a kill so long as your target's shields are down. Second, the armor you take into battle is imbued with special characteristics, depending on which loadout you choose. These armor abilities are some of the biggest changes Bungie is bringing to Halo: Reach, and you'll want to try them all during the beta. Remember all those items scattered around the multiplayer maps in past Halo games? Those are gone. In their place, you'll have access to one of four loadouts at the beginning of each multiplayer round, and their availability changes depending on which map/mode you're playing. So if you pick the Air Assault loadout, for example, you'll spawn with an Assault Rifle, a Magnum and a Jet Pack; Expert Marksman includes the Designated Marksman Rifle, the Magnum and the Sprint armor ability; and so on. Power-ups were always a wildcard in Halo. How many times have you hopped across a map toward the Overshield only to find someone beat you to it? Or maybe you've lovingly held onto the Power Drain, waiting for that perfect moment of vehicular sabotage, only to get sniped like a noob and watch it tumble down a grassy hill along with the rest of your carefully curated inventory. Well, not anymore. You now have four power-up options in each game you play. Feel like sneaking about? Pick Active Camo at the beginning of the round and you can use it to your heart's content. But watch the little circle next to your armor ability icon on the HUD, because you can only use so much at a time before it needs to recharge. The good news is I found the recharge times to be pretty forgiving. Also, all abilities are constantly trying to recharge, so you won't need to completely deplete your power before it starts to fill back up.

The Armor Lock ability makes you invincible for a limited time. Use it to hold key areas.

So let's say you get bored with Active Camo halfway through the round or realize you'd get more of a tactical advantage using the Jet Pack. Halo: Reach lets you choose a different loadout each time you spawn, which is definitely a nice touch. Just remember, you can't choose armor abilities separately from weapons in the beta. Each ability comes with a weapon set to keep things balanced. What you choose will depend on where and what you're playing. The Halo: Reach beta ships with four maps that vary in size and layout. Powerhouse is a sweeping outdoor area with a classic multiplayer setup that's good for most party game types. Swordbase is tighter quarters (an ONI facility) with multiple tiers that practically begs you to pick the Jet Pack armor ability. Overlook is set up for the new Generator Defense game type, and Boneyard is a gigantic area with indoor and outdoor playgrounds. You can read all about each map in-depth in IGN's Reach beta map blowout. Along with the new maps come four new game types (in addition to returning Halo multiplayer modes like SWAT and Slayer). But first, an important note. In Halo: Reach, the vast majority of modes are Spartan vs. Spartan. Bungie wants you to build a Spartan character and focus on building it up through both the multiplayer and campaign. There are Elites in the multiplayer beta, but they take a backseat to the humans. And unlike Halo 3's multiplayer, in which the two sides looked different but behaved identically, the Reach beta draws attention to their discrepancies. In Reach, the Elites are taller, stronger and heartier than their cybernetically enhanced human counterparts. The Spartans may be weaker, but they're more agile, if that's any comfort.
 
One of my favorite modes in the beta is Headhunter, a chaotic mix of Oddball and Capture the Flag. It works like this. Each time you kill an enemy player, a flaming skull drops out of his head, just like in the Bible. Your goal is to collect as many enemy skulls as possible and haul them back to a drop zone to score points (one per cranium). Above your head is a number that lets everyone know how many skulls you're carrying around, which makes you an instant target, so it's risky to get too greedy. However, if you can manage to collect and score with 10 skulls at once, it's an automatic win. Not to mention huge bragging rights. Our Australian counterparts were so impressed, they wrote an in-depth piece about Halo: Reach's Headhunter mode

Bring flags and flaming skulls to score areas like these.

Stockpile is Capture the Flag on some sort of drug that's probably illegal, even in 2552. In this mode, neutral flags spawn on the map, and your goal is to gather up as many as you can and bring them back to your base to score. The trick is that the scoring is on a countdown timer, so if the enemy team manages to steal flags from your scoring circle before the score clock hits, you're out of luck. You can't use any of your armor abilities while you're holding a flag, but you can melee with it. And I suggest you do. It's one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Invasion is another new mode, and it can only be played on the massive Boneyard map in the beta. If you're into large-scale, complex games that reward tight teamwork, this is the mode for you. One of only two game types in the Reach beta that pits Spartans against Elites, Invasion sticks Spartans in a defense position and sends the Elites in to take it. There are three objective-based phases to each round. As the Elites bust their way through the Spartans' defenses, the loadout options ramp up in outrageousness, and new vehicles become available. Generator Defense is the other Spartan-Elite game type, and it's only available on Overlook, a smallish outdoor map with an Elite spawn point at one end and a building bordered by three small generators at the other. The Spartans' goal is to protect those gennies at all costs by locking them down at intervals and, of course, killing to death any Elites who manage to breach the perimeter. Pro tip: Find the Spartan laser quickly. While you're getting used to the big changes in Halo: Reach, you'll also want to pay close attention to the controller layout diagram in the options menu. Think you know how to play Halo? Well, not anymore. The most dramatic change is that the B button no longer controls melee attacks. It switches between grenades now. The left bumper now controls your armor abilities and the right bumper melees. Since there's no dual-wielding in Halo: Reach, the X button handles reloading, and the right and left triggers fire guns and toss grenades respectively. For longtime Halo players used to the standard controller layout, this will take a ton of getting used to. One Reach addition I had no trouble integrating into my repertoire is the new assassination move. If you manage to sneak up behind an unsuspecting opponent, holding down the melee button for a second or two will result in an animated third-person stabbing that's immensely satisfying. The animations change depending on the situation, too, so dropping down behind an Elite via Jet Pack will look different than stabbing a Spartan while you have Active Camo engaged.

Prepare for this kind of mayhem on Boneyard. Also, stay away from that laser thing.

It's a very cool touch, and I can't wait to see the saved films that come out of it. And yes, the Theater and file sharing will be available in the beta, but Forge won't. Rest assured, though, it will be in the final game, along with some surprises. One of the Halo multiplayer changes I was most looking forward to seeing in the Reach Beta was unavailable at preview time. Bungie was showing the game on a system link setup, not online, so I didn't get a chance to see matchmaking in action. I also didn't see the new Player Rewards system, which doles out credits at the end of each round that you can spend on avatar customization. But it works simply enough. You earn credits by playing (and doing well) in matches, and those credits effect both your military rank and in-game identity. You can earn even more credits by taking part in both daily and weekly challenges that Bungie will be hosting, and by gathering commendations for your actions over the course of your Reach career. Commendations will be in the beta, challenges won't. And, although I didn't get to see it during the preview, Bungie says it's made several improvements to the multiplayer matchmaking interface that will be available in the beta. That includes active roster, an integrated friends-list that eliminates the need to use the Xbox 360's guide button; queue-joining, which lets you join up with friends immediately after they finish a match; social settings that let you search for teammates that match your play style; an improved voting system; an "arena" system that rates and ranks the true Halo hardcore; and a method for prioritizing game searches by connection type.

Killing is their business, and business is good.

With Reach, Bungie is clearly setting out to make the ultimate Halo multiplayer experience, and they're going in two different directions to get there. On one hand, they're reaching back to the roots of the series with some gameplay nods to Halo: CE. On the other, they're borrowing from some modern innovations like Modern Warfare's loadouts and character progression system. In the hours I spent with the beta, I found that the changes definitely nudged the experience in a different direction while retaining a distinct Halo feel. Some of the changes will be jarring to seasoned players, but hopefully the beta will help sort out what works and what doesn't. In case it hasn't sunk in yet, this is a big beta. There's a lot to bury your teeth in here, and Bungie's counting on players to beat this sucker up good. The more you kick the tires, the better the end result will be when the final version of Halo: Reach ships in September. And because it's a work in progress, some of the things I've outlined here will likely change. A lot. The Halo: Reach beta hits Xbox Live on May 3, but we'll have a ton more coverage over the next few weeks. In fact, we'll have something for you every day. Later this week we'll bring you more info on how Bungie went about designing its final multiplayer Halo game, and how the series has changed over time. Then we'll plunge into specifics on all the weapons, vehicles, modes, maps and extras that are coming your way in Reach. So stay tuned to IGN for everything you need to know about the beta in the weeks to come. Are you excited for the Halo: Reach beta? Let us know your thoughts by hitting us @igncom on Twitter. And if you have any questions, toss #haloign on your tweet and I'll answer your questions live on Twitter at 2 p.m. PST on Thursday, April 22.
 
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