Hello class, and welcome into our lesson on what we know so far about Halo: Reach MP Beta.

Announced on the 1st of June 2009, Halo: Reach is set on the planet Reach. Set before the events of the original Halo trilogy, and is the last game for Bungie in the Halo franchise. Many people are excited about the game, and luckily we get an early taste of it on May 3rd, when the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta goes live. Not many details have been released of the Beta, but we've done our best to compile all currently known information into an article, giving you something fun to read and some fresh new information at the same time!

The Halo: Reach MP Beta will focus on a few things; Weapon Balancing, Bug Finding and a new feature, Shield/Armor Power balancing. Bungie has invented a new feature for the Halo franchise, the Armor ability. In Halo 3, the Bubble Shield was introduced, although people rarely got to use it, as they were waiting for the right moment, or they simply forgot it was there or couldn't find it on the map. Well Bungie aimed to alleviate that prblem, by introducing the Armor Ability. Now everyones armor suit has a built in smaller radius Bubble Shield and even a smaller built in Power Drain for deactivating vehicles.

With the built in armor abilities, comes a new way of selecting your weapons, in a new "Loadout Selection" screen when you spawn, similar to the Create-A-Class in the popular Call of Duty series. When you die, you hit the X button to bring up the Loadout Menu, and you have a list of predefined weapons, grenades and armor abilities, which are selected based on the gametype, map and playlist. Everyone has access to the same weapons, which will hopefully alleviate some of the issues of players teamkilling each other to get weapons like the Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher and Shotgun which were popular power weapons in Halo 3.

In Halo 3 people had access to using Elites, as opposed to the vanilla Spartans. Besides providing a slightly smaller hitbox, the different skin did nothing. Now in Halo: Reach the elites are back, and bigger, badder and better than ever. Both the Spartans and Elites have a new racial based bonus. The Spartans have the ability to sprint for short distances, but the Elites which are the Covenants closest thing to a UNSC (United Nations Space Command) Spartan have the ability to roll and evade weapon fire. They also move a bit quicker, but are larger and easier to kill. They also look a lot more badass instead of looking like little cute aliens.



Back in a new way, the Armor editing abilites from Halo 3 return. Instead of just being able to unlock pieces of armor for your Spartan or Elite, players can now buy them with ingame credits. You get credits based on how you perform in a game, which you then use in an unlocks menu. This is strictly visual though, and will bare no result on how your character performs in the game. Another thing Bungie is implementing is a "Personal Scoring System" or sorts. Whether or not TrueSkill remains is to be seen but now you're graded on how you perform in each game. This individual score is shown at the end of the match. Play enough matches, and you get a daily rating, play enough days and you get a weekly rating and then if you play enough weeks, you get a monthly rating.

Multiplayer has been completely reworked, making way for a fresher cleaner interface, as well as a new Veto system. Instead of the Map and Gametype being randomly selected and a one time skip being offered, now 4 modes and maps are displayed, and players vote for the one they want most. This is similar to the Gears of War system, where people could choose from a map and a game type. There is numerous new game types now, as the original Slayer and Team Slayer orientation of Halo 3's gametypes was getting stale and not cutting it for Bungie they said.



"Headhunter" is one of the new modes. When you die, you drop Skulls, and the idea is to kill players, then gather their skulls and run them back to a pre designated zone, to collect points. The catch is though, for every skull you collect you get a number displayed upon your head. It's possible to win a round early by dropping 10 skulls at the zone which also earns you the new "Skullamanjaro" medal.

Another new gametype is "Stockpile", a rework of "Rocket Race" from Halo 3. Teams race around the map to secure neutral flags which are then to be returned to your home area and for every minute a flag is held, you get a point. There will more than likely be a heap of flags scattered around the map.

Similar to Search and Destroy in Call of Duty, the most exciting and competitive sounding gametype is "Generator Defense". This is a 6 player game mode, 3 Elites versus 3 Spartans. The Elites have to infiltrate the Spartan base and destroy 3 Generators, whilst the Spartans are tasked to destroy the Elites. At the start of every round, a UNSC Longsword (A Human bomber) will drop off 3 Power Weapons around the map, providing the Spartans a secondary objective. It will be easier to win the round with them, but harder to defend the Generators whilst they are securing the weapons.

The final known new game type is "Invasion" which pits six Spartans against six Elites. Both teams have seperate objectives, Spartans to kill a preset number of Elites and the Elites to capture set points around the map. As more and more points are captured by Elites, more "zones" of the map will unlock, and with each new "zone" more custom Loadouts will unlock. When the Elites capture more zones, they also unlock more reinforcements, making it easier for them to win.

looks really good holy crap cant wait till it comes out.

lol spadez cant wait

I reckon the sprinting and bullet-dodging thing is a bit lame.

I like things simple, and wish it was even more like Halo3.

Great review mate, keep up the good work.

Could people Thumbs Up the article so it doesn't get locked and buried, please.

Yea looks good, Great job writing it up as-well.

did you write this up, because i swear this has been posted

Yeah, I wrote it up this morning, well afternoon.

good thread, thumbs up.

Serious every person giving thumbs down **** off your not cool and ur just ruining the forums please GTFO

^{now go ahead little kiddies thumbs down me}

~Sandz

I fixed it for you, because if people do as i did and read it wrong, it looks like you are offending drjft, sorry

Edited once, 18/4/10 - 7:37pm by sands.

Sandz wasn't your post count like 500 yesterday?

www.cybergamer.com.au/forums/thread/133059/Merging-accounts/

Really was a good read. Must say i'm not looking forward to this only because i won't have an XBOX but this truly will be a game to get when i come back!