I would just like to let you know this is my first ever review i have posted or released. I have done a few but never released so thanks for reading and happy gaming!



On 4th of May around 4am the Halo:Reach BETA was released to the Australian Gaming Community and just like us Australians the rest of the world were hammering the servers, downloading what could be the last beta in the halo series.
But besides the countless hammering of the servers and my usual impatient nature as the servers were crashing on the first day of the beta going live, I found that once I was in a game it was truly going to be the better game of the series.

This Halo: Reach BETA only featured two maps and three different playlists as to say to choose from.

When you first spawned inside Powerhouse only two thoughts ran through my brain. The first being I noticed it took a very close resemblance to the map High Ground on Halo3. The textures and all the rendering looked very similar and besides Powerhouse located inside a canyon and High Ground being on a beach face, it was quite clear the maps would most likely play the same to.
But in saying all that once I played numerous game types on the map it became clear Bungie didn't skip out on the layout and the placement of weapons. In a lot of the game types though I noticed the power weapons were somewhat closer to the higher spawn, with the rockets in the slipway and the pro pipe (Grenade Launcher) in the bathroom alongside the focus rifle as well around those areas. On the other hand the lower spawn had the Shotgun behind them and the Gravity hammer not to far away, so the lower spawn got close quarters weapons and the higher spawn received medium to long range weapons. Powerhouse would be my favourite map as im a big fan of the airborne armour ability but more on that later.

The other of the two maps is called Sword Base and surprisingly I found it very confusing upon first stepping into the map and honestly I still cant remember which side is which. On this map you will find basically two sides, with bridges linking them on every level. It also features a quick man cannon for those who fancy a quick rush to the high ground. Across the map there are many power weapons like the famous shotgun, energy sword, sniper rifle and my new favourite weapon the plasma launcher (more on these later). Each weapon was placed strategically by Bungie and spread evenly across the map, but each weapon will find you coming face to face in a 1v1 against the oppos...

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.