On May 3rd Bungie Released a 2 week BETA of there upcoming game: Halo: Reach, Being a Halo Fan I decided to download it and hoped to give my first impressions on that day
Or it WAS but of course since Microsoft hate Europe (Y’know, for no reason other then being across the ocean) it took my 7 hours to download a 1.15GB BETA…SEVEN HOURS! My friend in Canada downloaded it in 15 minuetes, my other friends in the US downloaded it in 30-2 hours….SEVEN HOURS!
Of course when I downloaded it good and proper It was time to try out the new Gametypes ,Armour and weapons.
When I looked at my Spartan (you can only edit your spartans in the BETA) I hid a smile as Bungie decided to paint all Default Spartans pink, after changing my colours to White and Red I Began to look at the preferances, some of them were no brainers
“Would you like Rowdy or polite players?” Polite…DUH!
“Would you like Teamplayers or Lone wolfs” Well I want to be CREDIT TO TEAM!
“Would you like People who demand teamwork or not?” Not, I hate little kids…
After setting my preferance I began to look at the playlists, As of now only Grab bag and Slayer pit exist, Generator defence and Invasion will be released later and I’ll say my impressions to those as well, Choosing Grab bag my first match was a form of CTF on sword base, Of course I chose the first class which was scout and had the sprint ability and my first game began!
Right of the bat 1 thought shone out “Crap, where the fuck is the sprint button?” After 3 deaths and no kills I swapped for the normally versetile Bumper Jumper for the new controler style Recon, after finding the sprint button and dying several more times trying to remeber that RB isn’t Melee anymore, its reload I began the check the other classes.
I tested out Stalker and found I loose my sprint but gain Invisibility for a good minuete PLUS a radar jammer, Good? well not untill I realise that its useless unless standing still AND the fact the distorsion effect is much easier to see in Reach, After deeming Stalker useless I tryed Gaurd, This effect made me invunrable for 5 seconds but made me unable to move and a 0.5 second cooldown before I could attack, none the less I deemed it “Extremly good when used right” Last I tryed Airborn, its good but the Jetpack is nothing special If i gotta be honest.
The two maps, Sword base and Powerhouse are interesting as well, although I will say in some gametypes in Powerhouse, Blue have th distinct advantage, Nothing more to say on maps.
The weapons are a dissapointment, they are all rather slow and revolves more around the old “Fire some AR shots, Melee” Except the Melee has been made extremly overpowered, 3 AR shots and a Melee = Instant death where as in Halo 3 it was half followed by a Melee, its just not on also some of the weapons are incredibly overpowered, like the Focus beam and the Grenade launcher, however this is one of the occasions when Gaurd truly shines, sure if they hit your shield when there red blinking they die but if your infront and you see a beam or grenade aimed/fired at you, go into Gaurd mode so your teamates kill the attacker and pick the weapon up, Its like the Senternal role in Final Fantasy 13! Except in Halo! and not as good as the Final Fantasy 13 one!
This is a short first impression as not alot has been given to us However when Invasion and Generator defense come out I’ll post a news post on that
So the Pros of the BETA
-Decent balanced map
- Looks great
-Personal preferances
-Good armour set ups (bar 1)
- Has more game modes showing up
the Cons
- Microsoft hates Europeons
- Melee Overpowered
- Some Weapons overpowered
- Stalker Armour setting next to useless
-not a BETA you’ll be playing sunrise to sunset due to lack of current content
- Pointless armour upgrades
-only 4 v 4 thus far
BETA rating: 7.5/10
Its good but theres a few things pulling the BETA down, but then again its a BETA so its probitly better so that the true game gets a higher score.
-Tik