Mike Hodnick's Blog

I had the fortune of playing the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta over the last few weeks. The beta, played over XBox Live, was terminated last week after about 2.5 weeks of availability. Bungie offered limited features and functionality in the Beta, but it was a sweet taste of what the final game that will be released in the fall.

For those of you who are like me and have really enjoyed Halo 2 and Halo 3 multiplayer, you are going to love Halo: Reach multiplayer. Except for the limited maps and the lack of Custom games with your friends in the Beta, I could have played the game as-is and been happy with it for a long, long time.

I thought I’d give some “good vs. bad” feedback about the game. This is kind of a prediction segment in a way… we’ll see if these opinions hold up come Fall 2010.

The Good

First off, there are the new armor abilities. When your player starts out, you can choose what type of special ability you have until the next time your player spawns. There’s invisibility, sprint, invincibility (armor lock), and a jet pack. Hands down, these armor abilities introduce the biggest change in Halo multiplayer - and they are really fun. When used correctly, these abilities keep the games competitive and can change the tide of battle. Arguably, they have leveled the multiplayer playing field significantly.

Armor Lock: Invincibility

“Loadouts” are the type of armor and weapons you select when your player re-spawns. In “Slayer” based games these loadouts primarily deal with the type of armor you choose and not the weapons. However, we saw in the Invasion game type that more and more types of weapon and armor combinations started to unlock as the game progressed. At game start you may be only able to pick from two armor abilities and one weapon, but by the last stage of the game you may have 3-4 armor types and a variety of power weapons as options.

Without question, the new armor abilities in combination with loadouts levels the playing field significantly. It seemed that almost all games were extremely close in the Beta and that anybody could win in any game.

I was really pleased to be using a lot of new weapons throughout the games. The Needle Rifle and Dedicated Marksman Rifle are the new weapons you will see skilled players dominating you with, as they are essentially the old Battle Rifle replacement. Without question, my favorite new weapon is the grenade launcher. It’s kind of clumsy to use and you can detonate the grenades in the air by releasing your controller trigger. Old favorites like the assault rifle and rocket launcher are still there. There was also lot more emphasis on older weapons like the M6G pistol and Needler.

Grenade Launcher

In matchmaking, there was much less emphasis on “experience” and “rank” to determine who you get matched up with. In the old Halo 2 and Halo 3, your skill number and rank determined how you got matched up with other players. In the Reach beta these numbers weren’t a focal point and didn’t seem to impact matchmaking as much. I felt like I could just play and have fun without looking at numbers. It seems that the matchmaking algorithms have been finally tweaked to near-perfection as most games felt fair and very close. Your player still has the concept of Rank, but again it wasn’t a large focal point of matchmaking.

Rank seemed to have more to do with buying custom armor than matchmaking. That’s right - you can buy custom armor. Bungie has told us that “The Armory” will have a wealth of armor customization options in the final Fall release of the game. In the Beta there was a limited selection of what you could buy. You could buy armor with credits, and you earned credits by finishing games and accomplishing great feats during the games. Some armor required a higher rank in order to purchase it. I simply love the idea of personalizing your own character in the game down to the tiny details.

Bungie’s web site experience seemed cleaner and simpler during the Beta than with past Halo editions. For each game edition, Bungie has put online stats and file shares on its web site. For the Beta, it seemed that there was more emphasis on things like screen shots and films. I expect to see much more community-generated content from gamers’ file shares with Reach. From a pure geek perspective, I was also glad to see no need for a browser plugin (e.g. Flash or Silverlight) to view game stats.

Elites vs. Spartans. How can you not enjoy matching two different character species against each other with different physical abilities and different starting loadouts? These are dedicated game types to pit each species against each other. Just another new curve ball to have fun with.

Elites vs. Spartans

There were a large handful of new game types offered in the Beta. There was Stockpile - which felt like a hybrid of Capture the Flag and Territories. Invasion - a multi-step, asymmetric, time-limited, Spartan vs. Elite, more-epic version of Capture the Flag. Head Hunter - a new free-for-all game type hybrid between Kind of the Hill and Oddball. There was also Generator Defense, which I did not get a chance to play. New game types alone make the next Halo worth playing.

The Beta unveiled the ability to select the feel of the game you wanted to play. Are you looking for a rowdy group of players or a quiet game? Highly competitive or laid back and fun? You can actually control these preferences and get matched up with the right kind of game. I tried it once, and it seemed to work just fine. It’d probably take a lot of observation over time to see how well this feature actually works, but for us quiet types I think it’ll make the game a lot more fun.

The Bad

Honestly I feel like this article is turning into a promotion for Reach rather than an honest evaluation of the game. I had a hard time thinking of features that needed improvement in the game.

There is more emphasis on skill in the game these days. You cannot possibly walk into Halo multiplayer having no prior Halo experience and be a casual gamer and have fun. It’s hard for me to put myself in the shoes of a Halo newbie because I’ve been playing this game for so long. Maybe Bungie’s matchmaking will take care of this appropriately. Even so, the weapons are evolving to require more skill. Consider the Dedicated Marksman Rifle, Needle Rifle, M6G pistol, and Needler - they are the primary weapons in the game (aside from the default Assault Rifle) and require quite a bit of hand coordination and gaming skill to use. What can Bungie do about this though? Dumb down the game? I wouldn’t want to see that.

There is no more dual-wielding. You can’t pick up two small weapons (one in each hand) and use them simultaneously. I’m sure there are very good reasons internally at Bungie for why this feature was removed. For example, imagine dual-wielding two M6G pistols in Reach! For the uninitiated, the M6G pistol in Reach requires a minimum of five shots to kill an opponent - if you’re skilled enough to do so. It has a high rate of fire and being able to wield two of these things at the same time would result in extremely fast and unfair kills. However, I miss dual-wielding. For up-close encounters in Halo 3 it was a great tactic. Dual-wielding also prevented you from throwing grenades - so there was a balanced trade off you had to make.

I realize the game is fiction and fantasy but it is still very cartoony. I recall hearing that the graphical complexity of Reach is dozens of times greater than Halo 3, but I really didn’t see this in the Beta. Granted, it was a beta and I’m sure they’ll polish things up for the Fall release. I was just expecting a more life-like game. That’s harsh criticism considering the game is pretty complex as-is. I’m too nice.

Beautiful environment. Still cartoony.

That’s right, I am way too nice. Only a few pieces of criticism? Apparently this will be the best game ever.