Yep, that's a part 2 that you see in the title and no, it's not a mistake....or something like that. As most of you are sure the Halo: Reach multiplayer Beta was released on the 3rd and I'm also sure that you've done your fair share of providing feedback to Bungie to fix the broken things right? If not, oh well, no big deal. Anyways, I'm going to give my true feedback about the Beta here.
Be warned though, if you are a super-competitive person and think that Reach sucks and that I have a 1.03(which is still positive, but barely) K/D ratio and my opinion doesn't matter; you may want to stop reading after the next paragraph as what I'll say will most likely not agree with you think. That said, let's move on shall we?
Firstly, I'd like to redirect to this post here. In which case I stated that I was going to change my gamertag from StoredGrunt360 to TUE StoredGrunt. Well I did that, obviously, but now I have decided that after May 19th(the day that the Reach Beta ends) I am going to change it back to StoredGrunt360. No, I'm not leaving TUE and no I'm not losing interest in the group; I just want my old name back. So after the Beta is over with, I am going to become StoredGrunt360 again. Heh, right now I'm listening to the ODST soundtrack and the tempo increased right as I started typing that last sentence. Oh the irony of that.
Anyways, here's the start of what I currently think of the Halo: Reach multiplayer Beta. I'll start of by being general, I love it. It really brings back the fun that is Halo multiplayer. When I first started playing it, it brought back some memories from playing the first Halo on splitscreen with some friends. I cannot remember the last time I had this much fun playing the matchmaking side of Halo. However, there are a few things that could be changed I think. Some of them have already been addressed and are going to be fixed for the final game in the fall. I personally think the grenades are a bit overpowered, but it's not bother me if it doesn't change for the fall. Even though they already addressed the issue and are going to fix, they just don't know how though. I'm also not a huge fan of the spawn on Sword Base for 1 Flag CTF. The starting spawns for the attacking team are a little close to the flag. I mean, I don't mind the initial rush at the start of the game to see which team can get the flag first, but if the defending team doesn't choose the Scout loadout(which has the sprint armor ability), then the other team is almost guaranteed to get the flag first and be off before you can do anything about it. Like I said, it's fun and it scream Halo fun, but it gets annoying after a while when the other team is there and gone with your flag every single game. I also think that the spawns for the gold team I believe it is, in Invasion need to be changed or at least some more cover added to it. I don't like Elites in the least bit, but when your playing as them and you get stuck on this side, it's kind of hard to get away from you spawn before you get killed. Over and over again.... Other then those few things, I'm really enjoying the Beta so far.
Onto things that I like in it, besides the fact that it brings back the fun in Halo multiplayer. The new assault rifle in Reach is awesome. Other then the fact that it sounds real for once(which is a big complaint of mine in any shooter game where the weapons don't even sound real) it is actually effective and kills people. Well I was going to say that in the 3 years I have played Halo 3 I had less kills with the AR than I do in the few days of the Reach Beta, but I can't do that as I actually have more kills with in H3 than Reach. However, it's still much better in Reach. I also started to like the new Needler for Reach. It'll actually kill people now and not just annoy them...or me for not killing them. The new shotgun is different from the one in the past Halo games. That one is an M90 Close Assault Weapon System(or for whatever reason you want to call it by it's acronym; CAWS) while the new one in Reach is an M45 Tactical Shotgun(TS). Yes, that was the Halo canon(story) nerd in me there. I'm not sure what I think of the grenade launcher yet. I can say this though, I don't know how to use it correctly and I haven't blown myself up with it yet; which is actually good considering my luck in Halo games and blowing myself up with explosives. The Focus Rifle is really sweet also, I always enjoy using it and always hate getting hit by it. It really drains your health and shields quickly if you're caught out in the open with no cover in sight. I really can't describe what it's like to have, it's just super-awesome!
Now that I am done with the weapons, let's discuss the gametypes in the Beta. So the big hype of the Beta that I'm sure half of the community was really wanting to play was Invasion. Personally, regular Invasion is awesome and with a few tweaks to how the Elites spawn(for example, gold team has the worst spawn since it's right in the open pretty much) it can be perfect. I'm not a huge fan of Invasion Slayer though. I mean, I understand how it works and all that, but it's still confusing. I at least understand what the territories are for now, you capture them and hold them for an extra 15 seconds I believe it is and you are rewarded with a weapon or vehicle drop. Stockpile is something that will be awesome to play if you have a good team. The only thing I can see that would get annoying with it, but it's a totally legit tactic to do; is the teams that don't really want to play it just go in and take your teams flags out of the collection area for the entire game. As I said before, it's not cheating or anything, just rather cheap and annoying after a while. The return of 3 plots from Halo 2 is awesome, I've always enjoyed playing that gametype with friends, never got to actually play it online against other people though. Anyways, it's awesome and I like it, glad to see it return. It really is full of chaos and fun, which is Halo to me. 1 Flag CTF is still awesome, however; I don't like it on Sword Base. I already stated why I don't like it, but maybe it'll change. It's really fun on Powerhouse so far. SWAT is also in the Grab Bag playlist, but my opinion of SWAT does not change from Halo 3. I hate it. I mean, it's okay, but unless you see person A first, you'll most likely die from someone hiding away in a corner. So, in short, I still don't like SWAT. Team Oddball is still awesome and personally, I think it requires more teamwork now as the ball carrier doesn't have a radar now. Did you ever have one in Halo 3? Was there even a Team Oddball gametype in Halo 3? Covy Slayer is a new gametype to Reach also and I actually like it more then I thought I would. It's basically like regular slayer only with Elites versus Elites with Covenant weapons on the map and for the loadouts. It's simple, but I actually like it more then normal slayer. A new gametype that was added yesterday called Spartan vs. Elite Slayer(or as it actually appears, SvE Slayer) is pretty cool. However, I've only played it twice so I'm not exactly sure what I think of it exactly.
Headhunter in FFA is fun, however, not as fun as I thought it would be. Not a whole lot I can say about it really, so moving on. Juggernaut, an instant favorite of mine. I have no idea how long it's been around in the Halo series, but I got hooked on it back in the early days of Halo 3 when Storm would load up Mad Dash on The Pit or something. It's really cool how the Juggernaut sticks out this time around. They still have the basic waypoint above their head that tells you where they're at, but you also are on fire to. However, I'm sure the being on fire part is just for cosmetic purposes only, but it still looks sweet. I do think though that the Juggernaut needs a little reduction in damage resistance. I understand the definition of a juggernaut, but at points you just can't kill the person who was made the Juggernaut at the start of the game. And that's no fun after a while. Especially if you go in with a full party of 8 and get the game multiple times and the same person is the Juggernaut for most of those games. Oddball is still Oddball as I stated before. It's still fun, but still the same way it was in Halo 3...and 2...and CE, a camp with the ball in the corner of the map that no one can get to festival. I still enjoy it though.
I think that's all for the gametypes.
I really hope Firefight returns in Reach. I guess there have been videos posted up on youtube of people that have hacked the Beta and have found that Firefight does exist in the code, we just can't play it. That's fine and all(even though I'm against people hacking and modding their consoles) I just want official word from Bungie about it returning is all. It can really expand from ODST's version of it with the new sandbox. If it does return, which I'm sure it will with how popular it is in ODST currently, all I really want is more than ten maps. More vehicle based maps like Lost Platoon was in ODST. I think it would be also cool to have perhaps two versions of it, one where you play as Spartans and maybe the other could be where you play as Elites. I know it sounds cruel wanting to play as an Elite and kill endless waves of humans and all, but it would offer a different style of gameplay and you could play as them more then just in the multiplayer when you absolutely have to.
I think that is finally all I have to say about Reach so far. In a few days I'll be post some screenshots and film clips I took from the Beta so far once I have them situated and all that. I'd talk about the campaign a little bit, but we don't know anything about it...therefore I can't theorize about it yet. Oh and one last thing, I will be overhauling my blog a bit. It won't be anything major, but some of the tags are going to change(read: may or may not disappear) and maybe even the picture at the top might change again. We'll have to see. Hope you enjoyed this little read if you are currently reading this.
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