Halo: Reach

Some on eurogamer, but they compressed them for the website. I've got some uncompressed. I'll have to see about checking the game myself if I get time tonight though. There are some curious things.

 

Yeah, the Eurogmer pics are direct feed, and althought he quality isn't great they look good to me.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=11892&article_id=1082496

 

Gameplay thoughts

A Positive Panda ponders:

1. The grenades now do good damage. In H3 the nades were too weak. Perhaps they can tone them down by 5% but they're close to being just right. The sound and impact feel of the nades is some of the best I've seen.

2. The guns have a good kick to them and you can feel the weight of them when firing. The ghost reticule on the Elite weapons really helps.

3. Jumping is somewhere between a military shooter and Halo 3's. I'm happy with that as I have hard time dealing with people jumping all over the place in Halo 3 and me trying to find them.

4. Armor abilities. All of them have their use. In the right situation, they can feel overpowered but that's a good thing. That means there's a tactical use for them. I like this much better than equipment drops from Halo 3.

5. New weapons. The needler rifle needs a boost. The DMR could use one also. The rest seem good. The AR is once again something you need to drop quickly. Unless you find someone with their shields down, or weaken then with a nade first, you're likely going to die.

6. Playing as Elites. This was the most fun. Their evade ability, to me, is the most useful in most situations.

7. Assassinations. Such a good feeling to pull it off. Sucks when it happens to you though! Also, if you're about to be assassinated and a teammate saves you, you shouldn't die, you should get a 2nd chance. It seems if the animation is triggered, even if the assassin is killed half way, you still die.


Debbie Downer is at it again:

1. Reticule. It's way too light in color and transparent. Really, a lot of times, I can't even see when firing. They should simply steal the cross hairs from MW/BF. I know it wouldn't be Halo like but really, the current form sucks.

2. Kill confirmation. As Scott pointed out, it's fine 1 on 1 but unless I'm playing close attention to the messages, it's hard to know if you've killed someone in team battles.

3. Spawn points. This is a big issue on the outdoor map and with Bungie's MP experience, there is no excuse for it.

4. Stronger bullets. The DMR, Needle Rifle and especially the AR need some serious damage bumps. The best experience last night was playing a game of "SWAT" on the indoor map. 4 on 4 and everyone spawned with a DMR and pistol. It was so nice knowing that 3 shots anywhere will kill a guy and 1 headshot will put him down immediately. I did the best during this match as I was much more confident in my ability to kill someone than in the standard game modes. Most of the time, I'd be shooting someone just hoping for a kill and feeling lucky if I did get one. However, this is the one time I felt completely comfortable with the game and enjoyed it the most.

5. Too quiet. After playing Bad Company 2, I'm a fan of being in a battle with all the noises and chatter. Here, things are quite muted. It's good when you're engaging but things can be rather dull at times.

6. Shields down notification. When shooting another player it's hard to know if and how much you're downing their shield. Even when shields explode, it's is easy to miss. Like the reticule issue, this visual queue needs to changed significantly.

Overall, the gameplay is solid and varied enough to make it feel fresh but the are core issues either that either emerged (such as the reticule) or carried over from previous Halo games (bullet sponges). If they can work on the issues I mentioned I could see myself playing a lot more of Halo MP. You could say "well just play SWAT then" but that mode is hardly for a casual player.

If Bungie really wants to attract a broader audience, SWAT would be the normal mode. The guns would come into balance, limit the nades to 2 per spawn, work on the issues mentioned and you're good to go. Otherwise, I fail to see the changes in MP that would appeal to the audience you know they're gunning for.

 

Yeah reticule is to thin the need to atleast make it 2 times thicker are we need to adjust to it.

And at point 5 i think you will enjoy Invasion a lot with the vehicles and such more power weapon in the game.

dam a xbox email just popped up thought i was banned but it was just a reminder that the beta starts this monday

 

Nice detail on the grenade there.

 

The aliasing on the indoor level is pretty bad but lighting effects are good. The outdoor level looks better imo.

 

Loaded it up. Not for gameplay mind you. I'm well aware of MP and Bungie, and besides my track record is well... meh.

It will take some time for me to adjust to right bumper as melee.
Love the sound effects.
Love the ragdolls. (even if it's my own >_> )


I can't unsee the blur. It reminds me of a really cruddy LCD with 16ms response time.

 

BTW, does anyone have an extra code??

 

I love the sound effects as well but apparently they sound like static because there is so much base when listened to through standard/cheap tv speakers. Ahhh, the pain of trying to make everyone happy!

 

Well, I've tried for the past 3 hours on Facebook & Twitter to get a code. No luck. Oh well.

Tommy McClain

 

Bungie posted well over 200 codes on their website for those still looking to get one

 

Sigh, bet they're all gone by now

 

People had BOTS running against their pages. The 117 and nearly 1000 codes were dead in a matter of minutes.

 

How does this code thing work. Is it separate from having the ODST disc, as in you can just download the Beta with some code, or is there a code somewhere in ODST package, and you have to input that somewhere?

 

Been wasting time since yesterday searching for a code only to miss barely by minutes lol

 

Some people are saying it looks like an improved Halo 3 (not a H1 to H2 style jump) and others are still complainng about the aliasing (but that might just be down to badly calibrated sets).

Nearly everyone though, is complaining about the motion blur. What's up with that, is it just too much MB being used (ie. even more than KZ2) or is the MB implementation not very good which makes everything look like a severe case of LCD ghosting?

And everyone thinks the reticules are too light and hard to see as well.

Also Digital Foundry did a piece on the the beta:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-halo-reach-beta-article

EDIT: It turns out the ghosting is due to crap temporal AA frame blending

 

It's a standard 25-character Xbox Live Marketplace code. Once you redeem it, it will allow you to download the beta without the need for the ODST disc. If you don't get a code, then on late Monday morning put your ODST campaign disc in the drive and choose the option "Extra/Bonus" from the main menu. There you will see the option to download the Beta.

Tommy McClain

 

The reason I asked was that I have ODST, but I'm not really that interested in playing the Beta, so I could have given the code to you, but apparently there's no way to do that.

 

I got used to the motion blur and now like it but I can't imagine having some shitty LCD with blur issues (most LCD's) and then having this much motion blur on top of it. That's gotta look "interesting."