» Halo Reach Beta: First Impressions

Name: Jason Bourne

From: www.aclpro.com.au

About: Jason is a Halo veteran and one of the oldest players to continue playing within the Australian Xbox Community. He is the Online Director of Australian Cyber League who run Online & LAN Tournaments.

Jumping into Halo Reach the first thing I noticed was the controls. No longer does aiming feel like you’re trying to drive a cement truck across an ice hockey field, basically the interpolated negative aim acceleration isn’t as obvious and because of this long time gamers will rejoice. The game seems a lot more responsive to your control inputs.

It’s still not perfect however, as the game unfortunately runs at a mere 30 frames per second so it doesn’t feel as smooth as Call of Duty.

The next thing I noticed was the turtle like base movement speed. This definitely needs to be increased before the final release. If you thought playing Halo 3 on default movement speed was bad imagine that, but now you’re wearing lead boots on the ocean floor. It feels incredibly slow and it makes dodging grenades almost impossible.

Halo Reach Beta

Next I tried jumping and I was very impressed. You can no longer jump out of orbit but you can still get a decent length out of your jump. I’m quite happy with it.

I’m not sure what to think of the grenades yet. They seem very powerful and they have a wide blast radius and as a Halo 1 veteran I don’t mind the blast radius so much, however the fuse on them is very short and the base movement speed doesn’t give you much chance to dodge the explosions. I think if Bungie want to leave the blast radius alone they need to make the fuse slightly longer to balance them out.

The weapon damage seems too weak compared to the damage of the melees and grenades. Weapons simply take far too long to kill their target. The Magnum is ok at close range, but at mid to long range it takes too long to hit targets, especially when your target has the ability to sprint/evade to cover.

The DMR needs a buff, it takes too many shots to kill and at long range the reticle bloom takes too long to reset meaning you can usually only get 3 shots into your target out of the minimum of 5 required for a kill before your target has found cover.

The magnum definitely requires a larger magazine. I find myself constantly reloading in the middle of a fire fight and talking to other players I’m definitely not the only one who finds this frustrating. If you put several shots into a target and chase the kill by the time you get around the corner half their shield has regenerated and you don’t have enough bullets in your magazine to finish the kill. Also, if you manage to put a few shots into a player running by then catch another player off guard you’re forced to reload which often results in you dying.

A larger magazine for the magnum would give better players a chance to shine. I’d suggest a 4 shot kill with 12 bullet magazine for the magnum and a 4 shot kill with 12 bullet magazine for the DMR as well.

Halo Reach Beta

The Needle Rifle seems pretty good, it actually seems a lot more accurate than the DMR at long range.
I like the Focus Rifle. It works very similar to the Lightning Gun in Quake. It does a nice amount of damage while still requiring precision to hit your targets.

The maps so far don’t impress me at all. Sword Base is clean, which is good, but it’s a bit too complicated and it seems like you’re at a huge disadvantage if you don’t use the jet pack armour ability. Power House is ok for a big team battle map but it’s not my idea of a competitive map.

I hope Sword Base isn’t Bungie’s idea of a competitive map otherwise Halo Reach will be in a lot of trouble. Maps in Halo 3 are the main thing holding the game back, I’m hoping it won’t be the same case in Halo Reach. I’m hoping to see at least 2 arena maps for the launch of Reach.

The graphics are quite good. Personally I’d prefer to see the game running at a solid 60 FPS, but the 30 FPS for Reach seems ok – Definitely doesn’t seem to stutter as much as Halo 3. I have however noticed a few hiccups while playing where the game would freeze for about half a second. I’ve experienced the same thing in Halo 3, hopefully Bungie will iron that out before release.

Finally, the UI is quite nice. It’s easy to find out what your friends are doing and who they’re playing with.