Now Playing: Halo Reach MP Beta and stuff…
This week, I have played a little bit of the multiplayer beta for Bungie’s Halo Reach.
It’s Halo 3 with some enhancements. Apart from one small thing, for the life of me, I can’t really tell what they are yet.
Reach is a prequel to the Halo games starring MasterChief and as many know, it’s Bungie’s last game for MS and the last time they visit the world they unleashed on gamers nearly a decade ago. Halo redefined console multiplayer for many, made console FPS acceptable to all but a few cranky people with superiority/impotence issues and despite several iterations, hasn’t changed all that much. You still have a red team and a green team, with some customisations of armour available. You can change your armor’s color yet you always end up as red or blue in a team game but there’s not a huge visual difference in classes, which is a bit of a shame these days.
But here’s what’s new, armour abilities. You pick one of five nearly identical loadouts but you can access camo- which sends you semi-invisible in the same way as the camo powerup from the earlier games; a powerful ground attack which locks you do the group while you let off a powerful shockwave attack; a super sprint move; and jet pack. Jet pack is the most fun, and the one open to the most early abuse so be prepared for lots of shouting. Unless you’re like me and mute everything.
I find Halo a relaxing game to play since I never have been great at it. Since I never expect to do well, I enjoy it more. No headset means I don’t listen to all the whining brats and hence the game is fun. If I stick at it, I will generally do better but I expect final Halo Reach will be something I play online for a month or so until Medal of Honor comes out a month later.
I’m also playing Splinter Cell Conviction with its annoyingly vocal guards. They’re even tweeting GuardFromSCC
The game is brief. ODST brief. I’ve barely touched it and seem to be close to the end. It’s also very good. Since the end is near and the review won’t be far off, I’ll leave it at that.
Medal of Honor’s trailer, showing an emotionally mature storyline seems to have confused many weaned on Infinity Ward’s teen-baiting shenanigans of late, but MoH was always po-faced and reverential of soldiers when you consider it came out of Steven Spielberg’s continuing fascination with World War II even after making Saving Private Ryan. CoD 7 looks to be more of the same- no bad thing for fans, but the law of diminishing returns will hit Activision’s franchise the saw as it did for EA years ago.
Also, we’ve got a Podcats coming tomorrow. Don’t clap just yet…
