Halo: Reach Beta Review Part 1

The game is much like Halo 3 and Halo 2, at least that is how it feels once you select the control scheme that works best for you. Of course it isn’t going to play exactly like the previous ones, dual wielding and equipment are gone and in its place are armor abilities. In the beta there is Jetpacks), Sprint, Armor Lock, and Active Camo. Each of these you can only use for a limited amount of time though and must not be used in order for it to reload. It does add something fresh to the mix, which is nice.

So far the maps, Swordbase and Powerhouse for the most part feel like Halo 3 maps, which isn’t bad, but they don’t feel that fresh either. I know you are probably thinking, what happens when you try and leave a map with a jetpack? Simple, the game tells you to return to the battle field and if not then you simply die and respawn. I was a huge fan of Halo 2, maps like Lockout, Midship, and the rest were out there and very alien, when Halo 3 came along it shipped with mostly human maps and felt a lot like Call of Duty. I think that part of the joy that was Halo 2 was the alien maps and so far two of the four maps for Halo Reach beta I’ve played on feel very much like the Halo 3 and Call of Duty maps. Hopefully we won’t need to wait years in order to play on fan favorites like Midship, Coagulation, and Lockout.

Let’s get to the game types. Slayer is slayer, besides the new weapons and new abilities nothing much has changed. Three plot territories is back and in a big way, only this time you do not need to be in it to control the territory, simply capture it and then move to the next. Capture the flag is back as well, with two kinds. The first one is the classic CTF where one team on offense, one on defense. You can’t use your armor abilities, but it’s still pretty fun. The next variant is neutral. Instead of having one flag, you have several and need to capture as many as you can, but there’s a twist. The timer counts down and you need to wait for it to actually accept those flags, until then the opposite team can come along and steal the flags from you. A new game type so far released is Headhunter.

Headhunter was a scrapped game type from Halo 3 that made its debut in the Reach beta, basically you kill someone. When you do you get a skull. Take that skull to a moving area to collect those points. Kill someone who already has skulls and get those skulls as well. First one to 25 wins. Headhunter is a fun game, though it reminds me a lot of Griffball.

Now let’s talk about weapons. The beloved Battle Rifle that has been MIA since Halo 3 is still gone. In its place is the DRM. Also is gone are all the brute weapons, besides the gravity hammer. There are some cool new weapons however, a grenade launcher that locks on and a needle rifle that is effectively the Covenant equivalent of the DRM.

As of right now the game feels a lot like Halo 3, which is fine, but Halo 3 wasn’t Halo 2. I played a lot of Halo 2 and I think Halo 3 was missing something that made it all the more special. Hopefully more maps will come out, if not in the beta then in the final game that will make it feel more like Halo 2.