With the impressions of my hands on time with Reach’s beta still fresh in my mind, I was pleased to get some early access to the public beta. Sure preview events are nice, and you get to meet some lovely people who also write about games. The problem is that you’re only getting a very brief experience with a game in an environment you’re not all the comfortable in. Plus there’s all the free food to eat, it’s always a terrible distraction. So sitting comfortably in front of my TV rather than in a London hotel what are my thoughts?
The central thing I noticed other my previous time with the game was how improved the sound design is. With dozens of TVs in one room it’s hard to get any real impression of how the game sounds, but playing it at home really shows how much Bungie have improved over previous Halo titles. It’s not quite up to the level of Battlefield Bad Company 2, pretty much the pinnacle of sound design in games, but there’s been a significant upgrade in what Halo fans have been used to in the past. They seem to have got the amount of dampening from walls just about right, and the way that sound’s almost completely killed whilst using the Active Camouflage is a nice touch.
Graphically there have been a few improvements over the pre-beta build, it looks a lot crisper than before, textures seem to have been improved in a relatively small period of time and the whole thing just seems to fit together better than it had before. However the real difference is the matchmaking. My previous experience with the beta had been on a closed network with preset games so I hadn’t had a chance to try any of the new features. Apart from general improvements in netcode etc… that you’d expect from a new title, there’s two significant additions to Reach’s matchmaking arsenal.
First is the social settings menu. Essentially this is a new layer of filtering in the matchmaking, allowing you to specify the kind of players you want in the game. You’re provided with four filters for the chattiness of players, the motivation (having a good time or simply winning), the level of teamwork and the tone of players in the game. Now with the closed beta I’m not sure to what extent these settings are being used, it already takes a while to match up with players. I’d imagine once the general public is able to join the beta in their droves on Monday that the social settings will start to make a real difference to the type of game you want to play. The only experiment I’ve tried with social settings so far is setting my motivation to good time rather than simply winning, so hopefully I’m being matched up with more casual players who just want a few matches to unwind.
Beyond social settings you have the new queue feature, accessed from a list of friends who are currently playing Reach. Select a friend from the list and you’ll either join their game or be put into their game once a free spot comes up. It’s a simple addition to the game overall, but it’s a nice touch and essentially gives you a one touch party system on top of the 360’s robust native system.
Disappointingly it seems that my favourite mode, Invasion, isn’t available quite yet, although Bungie have said it will be coming later on in the beta. For now you’ve got a host of modes new and old to try out, although only two playlists are available right now; Grab Bag – a mix of modes, and a Slayer only playlist. Along with the modes there seems to be two of the four promised maps currently unlocked, although the missing maps are for Invasion and Generator Defense, the beta’s other locked mode. Something I didn’t touch on in my hands on is the voting system. Gone are the days of veto power for maps or modes, instead three or four voting options are presented to those in the match and everyone gets to vote.
That’s enough of the basic mechanics, how does it fare? Fairly well I think. There’s certainly more depth to the sound and graphics than I’d experienced in my previous experience with the beta, things feel a lot more fleshed out now. The game performs well, everything feels very steady and solid for a beta. I’ve barely experienced any connection glitches, and certainly none in game. Maybe that will change once the beta goes open tomorrow and things start to experience a little more strain, but on the flip side at least it won’t take ten minutes for matchmaking to complete, which was the only real issue I experienced with the beta. Regardless of whether anyone actually enjoys it, the beta will likely see huge levels of hype tomorrow and I confidently predict a spike in ODST sales in the coming weeks. It’s just the way Halo is.
To be honest the graphics are great, and certainly a step on for the Halo series, but they don’t really stand out significantly from the industry as a whole. Sure Halo fans are going to get what they want, and it’s beyond what I’d expected, but it’s not going to change the industry in the same way that Halo: Combat Evolved or newer games like Uncharted 2 did. Maybe the single player will change my opinion that and something incredible will come to the forefront, so far I’d say I’m very impressed, but still waiting to be blown away.
If you want to get your hands on the beta it’s available tomorrow from any copy of Halo 3: ODST.
