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The last couple of days, I have been making the most of my Xbox LIVE 48 hour Gold Trial. Every chance I have had I have been playing the Halo: Reach Beta. And am I disappointed? Hell no!

Lets just cut to the chase here and dive straight into what the Beta has to offer, Now as you all well know I was only on a LIVE play trial, not a gold account, this means I could not play in The Arena section of the Beta, which pretty much sucks, but what I did play was quite frankly amazing.

Halo reach Multiplayer takes the best parts from Halo 3, ODST and Halo: Combat Evolved and shoves them all together into one big pile of awesome multiplayer action. From the Halo 3 side we have great graphics, game play and spartan customisation, from the ODST side we have the HUD with the health bar situated in the top center of the screen, and from the Combat evolved side we have some of the old controller configuration back, coupled with the health bar, and the retro Magnum with scope from the first game. Bungie have really gone to town with mixing and matching the best parts from each game of the halo series (we’ll just pretend halo 2 doesn’t exist for now) and making one hell of a multiplayer experience.

The menu layout is pretty much what you expect from any Halo game but with a few tweaks. Those familiar with Halo 3 will be right at home here pretty much, with the match making set up and the playlist selection, etc. But there are also some nice additions, such as the side bar where you can jump straight into a friends game/lobby, and the fact that you can now vote for which game type you want as opposed to veto a game type like you did in Halo 3. All nice new menu additions that really help the pre game lobbies.

Now for the all important bit, the game play. Now I was only allowed access into the grab bag playlist and the free for all playlist. This then let me into games across 2 maps. There were a variety of free for all games in the free for all playlist..surprisingly, and they consisted of games such as Oddball, Jugganaught, Slayer and Head Hunter. We all know about the last three, but head hunter is a brand new game mode for Halo: Reach and has to be one of my favorites.

The idea behind head hunter is very simple, you have to kill opponents to collect sculls, then take the sculls to goals across the map, the person with the most skulls saved wins, you can either hoard them, or take them one at a time, that is entirely up to you. The game itself just becomes a frenzy of gun fire and desperation to seek out and get every skull you can, this topped with the new armour abilities make this game variant a must play.

Talking of armour abilities you have four abilities available to you at every time you respawn in most games. They are active camo, jetpack, sprint and invincibility. All these are limited and need to regenerate after time, my favorites have to be the jetpack, because it kind of reminds me of the anti-gravity mutator in Unreal Tournament but a hundred times better, and the invincibility, although you are grounded to the floor while it is active, it is a damn handy ability for thing like territories or CTF if you want to hold your ground, you also get a nice EMP burst at the end to take down enemy shields around you.

Weapons, the key component in any FPS game, and Halo Reach is full of them. Some of the good oldies a back, like the needler and the assault rifle. But some of the new ones are just fantastic in my opinion. The needler rifle is pretty much the covenant answer to the halo 2 battle rifle but more explody, the plasma rifle has gone through a complete overhaul and now actually looks like a rifle, the marksman rifle which is a mix between the battle rifle and a sniper works a treat at both long and close range, the new beam rifle is just immense, and can take out a seige of enemies with is swooping beam. But one of the most impressive new weapons has to be the covenant grenade launcher, hold down the trigger and it launches four sticky plasma grenades at a time. If used properly this gun is hard to beat. But it does take some getting used too.

Back to the playlists, There was the grab bag playlist which was open to team games. These included things like team slayer and CTF. One of the new additions was stockpile. This game mode makes the teams grab flags across the arena and drop them back at their teams base. After a while the flags are collected and added to the score. Very simple game b ut another one that induces a hell of a lot of carnage. A really good team game that has everyone pretty much clawing at all the flags they can get.

One thing I am yet to mention about this Beta is the Spartan customisation. Each online game you play, you accumulate credits for achievements and victories in the game. These credits are then added to your bank where you can buy new bits of armour for your spartan. This takes Halo customisation to a whole new different level. And believe me, this will make you want to play more and more, to get that  youhelmet have always wanted. This time round, Spartans will be unique.

The Halo Reach beta for me was a great experience, Sadly I am now going to have to say bye-bye to Reach till the Fall when it comes out. But If you have Gold, get on this beta while you have the chance. It’s Worth it.

Garv