» halo Plus XP

Posts Tagged ‘halo

Jul

Forging Another World.

Categories: Article, Game News and Preview
Tags: Forge, Forge World, FPS, halo, Halo 3, Halo Reach, sandbox, shooter

The For-runners are back, and this time it’s up to you what is built.

Halo 3 brought us something that console fans had been yearning for in one shape or form since Halo: Combat Evolved, and that was a level editor of sorts. Dubbed Forge, this basic level editor would let players customise some of their favorite maps with a variety of weapons, props and vehicles.

Later on in Halo 3’s life Bungie released some unique DLC expand forge further, 2 maps came out over the months the first of which was Foundry, where keen level editors were given a small blank space to play with and a lot more terrian objects to play with, such as bridges, shipping containers etc, this got gamers such as myself pretty excited at the amount of freedom you had in such a small area. But when Sandbox came out for Halo Forge this took map editing for Halo 3 to a whole new level. You could create pretty much anything you wanted within reason, you were given 2 tiers to customise with a wealth of terrain and landscaping tools. With Sandbox I created my own game pretty much, which never really took off, but I may bring it back.

Continue reading ‘Forging Another World.’

Jul

Halo Achievement Collecters Unite!

By Garvaos Leave a Comment

Categories: Game News
Tags: Bungie, FPS, halo, Halo Reach

As I was doing my day-to-day scanning of the internet. I found out that some of the Halo Reach achievements have been announced officially by Bungie. I also noticed that these were announced a while ago *facepalm* but never the less I will endeavor to go through what has been announced.

Note: If you don’t want to feast your eyes on the Halo Reach Achievements, I suggest you take a look at the other posts on the site to take your mind off this one. There is always the Halo Reach Fire Fight article I did to keep you occupied.

Continue reading ‘Halo Achievement Collecters Unite!’

Jul

The Revival Of An Old Friend

By Garvaos Leave a Comment

Categories: Article, Game News and Preview
Tags: Blood Gultch, Coagulation, FPS, halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Reach, halo wars, Red Vs Blue

Ok if you have been keeping up with Plus XP you will know full well now that I absolutely love everything Halo. I have been a fan of this game since its first game back in on the original Xbox, or X Brick as I liked to call it back then.

My first taste of Halo came about when I was round my mates house playing multiplayer split screen. We were playing split screen death match and we chose a nice little level known as Blood Gulch. This was a very simple map that had a base on either side of the map, and a huge wide expanse of land in between. The perfect setting for pretty much any team based game variant. It was also perfect for vehicle battles and anything you can think of. The most simple of maps but the most used throughout Halo: Combat Evolved

Blood Gulch - The First Incarnation

Continue reading ‘The Revival Of An Old Friend’

Jun

Fire Fight Is Back

By Garvaos Leave a Comment

Categories: E3 2010 and Preview
Tags: firefight, FPS, halo, Reach

Now I think I would be under exaggerating just a tiny bit when I say I like halo. I think this every time I look at My Xbox 360 game collection and see almost a 3rd of my games are Halo (yes ok My collection Isn’t that big), but the more I think about it. The more I think “is there anything different they can bring to the FPS genre, are they just gonna stick with the old Halo Mechanics?”

Image From IGN.com

Continue reading ‘Fire Fight Is Back’

May

Halo Reach Beta First Impressions

By Garvaos Leave a Comment

Categories: Demo review
Tags: Beta, FPS, halo, Halo Ruach, Multplayer, ODST, Review

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

Apr

ODST. GOT YOURS?

By plusxp Leave a Comment

Categories: Gaming Musings
Tags: Beta, FPS, halo, Halo Reach, ODST

Yup, here is mine. Arrived the other day. But this isn't the game I actually want to play.

As you’ve probably guessed, the real game I got this for is Halo: Reach. Yup, the beta is out next Monday May 3rd, and I CAN NOT WAIT.

I really like the gritty look of Reach, plus hey, everyone loves jetpacks. Halo 3 is STILL one of the most played multiplayer games on Live, and I myself can account for that. It’s a ballad of vibrant eye poptitude coupled with explosions and badass vehicles.

One of my faves is Sand trap on Big Team with several friends and the Mortal Kombat soundtrack on in the background. A great Sunday game.

My first experience of H3 came when the beta was released back in May 16th 2007 alongside Crackdown. I myself had just got in during the last weekend of the beta as I was for first time setting up my Gold account, but man what a great weekend. I felt like I was part of an exclusive club despite the beta being available to the public, it added to the overall enjoyment, everyone in the game was having a good time.

Later on there was the COD4 beta and much can be said about that experience too? I guess a lot of what makes a great beta is the game itself being awesome. Obviously.

Reach…looks awesome.

So if you don’t have your copy yet, hit EBay or Gamestation (in the UK for £12), grab ODST and wait impatiently till Monday. Cya on the green

-markBOSS

Apr

Gamings Greatest Shotguns

By Jokesound 1 Comment

Categories: Article and Gaming Musings
Tags: Doom 2, Fallout 3, Gears Of War, GTA IV, GTA San Andreas, GTA vice city, Half Life, halo, Left 4 Dead, Painkiller, shotgun, Time Splitters

Ah, shotguns. Shotguns shotguns shotguns. I love shotguns. In videogames, I mean.

When it comes to games where shooting is a primary feature, there’s always one kind of gun I will seek out, and keep with me no matter how pointless or useless it is in the current situation. This only makes the situation worse in the current era, where so many games are adamant on copying the Halo system of two weapons at a time. Still, I can’t deny that I love shotguns. They’re loud, powerful, make loud noises, and they’re one of the most satisying weapons in a game. However, with games insistant on becoming more “realistic”, the shotgun is slowly getting phased out as a weapon to be reckoned with, and is slowly becoming another average weapon you can only really use effectively in close encounters, like the real thing. Well, this is dedicated to some of the best shotguns in gaming of recent times. Shotguns that kill, maim, boom, and let us appreciate the fine art of killing. I asked people on facebook to contribute with some of their favourite shotguns in games, and so as well as some of my favourite shotguns, you’ll also get to read about the shotguns of choice for other gamers, too.

Doom 2 – Super Shotgun (Suggested By Gaz Kerr)

We’ll start off with the old school entry, before concentrating on the new school.

The Doom series obviously being one of the series which helped bring the First Person Shooter into prevalence, and Doom one and two being considered classic games. The Super Shotgun was one of the only new weapons introduced in the second game, and packed a much more powerful punch than the regular shotgun ever could. Two barrels which fired simultaneously per shot, and with a more powerful spread and pellet rate meant that the Shotgun fired faster, wider, and more powerfully. Taking down those pink demons never felt so good.

The boomstick blew away the giant pink monster with a massive, eruptive force. Please don't read anything into this caption.

Gaz is famous on the interwebs for his Dramatic Readings on youtube, as well as his One Man Barbershop Quartet of Still Alive.He can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/Gaz6231.

Painkiller (Suggested By Daniel Ellingham)

My knowledge of Painkiller is sadly very limited bar what that stallion Yahtzee covered in his review. While the shotgun in the game doesn’t fire lightning or ninja stars, I’ve been informed by my friend Dan that it carries about 100 shells, and you never have to reload it. Also I heard that the secondary fire causes the shotgun to fire ice beams. I’ll repeat that. A shotgun that also fires ice beams. I want to play Painkiller just for that. It sounds like one of the most epic shotguns around. For now though, I’ll have to stay on the non-playing side, and just point out that a shotgun that good deserves to be in this list.

Seems like a shotgun to the face would be quite a Painkiller. Because you'd be dead

I wouldn’t want to give a shotgun with that description a… cold shoulder…

Nowaitthatdoesn’tworkdammit-

Gears Of War Series – Gnasher (Suggested By Phillip Godfrey & Luke Tugwell)

Gears of War is one of the best new series of games to come out in the latest generation of gaming, with Epic Games providing a series of games that are… well… epic. *sigh*

One of the reasons for Gear’s success may be the incredibly satisfying gunplay on offer, with machine guns with chainsaws attached, the boomshot, longshot, magnums with recoils capable of destroying weaker mens arms, and of course, the Gnasher shotgun. 8 shells of carnage in every clip, completely devasating at close range, and useful in way more situations than you’d ever give it credit for, especially considering how useless the gun becomes at long range. But that never really becomes an issue, considering how up close and personal you tend to get, especially in the single player. More reliable than just chainsawing everything, and almost as fun, the Gnasher shotgun will soon become one of your best friends soon after beginning Gears of War.

Hopefully they’ll bring it back for Gears of War 3. No Brumak Farming.

(Don’t get the Brumak Farming Joke? Why not check out Ed’s Review of Gears of War 3… From the future!?)

Grand Theft Auto Vice City – SPAZ Shotgun (Suggested by Adam Hargrave)

Vice City was arguably the best Grand Theft Auto, before or after GTA4. It oozed style like a snail oozes… whatever a snail oozes. Everything about it was simply fantastic, and another of these things was the array of weapons you could use to destroy your foes. The best of these being, obviously, the SPAZ shotgun. Cold, automatic, powerful, capable of ripping a hole through everything. But enough about my failed date with a Transformer Robot. This gun was mine and many others’ weapon of choice, and for good reason. I wouldn’t want any other weapons during a rampage, in any case. Though, to be fair, I used to sit at the top of Sunshine Autos, knowing they’d never come up the stairs, leaving me to destroy everything below with the SPAZ. Ahhh, memories.

Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas – Dual Sawn Off Shotguns (Suggested By Callum Smallwood)

GTA: San Andreas. The biggest GTA game in terms of map size, things to do, and weapon selection. While the latter stages of the game’s missions were like shark jumping in slow motion in terms of realism compared to the beginning and what you expected, one thing stayed the same in terms of what is believable and not; the awesome reckoning power of the shotguns. None moreso than the Dual Sawn Off Shotguns. Obviously, the awesome reckoning short range power of a shotgun, doubled, there’s no reason why this wouldn’t have been most peoples’ choice of weapon whenever the situation called for it. Of course, with the ability to upgrade your shooting skills, why would you deny the shotguns when you’re levelled up to max?

That’s not all! As Callum pointed out when suggesting the shotgun to me, its powers translate amazingly to the rarely-mentioned 2-player mode, where they’re capable of destroying cars in only 4 hits. Sadly they probably don’t make the countryside any less of a waste of time.

There isn’t any fun pictured in this image, because there isn’t any to be found.

Timesplitters Series – (Suggested By Callum Hamill)

One of the biggest misjustices of recent times was Free Radical going under. Second Sight was one of the most underrated games of the last generation, and the Timesplitters series was one of the most amazing First Person Shooter series around. Among the incredible amount of challenges, characters, maps, customization, and so forth, again, lay weapons good and awesome enough to keep you wreaking havoc for a long time to come.

Both the Dual Shotgun (or Shotgun x2 configuration, tomatoe tomato) and the Tactical 12 Guage were some of the best weapons you could choose. Both powerful, but with the Shotgun x2 being slightly less powerful but quicker to reload, where the 12-Guage was more powerful, but took forever to reload. Though, if you needed that many shots in the magazine to take someone down, you probably deserved to die.

Can we all just agree to petition or something that Timesplitters 4 gets made? With shotguns, if necessary. Or Monkeys. Maybe I should make another article like this about monkeys…

Fallout 3: Combat Shotgun

So, you’re traversing the wastelands in a post-apocalyptic world. You have everything you need; clothing, medical supplies, Combat Shotgun…

Wait, you don’t have a Combat Shotgun? No wonder you were just polygonally raped by all those Super Mutants. (Note to self: check if ‘polygonally’ is real word)

The Combat Shotgun was my weapon of choice for most of my Fallout adventure, and for good reason. 12 to a barrel, each once a devastating blast after another, and with ‘bloody mess’ added, nothing was more satisfying than shotgunning fools in the head over and over again.

No, I don’t want to set the world on fire, but I never said anything about shotguns

Half Life 2 – Combine SPAS-12 (Also Suggested By Seamus Butler-Ellis)

Everyone can agree: Half Life is amazing. Half Life 2 is even moreso amazing. You don’t get the Shotgun until partway through Ravenholm, and when you do, you learn to love it like family. Not just because it’s a shotgun, and shotguns are amazing, but the alternative fire releases both barrels, causing a blast of destruction that’s as awesome as it is loud. Combined with the fact that the shotgun is amazing at range, and you have a gun that not only destroys everything even at range but with more than enough ammo scattered about the land, you’re never going to want to let go of the shotgun. Unless you choose the far superior Gravity Gun, but I think we can appreciate the shotgun comes in far more useful than the gravity gun does, and buckshot can kill better than random items.

Looks like the forces of evil and shotguns are going to... Combine! Ill leave now

Hey, it’s a better topic conclusion than a pun about the gravity of Gordon’s situation and… dammit.

Halo Series: Shotgun (Suggested by Steven Goodall)

My friend Steven suggested the Shotgun from the Halo games, and for good reason. Mainly propagated throughout the game during the Flood sections (Bungie too, realise that shotguns are the optimum tool for undead disposal), it’s powerful, quick, and as Steven points out “Almost brokenly long-ranged”. It’s indispensible for demolishing the hordes of flood, useful in close combat, and a useful tool in multiplayer. That long range soon becomes a valuable quirk of the weapon that ensures you won’t want to drop it for a long while.

Left 4 Dead Series – Automatic Shotgun

Shotguns are one of the best weapons in Zombie games. As much as other people will tell you that in the case of a real Zombie invasion, shotguns won’t be the best weapon at all, in the realm of videogames, shotguns reign supreme when taking down the braying Zombie hoardes. This is the truest when it comes to the Left 4 Dead series. All the time I’ve been slaying the infected, I’ve rarely strayed away from the Automatic Shotgun, and for good reason. 10 shells a clip, quick firing rate, and devastation all around when this gun is out. No matter what other weapons I’ve tried, I’ve yet to find a more reliable, fun gun to use taking down the hordes than the Automatic Shotgun. Also, when we used to play the first Left 4 Dead, we’d lock anyone out of the safe room who wasn’t carrying a shotgun. You learned the optimum way to survive quickly. You could say you were… Left 4 Dead…

Oh, come on!

And what Ed considers the greatest shotgun in gaming now:

Grand Theft Auto 4 – The Ballad Of Gay Tony – Automatic Shotgun (And Explosive Rounds)

This whole article for me was just a lead up until I could basically tell everyone to buy Episodes From Liberty City just to experience the Automatic Shotgun. I simply cannot hype this gun up enough. It is simply the best shotgun in gaming. It may even be one of the best games in the last few generations of gaming, ever.

Why?

Did I mention this gun is given to you by a wildly eccentric billionaire, voiced by Omid Djalili? Did I mention your first experience with this shotgun is on top of a recreation of the Empire State Building? Did I mention that you’re not even entirely clear it fires explosive rounds at first until you start shooting them off the building? What about it’s stupidly long range which makes it more accurate than the Assault Rifles as well as more powerful? The ability to set cars on fire in two shots? The ability to obliterate everything and everyone in your path? Large cartridge, quick reloading, relative cheapness to supply ammo (granted if you use your friends)? Did I mention Omid Djalili?

If I had billions, a golden Uzi, and voiced a character in GTA, I'd be dancing too

Everything about this shotgun is just the best thing ever. As much as I never try to make people buy things for a singular reason, this shotgun alone is worth the price for Episodes From Liberty City. Granted, it’s only in the Ballad Of Gay Tony, but considering you also get Lost and the Damned, and two massive adventures that outweigh most current games despite originally being downloadable content?

We salute you, Rockstar Games, for bringing us one of the best weapons of anything, ever. Anything else I add would just be a superfluous love letter to this brilliance.

So thank you for reading. Your opinions of the best gaming shotguns, and your own additions should go below in the comments.

As for me? Well, looks like I’m heading for a…

…wait for it…

Wait for it…

Shotgun Wedding!

(Garvaos’ Notes: You’re fired)

- JokeSound

Apr

Halo Reach Multiplayer Modes In Detail

By Garvaos Leave a Comment

Categories: Article and Game News
Tags: Beta, FPS, halo, Halo Reach, Multiplayer

A while back you may remember me going a bit halo crazy over the halo reach beta trailer. You also may remember me doing an analysis of what I thought each multiplayer mode in the game was going to do and be like. Well having scouted the net today I have actually found some solid info stating what each multi player mode is going to be like. So am I right? Lets do a comparison shall we?

To save you going back and forth from this post to my last I am going to quote what I originally said and stick the official info underneath.

Head Hunters

My Prediction – “It looks to me that head shots are key here. Kill someone with a head shot and they drop skulls, collect the skulls and the total of skulls is totted up at the end, the player with the most skulls wins. How did I get all that from a little clip on a trailer? I put it down to educated guess. But that is not necessarily what will happen. I believe this will be one of those games that snipers are gonna love or hate. All well and good scoring head shots but if you half way across the map when ya do it, someone else is bound to collect those skulls.”

Official Info – I was surprised to find out that this game mode, isn’t the head shot only experience that I thought it was going to be. When a player dies he/she drops skulls, the idea here is to scoop up said skulls and deposit them into your team’s zone to score, get the most skulls at your base at the end of the game and you win. This game can be team or free-for-all. The beauty here is you will have a number above your head indicating how many skulls you have got on your person. Horders, you have been warned.

Invasion

Is that a Covernant spartan laser I see?

My Prediction – “To me this looks like Bungie’s answer to an assault type game mode. Meaning that one team defends while the other fills out objectives to inevitably invade an area or destroy something. I loved assault levels in time splitters so I hope Bungie’s attempt at this game mode (if it is what I think it is) will be perfect.”

Official Info – This game mode is only available on one map and is another slayer varient. But to be honest I don’t think I was too far wrong with this game mode either. If you have played Battlefield Bad Company 2 you will be right at home here as it is similar to Rush mode. The idea behind this game mode is that the level will be unlocked in three stages as the game progresses. So kind of like assault but without the mission objectives, each level unlock introduces new weapons and vehicles into the mix. Not something I have ever tried before but sounds like one hell of a mode.

Spartans Vs Elites

My Prediction – “To me this just sounds like a team death match, one team Spartans, the other Elites. What they could implement into this though is race specific abilities, like Spartans can sprint while Elites have active camo, or something along those lines. It will be interesting to see how Bungie develop this game idea.”

Official Info – The game mode has now been officially dubbed Generator Defence. It will be a three Vs three game mode where one team is the elites and one team is the Spartans. Elites try to destroy Generators while Spartans try to protect them. After one round teams swap sides. Simple but effective I think.

unfortunately, I have found on The Arena, but what I have found one more game mode which I will highlight here.

Stockpile

This is a game mode that mixes territories and capture the flag. The idea here is that flags will spawn throughout the map and your objective is to collect them and return them to there capture points.

And the icing on the cake for this post is that Bungie have revealed the UNSC grenade launcher and plasma launcher to the Halo: Reach arsenal. To me this game is shaping up to be one hell of a title. I cannot wait for the Beta next month.

-Garv

Mar

Will The Halo Reach Multiplayer Take The Series To The Next Level?

By Garvaos 1 Comment

Categories: Article and Game News
Tags: first person, halo, Halo Reach, Halo Reach Beta, Multi Player, xbox

On Wednesday, I was gawping at the new multiplayer trailer for Halo Reach. After playing rounds and rounds of Halo 3’s multiplayer, I personally thought that this game couldn’t get any better multiplayer wise. After watching this new trailer, I realised just how wrong I was.

You ever get those moment where, after you have seen an epic game trailer/video, you realise that you were starting at the screen with you mouth physically open and a vacant stare spread across your face while you were watching said video. This is exactly what happened to me when I watched the multiplayer trailer. I personally didn’t think Halo could get any better multiplayer wise. There are new game modes, new weapons and assassination moves just to name a few. Today I am gonna pick out the new things I saw from the trailer and give you my opinion what the new additions to the game are going to be like.

JETPACKS

Ever since I saw the elites bobbing round in these things in Halo 2, I could not help but think ‘I Want That!’ well a couple of games later, my mental message has eventually reached Bungie and now we have Jet Packs in multiplayer and I could not be happier.

Then I thought some more, how will these jetpacks work? Are we looking at a fuel gauge for them? Are they just going to feel like the anti-gravity mod in Unreal Tournament? Or are these actually going to be the single best thing to ever come out of Halo Reach and everyone will be having mid-air gun fights? I have learnt in the past that ideas such as these don’t pan out the way you think they are going too. I personally expect some limit to these jetpacks, so I am preparing myself for a fuel gauge of some sort, unless it will be classed as a new vehicle, in which case it will be unlimited and awesome.

ASSASINATIONS

I touched briefly on the addition of assassinations in my Halo Reach News Round Up a couple of weeks back. In this new multiplayer trailer you get to see them in full action.

Right off the baton I immediately thought Aliens Vs Predator. This was the first time I ever saw the assassination mechanic used in an FPS game when I played it back at Eurogamer in October. I personally love the fact that Bungie have brought it into Reach. Sure, since Halo 2 the game had the assassination medal for when you melee’d an opponent from behind, but this takes it to the next level with full on assassination animations, which I have to say look awesome and a lot better than the AvP ones. So I will be looking forward to assassinating any Halo player that gets in my way, be it Spartan or Elite!

WEAPONS

Again, another thing I briefly touched on in the previous article but this trailer brings us some interesting footage of some of the new weapons available. We all know that the needler rifle can take out three enemies at a time, and the marksman rifle is a love child of the sniper rifle and assault rifle. But in the trailer I saw what looked like a Covenant version of the Spartan laser! If that is true, we could be looking at some insane laser battles. I also saw what looked like a laser guided fuel rod cannon too.

NEW GAME MODES

Probably one of the most important things in any new multi player game, whether it is a sequel or not. Game variety is key to anyones enjoyment. It definitely looks like Bungie have added a breath of fresh air to the multi player with a good few game modes.

So here is the all-important list and what I think you have to do for each game mode. I could be wrong here but I’m gonna give it a go.

HEAD HUNTERS – It looks to me that head shots are key here. Kill someone with a head shot and they drop skulls, collect the skulls and the total of skulls is totted up at the end, the player with the most skulls wins. How did I get all that from a little clip on a trailer? I put it down to educated guess. But that is not necessarily what will happen. I believe this will be one of those games that snipers are gonna love or hate. All well and good scoring head shots but if you half way across the map when ya do it, someone else is bound to collect those skulls.

INVASION – To me this looks like Bungie’s answer to an assault type game mode. Meaning that one team defends while the other fills out objectives to inevitably invade an area or destroy something. I loved assault levels in time splitters so I hope Bungie’s attempt at this game mode (if it is what I think it is) will be perfect.

SPARTANS VS ELITES – To me this just sounds like a team death match, one team Spartans, the other Elites. What they could implement into this though is race specific abilities, like Spartans can sprint while Elites have active camo, or something along those lines. It will be interesting to see how Bungie develop this game idea.

THE ARENA – To me it just sounds like they renamed slayer. I could be totally wrong, it may be something like a one on one shoot out? I am pretty confused about this one and can’t comment much on it. best wait and find out.

OTHER THINGS I PICKED UP ON

DODGE ROLL – It looks like Bungie have implemented a dodge rolling system of some sort. Looks pretty cool but how it will work form a first person perspective is beyond me. Will it zoom out like an assassination?

ACTIVE ROSTER – This looks cool. Looks like you can jump in and out of active games. Means you don’t have to scoff down your dinner in time to play a game with your mates.

Halo reach multi player looks like its taking a step in the right direction. And I cannot wait to jump into some Beta test action on May 3rd. Who’s with me?

Till then I will leave you with the Multiplayer Trailer:

Garv

Jan

Halo Reach: So What Do We Know?

By Garvaos 2 Comments

Categories: Game News
Tags: 3, Bungie, FPS, halo, ODST, Reach

It has been month or two since Halo ODST, many of us gamers have now beaten the campaign and have played Firefight till our eyes and thumbs bleed. So now we have played ODST half to death where do we go from here? Do we go back to Halo 3 Multiplayer and spend hours on playing match after match of Big Team slayer (or whatever takes your fancy). We could do that, or wait for the supposed last title in the Halo Saga, Halo: Reach.

So what is Halo Reach? Well if we look back over the Halo story line as a whole, we know that the Planet Reach was the last standing and the most fortified planet that the Human race had. Reach was the last hope for the Human race to stand a good chance in the Human Covenant intergalactic war. But as fans of the Halo series are fully aware, Reach was taken over by Covenant forces and marks the downfall of the Spartan army.

As you can see this game is not going to be all sunshine and lolly pops. It will be in the same vein as ODST was, in that its going to be dark and gloomy, I hope they will bring back some film noir style cinematography with that too. So you are a part of a squad of spartan soldiers who are stationed on Reach. This squad, known as the Noble Team are the main spartan squad protecting Reach. In true ODST style you will be an un-named character who only answers to the call sign Rook…I mean Nobal 6.

As this is a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved everything in the game is slightly more primitive. Meaning the Covenant will be using more of their Native tongues. It has also been said that the Covenant will be coming across as more of a scarier and creepyier opponent to what we are used to. Sounds pretty interesting to me, but it doesn’t stop there, new enemies have been confirmed, these new enemies are known as Skirmishers, which are close relatives to Jackles, but are more dinosaur like in appearance and only travel in packs, and with new enemies you will get new weapons. The Needle Rifle, which is a souped up needler which can take out three enemies at a time, and the Marksman Rifle, which is a mixture between the sniper rifle and the battle rifle, so FPS gamers out there who like hiding in bushes and getting head shots will be happy with this weapon.

There is a nice selection of new player abilities to get your mitts on. As a spartan in this game you have a special ability. You can choose between active camouflage of sprint. Each of these abilities have a power bar which will deplete when the ability is used, but will re-charge after a short time also. The beauty here though is that these abilities can be changed on the fly. There is also a brand new Melee assassination/one hit kill that has been introduced into the game, I assume its kind of like the assassinations in Aliens Vs Predator, and if so, that would be awesome!

With all character upgrades in the Halo Series there are some downgrades. You will be returning to Halo: Combat Evolved form here, with a health bar and shield combo. Which will be a nice blast from the past, also spike and frag granades are out, but you can’t have everything in a prequel I suppose.

Multiplayer will be making a welcome return with up to 16 player online mode. There will also be Co-Op split screen etc. All the features that we are used too in Halo 3, with also some new features and game types that have not been announced yet, but watch this space because as soon as we know, you will.

Halo Reach looks set to be a great title to round the Halo Saga off with. It also boasts fully motion captured cut scenes and 20 to 40 dynamic lights used at one time. Sounds pretty cool, but I’ll leave you to judge with this Halo Reach trailer.