[Hendo]

Video Games | Spike TV VGAs 2009 | Halo: Reach Exclusive In-Engine Debut HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

[mr lakitu]

Blah blah blah could they seriously have not shown any of the game. So dull.

[spatular]

yeah pretty pointless, bring on the beta!

[Cyberpunk]

I've just finished reading Halo - The Fall Of Reach. The book tells the story of how the Spartans were created, and how Master-Chief became their leader. The book was superb. I hope this game is equally as good.

[DifferentClass]

So Halo Reach exists.. thanks for the news, Bungie.

[David]

Yeah, the trailer is crap. Way to make Halo more brown coloured, Bungie. We need more games in that glorious shade.

[spatular]

3rd may, i'll be booking a week off

[hinn888]

Im not sure why i keep buying halo games on day one. Probs coz of so much hype, and 4 player on co-op makes it a gd several hours to waste.

[spatular]

there's a reach vid-doc thing on marketplace now with what looks like in-game footage, looks pretty good although it could be running on pc or something, not that i'm bothered what it looks like, halo 3 often looks pretty poor for a modern game, still plays better than the rest though

[hinn888]

Leaked multi player footage!

[spatular]

jet packs!!! not sure what i think to that. but the rest looks cool, man i'm well excited for the beta

[illdog]

Im right there shitting my pants with you dude.

[Hendo]

Quote

The Halo Reach alpha has a bug which stops players from 'teabagging' eachothers' corpses. Breaking news, folks.

"The respawn camera flies back to the spawn location immediately after dying, so your opponents can't teabag / shoot / melee your body and have a possibility of you seeing it," reads a troubleshooting e-mail the developer shared on its website.

"As with previous Halos, players should have a couple seconds to look around and locate where they were shot from," it explains. "The fringe benefit of this is that the enemy that killed you (or the nearest passerby) can ravish your helpless corpse as you bear witness from beyond the veil.

"Ultimately, the Alpha experience will help make your Beta run that much better, so if you're envious over the prospect of some folks getting in on the action a little bit early, keep in mind that they're doing it all for you," it adds. "At least they can't teabag each other."

I think they should go the whole hog and have the word "GAY" emblazoned right above your tag if you teabag, and it lasts for 4 weeks after you do it each time.
I mean, the people who do it are largely the same ones who go nuts and homophobic screaming takes place, but y'know, if you like to dip your balls in another man's face....I'm just sayin'.

[spatular]

some people i play with do the whole teabaging thing, i try to tell them its stupid but they think it's hillarious for some reason.

anyway, more info on the matchmaking:

http://www.shacknews...article.x/62865

if they can help solve the problem with people making new accounts that's a big step forward.

[hinn888]

Quote

With Halo: Reach gearing up for its Beta this May, a whole array of multiplayer details have emerged from Bungie, including news on revamped matchmaking, taking into account improved voting, queue joining and active rosters.

There's also a brand new 'Arena System' that's aimed at more experienced Halo players, offering a separate set of ranked playlists for the hardcore community.

Arena is a Slayer-only mode that utilises a 'pure scoring system' that won't penalise you if you're the best player on the losing team. Instead you'll get a rating compared to the rest of the community in each of the game's divisions.

Arena will be split into seasons and your rating will be determined by the actions you perform in matches, with points earned for kills, assist and so on. At the end of each season, your statistics will be etched into your very own 'baseball card' before the next season begins anew.

Seasons are likely to "line-up with calendar months" according to Bungie's Tyson Green and during, or at the end of each Arena season, you might move up or down a division depending on how well (or not well) you did. The divisions will be Onyx, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Steel.

Alongside Arena, the improved matchmaking will include better options for Ranked and Social matches including the ability to choose your preferred playlists using the listed categories:

* Teamwork - Team Player vs. Lone Wolf
* Motivation - Winning vs. Having Fun
* Chattiness - Chatty vs. Quiet
* Tone - Polite vs. Rowdy

A game of online Halo without the sound of a 12-year old swearing down the earpiece? We must be dreaming!

Seems that Bungie has really put a lot of thought into making Reach's multiplayer a marked improvement over Halo 3's, which let's face it, was pretty damn good anyway.

Halo: Reach's Beta will be kicking off on May 3rd.

[hinn888]

Quote

In an exclusive interview with Game Informer, Bungie has detailed some more features for Halo: Reach, the most potentially game-changing of which is the new 'Armour Lock' ability.

Reach's sandbox designer, Josh Hamrick describes the ability as, "... kind of a throwback to the old school bubble shield but you always have it on your person and it’s intended to keep you safe. It’s kind of like a block. If your opponent closes on you with a shotgun or is about to land a melee blow or run you over with a vehicle, you can engage Armour Lock and become temporarily invulnerable."

There is one slight caveat to the Armour Lock though, just to keep things fair as Hamrick explains, "You can’t move, aim, or shoot. You’re stuck there, but you can’t be killed. You can do that up to three times on one charge or you can do one sustained lock for a few seconds."

But wait a second! That's not all Armour Lock is capable of. It has another function that nullifies vehicles with an EMP blast: "There is also a knockback and EMP blast component. The longer you hold your Armour Lock, the more pronounced the effect will be. There are three different tiers – if it’s just a short lock, I’ll get a small knockback and a tiny bit of EMP up to the max level, which is a much larger knockback and EMP blast. It’s really intended to say, “hey, you better not mess with me, I’m extremely dangerous even though I’m trapped in here!” It’s particularly effective against vehicles as well. Also, if you’re stuck with a plasma grenade or have needles in you, they’ll be knocked off when you engage Armour Lock."

Armour Lock sounds like it will seriously change the way you play Halo, but we hope that it doesn't throw the game's fine balance out of whack. We'll see when the Beta strikes on May 3rd. Incidentally, Bungie's Brian Jarrard says "The public beta is going to include a huge chunk of Reach sandbox goodness."

[spatular]

a friend recommended i listen to the bungie podcast and it was really interesting (for me anyway), the changes to the combat between 2 -> 3 were just minor tweeks, the only big changes were the equipment and better bomb/teratories gametypes, but reach sounds like there's going to be quite a lot of big changes, some of the main ones i remember-

- there is fall damage
- health regenerates but not fully - health packs needed for full regeneration
- spartans and elites are different regarding size/health

that doesn't seem like too many differences but it sounded like there was more (+ the stuff like the abilities that they already announced), i'm sure there was more, and they still haven't revealed everything yet.

still can't wait for the 3rd!

[spatular]

more info on the beta and the 4 included maps:

http://uk.xbox360.ig.../1082381p1.html

info from here:

http://www.rllmukfor...1660&start=1660

set hype levels to maximum!

[hinn888]

Hmm.. Halo always seems way to overhyped to me.

[spatular]

yeah if you're not a big fan i can see that, but for me the multipayer pretty much lives up to the hype, massive massive hype, hence my super excitement