Halo: Reach

[Guest]

Might be worth spoilering that particular screenshot?

Sorted.

I guess it's a callback to the earliest iterations of Halo when they had... blah, blah, blah...

Edit: I'm pretty sure there are videos of it on the Halo 2 LCE bonus disc.

Anyway...

I knew they had ambient life in development, but I wasn't aware that you could fight them. I'm assuming you can with that thing, as it's showing up on the motion tracker as a red dot.

[Snowman]

Fixed, but now you've ruined it by quoting me!

Here's what I was thinking of, at the 4:25 mark, although it's actually pretty different to the Reach screenshot.

[Matthew Kenyon]

In other news, I played Halo 3's campaign last night - hadn't played it for years. It's surprisingly fun and clearly a top-quality game. It is much, much more exciting and the environments more fun than ODST, which really was mediocre, considering they had the same engine at their disposal. So I'm getting excited for Reach.

Yeah H3 Campaign is great. Been wrapping up the score based achievements this week and it's been ace. Finding it best with Heroic, Tough Luck and Catch on.

Jon - I know Heroic is for [insert any profanity here] - so no flaming.

[Lucky Gonk]

Jon, Snowman:

With regards to the ambient wildlife chat, there's actually an achievement for killing the ravenous beasties that populate Reach.

One thing that might not be so great is this:

There are eight uniquely textured multiplayer maps in the list on the left (discounting Forge World). Of the eight, only a handful are suited to 4 v 4 (my preferred gametype). We saw Powerhouse and Sword Base in the beta (neither of which were great in my opinion). Reflection is a remake of Ivory Tower from Halo 2 and Zealot looks aesthetically similar to Midship, although I think it may be significantly larger.

Boneyard and Spire are both Invasion maps. Boardwalk and Countdown I don't know anything about. In any case it feels like we're not exactly spoilt for choice. Forge World is great and all, and some of the Forge maps look fan-fucking-tastic, but ultimately they all look a bit samey, in that they all feature green grass, rolling hills and Forerunner architecture.

It may be that Bungie are keeping their powder dry and that more unique multiplayer maps will be revealed nearer to Reach's release, or it may simply be that Bungie are using Forge World to generate most of Reach's multiplayer content. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Guest]

Yeah, I read about the maps on NeoGAF from people who'd been at Comicon. It worries me there are so few to be honest. I'm seriously hoping they're holding some back somehow... maybe a few free DLC included with the retail version?

[Chaz]

If there are DLC maps released after launch, they certainly won't be free. While Forge World can pretty much create any of the best maps ever used in the Halo games (i'm sure it won't be long before remade versions of all the old favourites crop up) I just hope Bunie validated ones (ie the best and most well-made ones) will come up in matchmaking along with other options, because only 8 'proper' maps is taking the piss really.

[Ferine]

Given the obscene amount of cash Activision have made off their 1200MSP map packs, I can't see Microsoft being in favour of giving anything away, no.

Going off that screenshot I take it Firefight maps aren't Forge-able. Do we know how many of those there'll be?

[Guest]

If there are DLC maps released after launch, they certainly won't be free. While Forge World can pretty much create any of the best maps ever used in the Halo games (i'm sure it won't be long before remade versions of all the old favourites crop up) I just hope Bunie validated ones (ie the best and most well-made ones) will come up in matchmaking along with other options, because only 8 'proper' maps is taking the piss really.

Yeah, I was just trying to convince myself that there will be more maps at launch. The version played at Comicon must surely be the final game, so that leaves us pretty dry on the map front.

I just want them to say... 'So you thought you only had 8 unique maps? Here are another 8!'. It won't happen though, will it?

[Varnsen]

loving those screenshots. shows the step forward with their lighting and shaders. some nice touches in the nighttime shots such as the low light noise in this one;

Pointless Screenshot showing minor graphical effect that I thought was cool

[A Hen]

I hope someone makes an accurate copy of Hang 'Em High. If just to see if it still holds up as the Best Map Ever.

[Mr Do 71]

I hope someone makes an accurate copy of Hang 'Em High. If just to see if it still holds up as the Best Map Ever.

No need to hope, there will be plenty of Hang 'Em Highs.

[Guest]

loving those screenshots. shows the step forward with their lighting and shaders. some nice touches in the nighttime shots such as the low light noise in this one;

Pointless Screenshot showing minor graphical effect that I thought was cool

Surely that's a visor effect. It looks the same as the shit I posted earlier. Looking at some of the night time levels, there doesn't seem to be much grain to them.

[Varnsen]

Surely that's a visor effect. It looks the same as the shit I posted earlier. Looking at some of the night time levels, there doesn't seem to be much grain to them.

yeah you're right but it's still cool. All the lighting looks good in those screenshots.

[Harsin]

Presumably Bungie won't be providing much, if any, after-market support for Reach as they'll be moving onto their new Activision pastures and any map-packs and updates will be farmed out to Microsoft's new Halo studio 343 Industries.

[Snowman]

It may be that Bungie are keeping their powder dry and that more unique multiplayer maps will be revealed nearer to Reach's release, or it may simply be that Bungie are using Forge World to generate most of Reach's multiplayer content. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Halo CE had thirteen maps at launch, Halo 2 had twelve, and 3 had eleven. I guess it wouldn't be entirely out of the question for Reach to be limited to eight unique maps and supplemented by the Forge World levels. At the same time, I feel like there should be a greater number of maps than usual since Bungie have been talking so much about this new design ethos of using the same spaces for both campaign and multiplayer.

[Chaz]

Yeah, campaign maps turned into MP maps plus remade maps. Doesn't seem like a massive amount of time can have been put into MP map design. I knew some element had to be slacking somehow, seeing as there's a ridiculous amount of content elsewhere. Hopefully this means the campaign is top notch at least, which in my eyes is more than a fair trade-off.

[Lucky Gonk]

Multiplayer footage from Reflection, Spire and Zealot

[Matthew Kenyon]

Stating the obvious, but if there are maps based on campaign sections then fingers crossed they are just hiding them from the list.

A lot of time will have been put into the MP maps FWIW

[Matthew Kenyon]

I hope someone makes an accurate copy of Hang 'Em High. If just to see if it still holds up as the Best Map Ever.

Amen.

[Mr Ben]

Multiplayer footage from Reflection, Spire and Zealot

Looks awesome, if the maps are all wicked then I wont mind there being so few tbh.

[Matthew Kenyon]

WOW. Reflection is looking seriously fresh.

[Matthew Kenyon]

Reach Gold Master accepted apparently (according to HBO) - duplication!

Hope they did actually put more MP maps in.

[MicB]

Presumably Bungie won't be providing much, if any, after-market support for Reach as they'll be moving onto their new Activision pastures and any map-packs and updates will be farmed out to Microsoft's new Halo studio 343 Industries.

Although it would seem that way, they have said in an interview (can't remember with who at the moment) that they will be fully committed to supporting Reach in the years to come, as they have done with Halo 3.

[Superunknown]

One thing that might not be so great is this:

There are eight uniquely textured multiplayer maps in the list on the left (discounting Forge World). Of the eight, only a handful are suited to 4 v 4 (my preferred gametype). We saw Powerhouse and Sword Base in the beta (neither of which were great in my opinion). Reflection is a remake of Ivory Tower from Halo 2 and Zealot looks aesthetically similar to Midship, although I think it may be significantly larger.

Boneyard and Spire are both Invasion maps. Boardwalk and Countdown I don't know anything about. In any case it feels like we're not exactly spoilt for choice. Forge World is great and all, and some of the Forge maps look fan-fucking-tastic, but ultimately they all look a bit samey, in that they all feature green grass, rolling hills and Forerunner architecture.

It may be that Bungie are keeping their powder dry and that more unique multiplayer maps will be revealed nearer to Reach's release, or it may simply be that Bungie are using Forge World to generate most of Reach's multiplayer content. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Surely there's got to be more than 8 maps? ODST had 8 unique maps for Firefight, and having added the Invasion mode alongside Slayer and Firefight it would leave each mode with only 2 or 3 properly suited maps.

[Matthew Kenyon]

Although it would seem that way, they have said in an interview (can't remember with who at the moment) that they will be fully committed to supporting Reach in the years to come, as they have done with Halo 3.

Bungie said something similar a couple of weeks back on the weekly update. It would be almost impossible to just 'pass it over' to 343.

[Guest]

Multiplayer footage from Reflection, Spire and Zealot

Spire looks superb.

[bulletzen]

Try as I might I'm just not feeling excited about this at all. I've never been a fan of multiplayer Halo, so that entire component of the game is out for me, although I did enjoy the small amount of the Firefight that I played in ODST. So with the singleplayer in mind, it still doesn't excite me. I guess knowing how the story ends, not playing as Master Chief or not even going to a Halo at all just puts me off. The videos I've seen so far just seem to be missing that classic Halo vibe for me.

**shrugs**

[djbhammer]

Bungie said something similar a couple of weeks back on the weekly update. It would be almost impossible to just 'pass it over' to 343.

In the 360 mag, Bungie say they will be involved for quite a while but will probably not support it over 4/5 years like Halo 3 due to new projects and 343 will be keen to start using their Halo IP.

[Ketchup]

I played Halo 3 multiplayer the other week and it sure is annoying. Hitting people in the face whilst they are not moving and not getting a kill. The snipers hiding in a corner of the map and getting 25 kills because you can't get near them. The lag?

The Halo Reach beta was a joy to play, hitting someone resulted in a kill, it was faster paced and it never felt like you had to play twice as good to account for the lag. Im really looking forward to reach now after how slow and annoying Halo 3 was.

[son_of_helvetica]

Just checking out the IGN screenshots. Some absolutely stunning visuals - it's amazing how far Bungie have come with Halo. Also stoked about the space battle stuff - the 360 needs a good spacey shooter with a Colony Wars flavour, this could do it.