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’ve been playing the Halo: Reach Beta and am I disappointed? Hell no!

Let’s just cut to the chase here and dive straight into what the Beta has to offer. As you all well know, I was only on a LIVE play trial, not a gold account, which meant 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, gameplay and Spartan customisation. From the ODST side we have the HUD – with the health bar situated in the top centre 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 in 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 pretty much right at home here with the match making set up and the playlist selection, etc. There are also some nice additions such as the side bar where you can jump straight into a friend’s game/lobby and the fact that you can now vote for which game type you want, as opposed to vetoing a game type like you could in Halo 3. All together, nice new menu additions which really help the pre-game lobbies.

Now for the all important bit – the gameplay. I was only allowed access into the ‘Grab-Bag’ and ‘Free For All’ playlists which then let me into games across two maps. There were a variety games in the ‘Free For All’ playlist…surprisingly, and they consisted of games such as Oddball, Juggernaut, Slayer, and Head Hunter. We all know about the first three, but Head Hunter is a brand new game mode for Halo: Reach and has to be one of my favourites.

The idea behind Head Hunter is very simple: you have to kill opponents to collect skulls and take them to goals across the map. The person with the most skulls saved wins and 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 gunfire and desperation to seek out and collect every skull you can and this, topped with the new armour abilities, makes this game variant a must play.

Talking of armour abilities, you have four available to you every time you respawn in most games: ‘active camo’, ‘jetpack’, ‘sprint’ and ‘invincibility’, all of which are limited and need to regenerate after time. My favourites 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’ which, although you are grounded to the floor while it is active, it’s a damn handy ability for things like Territories or Capture the Flag 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 are 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, and 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 siege of enemies with its 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 to.

Back to the playlists: the Grab Bag playlist was open to team games which included things like Team Slayer and CTF. One of the new additions was Stockpile – this game mode has the teams grabbing flags across the arena and dropping them back at their team’s base where after a while the flags are collected and added to the score. It’s a very simple, but really good, team game and is another one which induces a hell of a lot of carnage and 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 which are then added to your bank so that 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 just to get that helmet you’ve always wanted. This time round, Spartans will be unique.

The Halo: Reach beta, for me, was a great experience but, sadly, I’m now going to have to say bye-bye to it ‘til the Fall when it comes out. If you have Gold, however, get on this beta while you have the chance – it’s worth it.

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