Why Halo: Reach's multiplayer will have its hooks in me until Fallout: New Vegas

When I picked up Halo: Reach after work on the day it was released, I almost immediately dove right into the campaign. Most of my friends, on the other hand, still haven’t even played the campaign. Why? Because Reach offers arguably the best multiplayer experience of the series (next to Halo: CE, of course). From the new weapons, to the updated gameplay, to the new voting system and Daily/Weekly Challenges, Reach’s multiplayer offers a wide range of experiences where anyone will find something they can enjoy. Well, most people anyway (I’m looking at you, whiny message board poster who’s irate that he should have to play a game mode he doesn’t like very much).

If you’ve ever played a Halo game before (or any FPS for that matter), you pretty much know what to expect from multiplayer. You pick a playlist (such as Team Slayer, Team Objective, Big Team Battle, Multi-Team, etc.) and once matchmaking finds you a game, you’re given three different map/game types to choose from. Based on your performance, you earn credits which act as XP to earn new ranks as well as being used to purchase new armor pieces to customize your Spartan.

I’ve been hearing a lot of nerd rage over the internet lately about how the voting system sucks and people only pick the same game types. While I can’t disagree that people tend to pick Swat, Snipers or DMRs (Designated Marksmen Rifle, Reach’s Battle Rifle) more than anything else, I wouldn’t say it’s a problem with the game. The voting system offers players more input on what they want to play over the Halo 3 system of vetoing a map/game that matchmaking picked. I also have this to say to those ragers – maybe get some more friends and play custom games if you’re so pissed about the voting system. That or you could at least get some like-minded people to vote for what you want – that is, if you weren’t so busy writing horribly worded missives on the internet about how Bungie allegedly ruined an aspect of the game.

Moving on, I have a confession to make. Often I’ve tried riding my high-horse, saying I don’t play games to earn achievements. With Halo: Reach, though, the first thing I do when I start playing is check the Daily Challenges. Each day, Reach is updated with four new challenges worth various amounts of credits. Along with the four dailies is one weekly challenge that will offer up big time credits. Last week’s was pretty demanding (complete 30 or 40 games of matchmaking) while this week’s was a little simpler (completing a campaign mission in co-op on Legendary). Playing for challenges is justified (to me, anyway) because that black visor and those armor effects aren’t going to buy themselves.

Also, I tried Firefight for the first time to complete a challenge and ended up absolutely loving Firefight. I never played ODST (outside of using the disc to play the Halo: Reach beta) so I never got to try Firefight before but it is a total blast. And I haven’t even really tried messing with custom Firefight games yet, which could yield even more awesome that I didn’t even consider (a friend was telling me the other day about a Firefight map he downloaded that was all Hunters, with only rockets and infinite shields and got a ton of credits on it).

Speaking of which, players can now download user-created maps through the File Share service, as well as being able to share pics and videos. I was actually very surprised to see just how many of my matches that the game actually saved (had to be 15-30) for me to watch over and edit. While on the File Share, the first thing I did when I booted up Reach was download a map of Hang ‘Em High and Lockout. While they aren’t perfect, they brought back a ton of memories of countless hours spent (wasted?) fragging fools.

Which leads me to my next steam-of-consciousness point – the maps that came on disc in Reach. Why, all of a sudden, is every map huge? I miss the days of tight quarters maps like Lockout or Guardian. Every map seems gigantic now. Not Sidewinder or Sandtrap (whatever that desert map was called from Halo 3 that no one ever played) huge, but still pretty large. Games of Swat on Hemorrhage (Reach’s remake of Blood Gulch) or Boardwalk are just too much – I feel like I spend more time trying to find enemies than actually killing them. I still really love Pinnacle (the Ascension remake) and Asylum (the Sanctuary remake) but too many maps (like The Spire, Boneyard and Powerhouse) just feel too big. I’ll be extremely interested to see what Bungie has in store for their first map pack.

One reason for the larger maps, though, is a game type new to Halo – Invasion. Modeled after Battlefield’s Rush mode, Invasion tasks a group of gamers with accomplishing a series of objectives while another team attempts to stop them. On The Spire, for example, a group of Spartans is tasked with first deactivating a set of generators (by staying within a specified zone for 20 seconds), then making their way to The Spire itself, activating the lifts to the top floor and stealing a datacore from a team of Elites. As a set of objectives is completed, a new selection of loadouts is opened up for both teams. There is also a mode titled Invasion Slayer which eschews the set of objectives in favor of a straight up, six-on-six deathmatch, complete with new loadouts being unlocked every few minutes as well as areas either team can capture that will reward them with heavy weapons or vehicles. While Invasion is a neat idea, I had more fun playing Invasion Slayer than I did with any game in the standard mode. Generator Defense is also a part of the Invasion playlist but honestly, if I hadn’t played it in the beta test, I wouldn’t know what it was since I’ve never seen anyone even vote for it, let alone play a game of it.

Though I’ve been playing Matchmaking in some form or another since Reach was released (I’m already a Captain Second Grade…I know, I really need get out more), I do have some complaints. First off, what’s with banning for quitting out of games? Apparently this is Bungie’s response to people rage-quitting if they (or their team) is doing poorly but I’ve read about people getting 24-hour bans for quitting out of as few as two or three games. Nerds rage-quitting is always going to be a problem, but is dropping the banhammer really the answer?

Next, and this one really gets me heated, is the betrayal/booting system. In an effort to reduce team killing, Bungie implemented a system where you can boot someone from a game for betraying you – even if it was the first time you betrayed them and it was an accident. Too many times (and I mean too many) I’ve gotten the boot for accidentally killing someone with a rocket (in a game of Rocketfight [Firefight with unlimited rocket launcher ammo] no less) or just accidentally killing someone. One time in a game of SWAT, I was shooting at a game across from me (on the second level of Countdown, IIRC) and a guy sidestepped right in front of me (shooting at the same guy I was, no doubt). In two shots, I had killed the guy across the way and then shot my (idiot) teammate in the back of the head. I couldn’t finish saying “Sorry about that” before I got the boot. Let’s recap – it was my first betrayal, I was #1 on our team, and my teammate got himself killed. But no, I did the “betraying” and therefore got the boot. Seriously, Bungie, is it so much to ask for a warning before being able to get booted?

Outside of those points, Bungie is really making an effort to keep up with community concerns and complaints. For instance, there has been a huge outcry on the internet about having SWAT in Team Slayer and Big Team Battle playlists. SWAT, for the two of you who’ve never played Halo, is a mode without shields or radar and everyone starts with DMRs and pistols where a headshot is an instant kill and anything less will probably get you killed. Even though its simple and games are usually short, many people vehemently despise SWAT and, as such, Bungie will be making SWAT into its own playlist with the coming October update (an update that has been moved up and will now go live on Oct. 5). From Bungie.net, here is a list of all the update that can be expected from the October update:

• SWAT Playlist added (SWAT removed from Big Team Battle and Team Slayer)
• Campaign Matchmaking (live on 10/15 – You will be required to have earned the Grade “Corporal” to enter this Playlist)
• Team Slayer rebalanced to highlight default Slayer game variants and include new offerings
• Classic Slayer removed
• Removed “Pro” game variants from the Arena Playlist
• Removed Boardwalk from Arena Team Doubles Playlist
• Added “Return to Battlefield” volume to Space on Zealot in the Arena Playlist
• King of the Hill (multiple Playlists, including Arena*)
• Rocket Race
• Juggernaut (Rumble Pit Playlist)
• *King of the Hill not included in Arena
• Sudden Death will be added to all Assault game variants, including Invasion
• Team Objective will now feature the map Powerhouse
• Replacing Drop Shield with Evade for King of the Hill, Territories, and Oddball
• Replacing Hologram with Evade in Oddball, Capture the Flag, Assault, and Stockpile
• Replacing the Scorpion on Hemorrhage with Wraiths (Hemorrhage Heavies variant, TBD
• 
  

I’m really, really looking forward to King of the Hill coming back. Headhunters is fun, but King of the Hill is a classic.

And on a final note, I read this morning that Bungie is dropping a massive banhammer on hackers. Well not so much a ban, but a punishment none-the-less. Many gamers had recently been exploiting a glitch that “allowed players to complete a Challenge 20+ times via itentional network manipulation (i.e., disconnects.).” As of this morning, Bungie had reset the Credits and ranks of “approximately” 15,000 gamers and imposed a one day credit earning ban on top of that. Bungie also noted that many more of these punishments will be handed out as the studio becomes more confident in its autobanning system.

And there you have it. My Halo: Reach review is finally complete. Fairly comprehensive, I believe, though I’m sure I missed some stuff. If you find anything I missed, want to bring something to my attention or even play some Reach with me, find me on Facebook or leave me a note in the comments.