Reach Multiplayer Video Released

Concept art for Reach Multiplayer by Bungie's Jaime Jones
Checkout the new Halo Reach Promo Vid for the Multiplayer component of the game. This is big news people! Make sure you watch in HD if you can, the quality is astounding. Bungie's vision is dynamite. It looks beautiful and totally has that wow factor. As Louis Wu stated, this is Combat Redefined

So what's in the detail of the new Halo: Reach Multiplayer trailer? Here's some paraphrasing from the HBO forum.

• There's jetpacks! Active camouflage, and sprint abilities.
• Your radar appears to indicate the name of the area you're in.
• There's shots of Spartan's punching each other (as opposed to the old melee move to the front of the player?)
• Covenant grenade launcher weapon of some kind as a foil to the Human grenade launcher. Also there is some some kind of Covenant equivalent weapon of the Spartan Laser.
• "Revenge" come up as a player headshots the enemy - a new medal if you get back someone who got you first?

There was also a tank. As we know, tanks beat everything so I call dibs on them!

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I'm know I'm late to the party, I've been in another country...

Clans to Return in Reach?

Shacknews has followed up on yesterday's news about Arena and Active Rosters in Halo Reach with an interview with some Bungie staffers. Here's a taste:
Talking about Active Roster...

Luke Timmins: If you remember from Halo 2, there was a really easy way to get to my friends list. In Halo 2, it's right there. My friends and what they're doing. When Halo 3 came out, we had this big thing about trying to integrate with the Xbox 360 Guide. We had a lot of deep-thinking after that and decided we really wanted [Halo 2's system] back. We want easy access to friends. We want to see what they're doing and who they're partied up with.

[In Halo 3], we lost something there.

The active roster really is the tip of the spear for getting people this quick access to "what are my friends doing?" Oh, they're in a game? How much time is remaining? What's the score?

Lars Bakken: Active Roster is, by definition, always on. When you log into Reach at the Main Menu, the whole right half of the screen is going to be your Active Roster. You're going to see what all your friends are doing in real-time in Reach. No going to the Guide. You click the left stick to the right and you are in the Active Roster.

It has all the information what all your friends are doing, whether they're partied up or not, who they're partied up with, what gametype they're in whether they're searching in matchmaking [or in a lobby]. That is fed to you, real-time, in the menu at all times. It's always there.

Luke Timmins: We actually made a substantial investment in engineering tech in our user-interface architecture. We basically rebuit huge swaths of the UI [and players] will be really impressed by the quality of the UI. It's sexy as hell and our UI guys have done an amazing job. The most important button - if there's one button that matters - in the Active Roster, it's the "join" button.

This brings us to the next-big thing that we have wanted this since Halo 2. We couldn't get it in to Halo 2 or Halo 3, but Reach will have: Queued Join. We built this sytem where you can queue a join to a friend that's not in an immediately joinable state (in the middle of matchmaking or watching a film). When he becomes available, it will automatically put you guys together in a lobby.
Here's the full article. I am so looking forward to Queue Join!

Jet Packs for the Assassination win!

Want to see some Air to Air Action? Noble Actual gave us Halo Fans a quick bite to eat...
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There's almost nothing better than jetpacking up in the air and landing a sweet assassination on another high flyer. It's so sweet we made a cool little turnaround for you all! Enjoy!
PS - thanks to Brian, Urk and Stosh for throwing this together.

- Joe

Full Youtube version of Reach's Invasion game type

Check out this full length game of Invasion as seen through the eyes of shall we say a 'reserved' player. It gives one of the best insights yet to the Reach game type Invasion and to see some of the weaponry on offer in Reach is pretty awesome.

Headhunter of Swordbase Full Game Video

Jetpacks for the win, b'arches!

With lest than a week until the Halo Reach Beta release (May 3), the Halo proganda is coming thick and fast from all quarters. My word, Bungie and Microsoft have a pretty damn slick marketing machine!

To that end, today's Halo Reach marketing machine as brought us a full version of the Headhunter game variant being played on the Swordbase map. Check it out!





Yesterday's video was the Invasion game type.

Extra for Experts: Check out HawtyMcBloggy's Gamer guide to preparing for the Beta

Thanks to HBO for the heads up

A single melee hit still takes down a player’s shield

A Halo fiend called Shake Appeal has written the best guide on how to play the Reach beta I've seen. I mean like its Beta than Cody Miller's even! Or my guide on armor lock!

Here's a taste:
'A single melee hit still takes down a player's shield, but that is all it will do, regardless of whether the shield was full or significantly weakened. Read that last sentence over before proceeding. Got it? Okay. In Halo 3, you could charge an opponent with your Assault Rifle (AR) and deliver a closing melee that punched through their remaining shield with enough force left over to kill. In Halo: Reach, even the tiniest sliver of shield will absorb that first blow. Think of it this way: if your opponent has any shield at all, it will always take two melee hits to beat them down. If this guide was a textbook and I was your teacher, I'd be asking you to underline this whole paragraph.'

That's fucking gold right there. Shake Appeal has the midas touch - here's the full guide.

Reflect in the perfection of Reflection!

Reflect in the perfection of Reflection! A straight swipe from Grunts R Us, here a flash new pictures of three new Halo Reach multiplayer maps - Reflection, Spire and Zealot!

Spire Map:

The Covenant-themed map, Zealot:

Reach could have had space ship multiplayer

This brief article from The Escapist talks about the goal that Bungie had to get space ship battles as part pof the Halo Reach multiplayer experience but that it was ultimately dropped. Marcus Lehto lets us in on the plans:

Remember that sequence in Reach when you have a dogfight in space against the Covenant? It kind of plays like those parts of the old Nintendo 64 space combat sim StarFox 64 where Fox McCloud would whisk around a relatively small area trying to take down a specific enemy.
The space fight mission in Halo: Reach is definitely a far cry from the more open space battles of, say, Tie Fighter, but it was a nice departure from the run and gun gameplay of the rest of the campaign. Bungie's Creative Director on Reach, Marcus Lehto, said that the space combat was a darling of the studio and almost made it into multiplayer before the team ultimately decided that it was probably better saved for a different game.

"We joked about it from time to time and even had a rough version of it working very early on in development," said Lehto. "But the mechanics of it were pretty silly and we very quickly realized that the resulting gameplay experience wouldn't hit the bar we were aiming for, nor justify the amount of work required.

"With so many features and so much content already committed, Reach was an incredibly ambitious project on an already aggressive schedule," Lehto said.
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So maybe something will come of Bungie's Aerospace Teasing soon....

Noble Map Pack is now availabl

As per the Bungie site, the Noble Map Pack is now available:


If you've been itching to try out our three newest maps, the Marketplace switch has been flipped and the DLC Grab Bag Playlist is up and running. Of course, you should feel free to continue playing in your routine hoppers, too. Our matchmaking algorithms will automatically search for other players with DLC weighted to give you a nice blend of old and new.

Download the Noble Map Pack

Thanks for playing!


No Bungie, thank you for being fricking awesome.

Spartan Ops Images Revealed

The Two Towers?

Spartan Ops Images Revealed

Following yesterdays wondrous reveal of the Halo 4 campaign, details the Halo mode Spartan Ops have been revealed - basically it's a peek into the world of multiplayer. As per yesterday's campaign screen shots, these images show a well designed multiplayer environment and are sure to allow for some great Halo matchmaking!

This way to drop the ring off Frodo

Running from the Eye of Sauron?

In the Cold Cold Night

UNSC Station

Frankie Says: one map in Halo 4 is a remake

Frankie Says: one map in Halo 4 is a remake:

I guess it's not Turf then :(

Update: the remade map is Valhalla, known as Ragnarok. It features the Mantis.

Anarchy Reigns – Video Game Review

Anarchy Reigns is a third person beat ‘em up video game for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox360 from Platinum Games. They are the minds behind games such as Bayonetta, Vanquish, and Madworld. Platinum games has a record of making incredible single player games. As a studio founded, and headed by former members of Capcom, the before mentioned titles are over the top, and filled with action. This is the company's first multi-player title, and sad to say, it really doesn't live up to my expectations. Anarchy Reigns was a game built for multi-player, and it is a pity that the single player campaign feels tacked on because of this. To fully enjoy Anarchy Reigns multi-player, you will have to complete single player mode in order to unlock characters to use in multi-player. The main story is told from two perspectives, the white side, and the black side. Sadly both stories are really repetitive, and you'll find yourself doing a bunch of missions while beating down easy enemies of various types.

The missions vary from killing a number of enemies in a certain time, poorly done kart racing, and escort missions. Another sad part about the campaign is the lack of a challenge and a very easy boss battle. The campaign is boring. Given the enemy types, and bosses of previous Platinum Games titles sadly to say I was very disappointed. Music in this game is pretty meh. Less than impressive tracks play as you go through the campaign, destroying everyone in your way. Visuals for this game are very dated. It will not be winning any awards for its graphics. Graphics don't make the game, but looking at poor visuals of this game is kind of a downer. Character models are pretty basic and weird looking. I get what they were going for but the majority of the characters look very early gen. Also the environments are very lackluster, and textures tend to fade in & out at certain parts, and are very low res. This game sadly does not look like a game of this console generation.

As for gameplay, the controls are pretty good. Anybody who has played a beat-em-up before can pick up this game with ease, however newcomers will most likely have a hard time with this game. As I said earlier, this game was made for multiplayer. Each character has their own style and combos. However, to fully involve yourself with a character you'll have to learn their ins and outs. Learning combos, chaining moves, and learning the execution of each character is a must. Utilizing weapons and the environment around you is also a key part of this gameplay. The arena itself is also a factor. These stage events will change the dynamics of the battlefield, such as crashing airplanes, bridges being destroyed, earthquakes, and waves. These arena affects add a more intensity to the battle. However the multi-player is not perfect. The beat-em-up style of this game is infused with concepts, and new ideas that do not work well. The purpose of these gameplay changes were to make the game more unique, but sadly it was a hit and miss.

The traditional multi-player modes are there. There are Regular Player and Ranked Lobbies to choose from, and you have Free For All, Team Deathmatch, Survival mode, tag matches, cage matches, Capture the Flag, and probably the most interesting, Deathball. Deathball is probably the game's most unique mode. It is virtually an over the top Football game, instead of tackling, you kill your opposition. It takes some time to get used to that mode’s gameplay and features but it can be pretty fun.

Now Anarchy Reigns is not a horrible game, the Multiplayer is very fun, however to unlock characters you pretty much have to play the tacked on single player mode. However with dated graphics, buggy gameplay, and the issues with unfamiliar game mechanics, it hurts the game. However at a price point of $30, it is hard to really pass up. If you are in the mode for a unique over the top beat-em-up game, I would recommend it. With all the above mentioned, I give this game 2 & a half stars.