E310 Preview: Halo: Reach

One of the biggest games from Microsoft at this year’s E3 show had to be Halo: Reach, Bungie’s final game in the Halo series and prequel title to the original trilogy.

With our behind-closed-doors E3 access with the campaign demo and my personal hands-on time with the beta last month, I can truly say Halo: Reach should be on top of any gamers most wanted list. While the beta gave millions of fans great Halo multiplayer, Bungie’s show at E3 focused more on the campaign mode in Reach and they had an impressive demo to show, which you can watch for yourself below.

The demo is actually pretty much the same one from the Microsoft Keynote and tells the prequel story to the main Halo trilogy, about the fall of Planet Reach as it is destroyed by the Covenant. You should have noticed all the different new features that are shown off in this demo. The level is called Long Night of Solace, and like the rest of the campaign it can be played with up to four players cooperatively.

This part of the game involves members of your team landing near a battle zone and fighting their way into a UNSC base. The fight scene is incredible and you could see Armor Abilities in use, along with executions on the Covenant, and a new Covenant weapon called the Concussion Rifle, which is like their version of the grenade launcher.

The demo went on to show the new vehicle called Saber, which was like a fighter jet (like something you would expect to see in Star Wars) that takes your Spartan up into space. If you play four player co-op, all team members will get a Saber of their own to control in space battle.

The game’s co-op Firefight mode returns from ODST and was also shown, but this time with matchmaking available (in ODST it Firefight was friend-list only.) The demo went through the different menus, previewing complete customization control over your firefight loadout, with your choice of weapon and perks. Expect a much more polished and popular Firefight mode in Halo: Reach.

While their wasn’t a playable demo of the game at E3, I did however get tons of playing time last month with the multiplayer beta. Through matchmaking, the beta had four multiplayer maps to explore and in addition to classic Halo multiplayer game types including Slayer and Free-for-all, Reach introduces a number of new modes, four of which were playable. A lot of the multiplayer aspects of the game may feel and look the same, but trust, a lot has changed.

First off, there are a slew of new weapons including the aforementioned Concussion Rifle along with the Plasma Launcher, Grenade Launcher and Needle Rifle in Halo: Reach. New modes like Head Hunter and Invasion are great new additions and gives the multiplayer something fresh. There’s also a number of new maps that are great grounds for battle including Powerhouse and Boneyard.

The biggest addition to Halo’s multiplayer is the ability to add power-ups or perks to your Spartan. One of the power-ups is the Active Camo, which makes you invisible for short period of time. The Jet Pack is another awesome power-up which allows for flight during combat using, well, a jet pack. The power-ups don’t last the whole time and must be eventually recharged before using again. These new power-up perks and the option to choose different loadouts before the match really adds a new strategy to the multiplayer and is a great addition to an already excellent online shooter.

After my in-depth hands-on time with the Halo: Reach mulitplayer beta and the campaign demo presentation from E310, I can say you won’t want to miss out on Halo: Reach. I’ve seen people online talking about it being “Halo 3.2″ and shit like that, but it’s really not. Reach is a game of it’s own and should give veterans of the game something fresh, but familiar, to look forward to.

Look out for Halo: Reach on September 14 for the Xbox 360.