IGN Xbox 360’s Erik Brudvig was able to flag down Bungie Community Manager Brian Jarrard to discuss the post-beta development stage, stats and various elements such as new weapons and the arena. We’ve read the whole interview and have a select of questions from it below. If you’d like a more in-depth read head over to IGN Xbox’s three page article.

IGN: Based on your stats, do you see any need to change or tweak any of the armor abilities from the beta?

Brian Jarrard: Armor Abilities are probably the thing that presented the most risk going into the beta in terms of new things that can really shake up the core gameplay or present opportunities to exploit or break the game. However in the end they all worked out pretty much as the designers intended with no single ability standing out as beating all the others.

IGN: What new weapon was the most popular? Were there any that people didn't take advantage of the way you expected?

Brian Jarrard: Of the "new" weapons, the Magnum registered the most kills overall with nearly 143 million total kills. Initially though it wasn't being taken advantage of as expected – I think a lot of players initially dismissed it as semi-useless based on their recollection of the Halo 3 pistol.

The Plasma Launcher seemed to be pretty under utilized by most people considering how ridiculously powerful it was. It shoots exploding plasma rounds that home in on infantry or vehicle targets but in a lot of cases it seemed to go unnoticed.

IGN: What sort of reaction did you get to Arena? Did the hardcore take to it as you expected?

Brian Jarrard: Overall the Arena was received very well. If anything it suffered from the same limitations of the rest of matchmaking in the beta – it had a variety of different gametypes lumped into a single playlist for the sake of testing. The final Arena experience will be more compartmentalized and consistent so everyone in a given Arena hopper will have a similar base experience.

Bungie has released a brand new one minute video feature that shows off the best the community has to offer. “The Good, The Bad-ass, and The Ugly” showcases some awesome sniper skills, stickies and other feats. It also show cases some of the more bizarre bugs that occurred over the course of the beta. Anyone interested in seeing a midair assignation using an on ground animation? It’s in there!

So, you want to know when you will be getting your chance to take on the Covenant for the last time? Well, Bungie has released the goods and on September 14th, 2010 you will be able to get the first crack at the single player campaign and start the fight all over again.

Not to mention that amount of fan support has been through the roof, Gamestop's Senior Vice President of Merchandising, Bob McKenzie, has also gone on record to say that pre-orders have been a hot commodity for the store: "Pre-orders for 'Halo: Reach' have been off the charts, with fans snapping up the limited and legendary editions since they were introduced just a month ago. Overall, it's a real testament to the passion of the 'Halo' fan base."

To read more on this, head on over to IGN's Xbox 360 channel for more!

Bungie has unleashed its latest “Weekly Update” to the community. Let’s dive in and review the latest news on stats collection, bug fixes and all the other great they’ve got cooking. As usual there is even a sweet collection of Halo: Reach screenshots to tide us over.

• Reaction to the beta at times was “overwhelming”. They’ve stated several times that the amount of data collection has eclipsed the Halo 3 beta from back in 2007. Bungie reassures us that some of the more pronounced issues such as headshot misfires, reticule problems and melee detection have already been dealt with.

• The shield meter has changed. Instead of the “burn in effect” where damage would take a brief second to appear on the players hud it now takes place instantly. They got rid of the graphical effect due to complaints from long time Halo 3 players. Some players found it hard to judge exactly how much damage they had taken.

• Bungie teases that we have only scratched the surface of the customization available in the armory. Their team of artists has finished most of the assets and the final product will provides dozens of new pieces and locations for them to fit. More details coming closer to the fall!

• The maps featured in to the beta have already received a lot of attention. Apparently we will have no trouble telling what side of sword base we’re on after using the man cannons in the atrium. Perhaps they’ve adopted Red and Blue paint on either side of the map? We’ll see come this September.
• Bungie will be keeping saved screenshots and films live until sometime next week. If you’ve already posted screens and movies to your Bungie.net account you might want to save them before they disappear!

• Bungie has completed their fifth campaign playthrough. Those lucky devils! They also teased that we might “You might be seeing the fruit of the team’s laborious but glorious labor sooner than you think”

Check out the full article for all the details.

New Screenshots

By: Matt "Graw" Grist-Algie

Power is and always will be the most sought after commodity in the Universe.

In Generator Defence, the new objective game type, this statement is definitely reinforced, power is key.

In Generator Defence there are two teams of three and two rounds in a match. In the first round of the match, one team of players are Spartans and one team of players are Elites; in the second round it is reversed. In the second round, the team that was the Spartans previously now become the Elites and visa versa. The weapon load-outs are set differently than in Slayer, they all offer different strategies and the possibilities are endless. There are also weapon drops throughout the map, Overlook, which houses Generator Defence. I normally do not like playing objective game types mostly because I do not concentrate on the objective, I’m just a slayer, but this game type’s objective is a mix of Objective and Slayer. What I mean by a mix of Objective and Slayer is that in order to accomplish the objective, normally, you have to kill the other team so they can’t stop you, or, so you can stop them.

The objective of the Spartans in Generator Defence is simple, defend the generators. The objective of the Elites in Generator Defence, if you hadn’t guessed already, is to destroy the generators. There are three generators and they are not easily destroyed, especially with three Spartans protecting them. The Elites, as I have said, must destroy the three Generators, in order to do that you have to reach them first. The spawn point for the Elites is, of course, on the opposite side of the map, which makes it difficult to reach the generators as the area in between the generators and the Elites is quite open but still offers some cover. As the Spartans, you must stop the Elites from destroying the generators, this can prove to be difficult but there are always strategies to counter other strategies. The Spartan’s spawn point is on the side of the map with the generators, this makes it easy to lock down all the generators, which provides the generators with an impenetrable shield for a short period of time.

Generator in lock down

In my opinion, the best strategy for the Elites is to start with the Energy Sword. I find the Energy Sword is the weapon that destroys generators rapidly. With the Energy Sword run as fast as you can to either generator A or C and do what you do best. A little word of advice, instead of full out slashing the generator, use your melee, it is almost twice as fast and deals the same amount of damage, but be careful, if you are too close to the generator when it is destroyed the blast will kill you. If you can’t get that close use Grenades and the Plasma Rifle. The Plasma Rifle deals a lot of damage to the generators, for a longer ranged weapon.

A good strategy for the Spartans is to get all the generators to lock down mode before the Elites can get to them while, at the same time, you are preparing by equipping yourself with any weapons you find on the way to said generators. The best of these strategies is, in my mind, using the sprint load-out with the DMR (designated marksman rifle), grabbing the Sniper Rifle or Rocket Launcher for a secondary weapon, whichever you prefer and are more skilled with, lock down the generators and eliminate the threat.

I am a fan of Generator Defence as it uses the best elements from both worlds, both worlds being Slayer and Objective game types. The best elements from both worlds are killing the other team, protecting, or destroying, an objective, and, of course, everybody’s favourite element, explosions.

This is actually an Invasion match. It doesn’t have anything to do with Generator Defence, it’s just awesome. See it and bask in its awesomeness.

With the beta drawing to a close and our fun slithering to an end, we find ourselves with one more instance of the latest Halo multiplayer beta release in Generator Defense. Generator Defense is a three on three team based game, where your objective is either to: Save three power generators if you’re the Spartans or destroy the three power generators if you’re the elites. Not only that, but you are now on a new playing field on the map “Overlook”. Overlook is a pretty small map, but a perfect choice for this type of game. Sprawled out on the map are three generators labeled “A, B, and C” and depending on your race (Spartan or Elites) your job will be either to save or to destroy these generators.

Generator Defense is a fun and usually quick game type that will challenge your ability to defend and to take down a target. What makes this a fun game type is that you are not limited to just a few classes. In fact, each side has at least six classes for you to choose from ranging from weapons like the DMR to the Plasma Sword. When it comes time to actually take down the Generators, the Elites will have to use some interesting techniques in order to take them out as the ability to do so is not always available. Spartans have the ability to “lock” the generators for a period of time so that they can be defended. If one generator is not being constantly attacked the generator can even revitalize itself and will be that much harder for the Elites to take the generators out.

However, when it comes down to the defending there are some problems that I noticed. The spawn points in the map are positioned a little bit too close to generators at times and will make it seem like a Spartan is always there to cover a certain generator. Thus, at times, making it very tough for the Elites to actually destroy a generator, especially generator “B” since it is tucked away inside the base of the Spartan’s and the spawn point is literally right next to the generator.This is not to say that it’s impossible, but definitely a thorn in the side of an Elite. To combat that, however, there are close enough spawn points on the Elite’s side that they are not too far from the action keeping the distance to the generators close.

Generator Defense is a fun little game type that should be a hit with most players that love objective based multiplayer games. However, take note, that during this beta test, Bungie is stress testing a bunch of servers for this game type and with that, gameplay will and can be slow and laggy during MOST of the matches. Sometimes, there will be a server hiccup (which will act as though a player is leaving the match) and then most of the lag will be gone from the game. This, however, only happens when the game is near completion.

Bungie has announced that ‘Generator Defense’ aka ‘Network Test 1’ has now gone live. This mode pits Spartans Vs Elites in a battle to take down/defend three generators. Check out the official announcement below.

Defend the Generators or die trying!

3v3 Generator Defense. Spartans vs Elites.

Elites, destroy the Generators. Spartans, get up close and lock them down by holding X. No matter which team you're on, make sure you're using the d-pad during respawn to choose your location.

IGN Insider’s Halo-In-Chief David Clayman gives us the lowdown on some of the changes in Reach when compared to Halo 3. Notable changes like armor abilities, new weapons and the expanding reticule during kick back are discussed. Our second video comes from the fine folks over at ScrewAttack.com. They’ve added four of the new weapons from Halo: Reach in to their armory. Although I don’t agree with their assessment of the Needle Rifle – it is more equivalent to the BR or DMR than the sniper rifle.

Halo Reach Versus Halo 3



Screwattack.com - The Armory