Tech Blog

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The wait is finally over.  Earlier this week Bungie officially rolled out the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta and to help you navigate the largest console beta ever, I've assembled a handy guide of what you need to know.  The beta began this past Monday and runs through May 19, 2010.

Fans of the series will find that there is a host of new content and features in the beta, ranging from a new control scheme, to new weapons, to new maps and game modes, and the introduction of armor abilities.  With any beta you should expect the occasional hiccup (their severs blew up on Monday), but aside from the odd lag experienced here and there it's been a smooth experience for me so far.  According to Bungie's stat breakdown , over 1.1 million players played approximately 14 million games on day one of the beta.  These games totaled in excess of 936 million seconds of gameplay time -- talk about popular!  Being a beta Bungie is of course looking for honest fan feedback so be sure to submit your comments at Bungie.net .

Getting into the multiplayer beta:

To gain access to the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta you need a copy of Halo 3: ODST .  The beta is only available to Xbox LIVE Gold subscription members so you may need to upgrade your Silver account (Future Shop sells 12-month Gold cards ) if that's what you normally use.  The beta sucks up a large amount of HDD space, measuring at approximately 1.2 Gigabytes.  Downloading the beta is simple, fire up your copy of Halo 3: ODST and select "Play The Beta" from the main menu, and follow the prompts.

Halo 3: ODST title screen

Before you start:

Prior to heading straight in you may want to check out the menu system to familiarize yourself with the options.  The main menu has two options available:

Matchmaking - the main offering of the beta, this is where you can take your Xbox party into live combat with free-for-alls, objective-based team missions and military exercises.

Theatre - this is where you can view and replay films and footage of your multiplayer battles.

It's also advisable to venture into the start menu to check out The Armory, create your Service Tag, set your control scheme and optimize the A/V options. The Amory is by far the most interesting, here's what it has to offer:

The Armory - this is your gear customization menu where you can change the appearance of your Spartan by adding or removing armour.  The available spots of customization are: Helmet, Left Shoulder, Right Shoulder, Chest, Emblem, and Colours.  Halo: Reach introduces an all-new tiered grading system that will reward you with Credits that you can spend on visually upgraded gear.  Not all gear will be unlocked at the beginning, but will gradually become accessible as your reach certain milestones so make sure to check back often.  Emblems are back, and there are 80 Foreground objects and 48 Background objects to choose from in the beta.  There is a colour menu which allows you to further customize your Spartan and Emblem with 30 available colour swatches.

The Armory: Helmet Customization

The Armory: Chest Customization

Check out Part Two of my Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta 101 here .