It is no secret that I've been [URL=http://gameculture.com/2010/04/28/lock-n039-load-spartans-and-prepare-halo-reach]reasonably excited[/URL] about [I]Halo: Reach[/I]. The beta officially kicked off worldwide today and although I wasn't up at 7 am like some of the more dedicated [I]Halo[/I] fans I know, I'm happy to report that [I]Halo: Reach[/I] looks incredibly good.

There's just one thing I can't really put aside. I kinda expected that overload on the servers would be, at times, beyond capacity (at one point 200,000 gamers were connected earlier today) but the downtime was just an incy wincy bit disappointing, even for me. I can't imagine how disappointed a dedicated Halo fan might have been.

Picture it: the game you've been waiting for all year has a public beta and you did everything you could (including taking a day off work/school/Uni) to ensure you were online with all your buddies only to find that the servers were down. The error message explained that the Matchmaking servers were unavailable. Half an hour later, they were still unavailable.

Eventually, I managed to connect after spending a glorious five minutes or so customising my Spartan with the new-look armour. And I am impressed. I mean, looking good while you kick a$$ is of vital importance!

As I only had time for a very brief gaming session, I found Halo: Reach to be more fun than I anticipated. And although the initial game play might seem the same (run around, aim and shoot at the opposing team), Bungie has done alot and I mean [I]alot[/I] of work on the multiplayer game modes.
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