How’s Halo Reach beta treating me?

Yup, I'm bleeding outta my ass.

Quite badly.

I got into the Reach beta like the rest of the world, ie through the Halo 3 ODST disc. Like Halo 3’s beta, my anticipation for Reach’s beta was sky high. Here was my chance to play a new Halo game after 3 years, and with much needed improvements to the gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately these improved mechanics worked against me.

Now I don’t suck at Halo 3, but I’m not that good either. Thing is, my performance in Halo 3 has its ups and downs. Some matches I’m kicking supreme ass, others I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel. The latter is usually the case when I’m playing with friends, and the better they play, the more complacent I get, resulting in a pathetic K/D ratio.  Conversely I also pick up the slack if they’re performing poorly, resulting in me getting an awe inspiring result. We usually play Team Slayer matches, traversing into Ranked matches when we’re all in particularly good form.

The last time I played Halo 3 was before Bad Company 2 came out, so that’s roughly 2 months. Long enough to forget basic tactics? Not quite.

My main issue with Reach is that the aiming somehow feels “floaty”. It’s not as tight as Halo 3, not nearly as precise. I did try to change the ‘Look Sensitivity’ which helps in me looking around much better , but during scoped mode it’s hard to land a proper headshot.

Practice, I know that’s what I need to do. Thankfully after 40 odd matches, my K/D ratio went up from -5ish to generally 2+. I’ve also realised that playing Slayer in the same two maps is absolutely mind numbing. So I forced myself to try out some of the objective based playlists. Team objective based games are still hell as people are trying to learn what exactly it is that they’re supposed  to do besides shooting everyone in the face, so I usually jump into Free For All. I wish this playlist would get into Arena, as playing Team Slayer is just a no-no unless I’m playing with friends.

Yesterday my Arena rating was 1402, today it’s 1483. Baby steps…