Me and my friends have had a running joke where we echo the "ARE YOU READY FOR..." and "READY DOESN'T EVEN..." lines from oneyng's Awesome Reach video which then extended to pretending that Reach never actually came out and that we can't wait to play it. This has been going on for 8 years and now the joke has come full circle and man I'm just so fucking ready for Halo Reach.
I was lucky enough to get a Friends and Family beta key for Reach back in the day. Unlike the regular beta where you would launch it from Halo 3: ODST, I downloaded the beta and would launch it directly from the 360 dashboard. I still have it downloaded to this day and, despite it crashing when you try to get past the Press Start to Continue screen, I still have all my theatre saves and screenshots. Would love to find a way to see those again.
I kind of wish your Spartan or Elite model displayed in the menu would be set to hold your main tool of destruction based on your service record or a system that would allow you to unlock different weapons for your character to hold in that image.
Mine used to be the shotgun from my prime years of halo, but from my recent return to the series it’s turned into the sniper rifle. That would be a cool feature to have since we could differentiate ourselves from others and add another level of uniqueness to our character, sort of like the stances from halo 4 but with more interesting variations of weapons.
Finally! Someone who shares my grief! I absolutely *loved* the Green Spartan vs Purple Elite thing Invasion had in the Beta. That alone added a ton of immersion to Invasion, making it feel so much more like you're part of a major battle between the UNSC and the Covenant. After playing a ton of Invasion in the Beta, I was really looking forward to experiencing more of that awesome mode in the full release. But then the retail version changed it to a standard Red vs Blue thing, making Invasion feel like yet another comparatively bland Team vs Team multiplayer game mode. It's odd to think that the team colors could make such a huge difference. I wonder if there were some other important gameplay changes between the beta and retail versions of Invasion which made all the difference in how the two versions felt, that went unnoticed because they might've been so subtle; or if it's just the team colors. Either way I hope Invasion gets modded back to being as good as it was in the beta (and it has enough player population) after MCC PC has rolled in.
glowaru you’re totally right though, somehow that seemingly trivial change sort of killed the game type for me in a way. It almost felt campaign-like in a way before! Red vs blue ruined all that immersion for sure.
the pistol for me, much preferred the beta version, its still my favourite gun but its not as fun anymore. with the over fast fire rate and large bloom.
I loved Halo: Reach, and it’s my favorite Halo, but I liked the beta version better, too. I likewise had more fun in the Halo 5 beta than the final game. In both instances, I think it’s a combination of emotional excitement when first and temporarily playing a brand new Halo game, along with the many changes made by trying to please angry forum people complaining because things are different and demanding everything be nerfed since they haven’t learned the new mechanics. Though I admit that many (not all) changes were good ones. Even some of the nerfs.
Something I vividly remember during the beta when customizing my character was being able to choose black as a full primary color for spartan armor. If I remember correctly, black was no longer available in retail and instead was replaced with a dark grey or something similar. Halo 1 so far is the only full game to feature black as an available color to my knowledge as well.
The reason there are so many differences in the Beta is because due to some internal problems, Bungie had to release a very old build of Halo reach for he beta. Most of these issues were already resolved when the Beta came out.
Fun fact! In 2:43, the sound of the swords clanging when selecting a difficulty in the beta's campaign menu is the same audio you hear in Halo 4 when doing the same.
@@murray2380 I recognized it immediately. Halo 4 wasn't forgettable at all lmfao. Reach I forgot all about campaign wise, I just remember it was trash. Multiplayer is something I wish never happened.
Oh the nostalgia, its amazing. I never got to play the beta unfortunately because i didnt get live until may 24th 2010 as i was 12 on the 23rd lol so long ago
This was the last Halo experience I shared with the Old Guard my Halo 3 Customs crew. We all went our separate ways after this Beta and only one other friend of mine stuck around. Oh the nostalgia and the hype of animated assassinations
Wow such nostalgia. I was only 14 when the Reach beta came out. Seems like so long ago, yet also like yesterday... Reach is definitely my favourite game of all time.
12:06 is what gets me the most, I always assumed it was because you just crashed and it's what you could grab before getting up to fight! There's a couple of small questions I have, though. In the last area of Tip of the Spear when you crash in the Spire area, you start with a DMR which has 12 shots in the magazine but 32 reserve, which would total to 29 if you reload. Also on New Alexandria, you start the mission with all 15 shots in your clip, however you have 24 reserve. Think they realised changing the DMRs ammo would mess with some levels and just forgot which ones, and on the levels they did change it they did the maths wrong? Great video, cannot wait for the rest of it!
I remember the beta alright. Was the only time I was competent with the grenade launcher, and Armour Lock was actually useful, rather than simply saying "Here, just kill me." Was fun though, even though me and friends stayed up all night, just to realise we got the time wrong, since we live in the UK.
Maaaaan this is where my halo reach career started. My brother had the beta and he let me play it’s. Months later I decided to buy my first Xbox along with the game. The rest is history. Best times gaming I’ve ever had.
That would have been neat if the sniper's scope had the personalized name marking on the scope, unique to the user to elude to weapons being synced to the user's spartan in the universe. I suppose it was too ambitious...
Awesome video! I remember staying up all night long to download the beta. My dad even took the fay off from work so we could both play it. Such great memories.
One thing I hope to see in the next part is a note about that melee "clang" feature where two players meleeing each other at the same time will have their animation reverse and produce a metal thunk noise, like at 24:08 (but not necessarily with an Energy Sword involved). Just something I remembered being a thing way back when. I've been wanting since the actual Open Beta for clean versions of those Beta menu music tracks - ESPECIALLY that one you classed as your favorite. Thank you for bringing the existence of that fellow's uploads to my attention. Much like the Beta was back then, you're super awesome.
I think Halo: Reach was a good game Not a great game. Mainly because I was a huge Halo fan & the books had already established a story for Reach & the Halo: Reach game reconned that BUT I do understand why it is so loved. The music was on par with Halo1-3 And the menu backgrounds were fantastic Customization was the best in any Halo game ever. And firefight was a bunch of fun This is a fantastic video man. I didn’t hear any mispronunciations Just being able to compare & contrast these things.....wow!
Finally someone else actually read the books! They should have split up the campaign with half chief-linda in orbit/half Fred and the rest on the planet; kind of like they did for Halo 5 with Osiris/blue team. The multiplayer was good though.
The multiplayer was good, the campaign though I think they tried to focus on the whole SpecOps thing but it was based more on modern style SpecOps than just a super soldier near suicide mission. So it didn't felt like Master Chief's daring rescues or Assault to capture key strategic points. Another thing with the Campaign is we didn't see the destruction of the UNSC Navy. 2 Frigates and that was all that was destroyed? 2 minuets of Halo 2 gave us more destroyed UNSC ships.
Rest In Peace Halo 360 Servers - December 2021. I had so much fun with Reach and I will never forget all the people I met and the custom games I made and played. I feel like I've lost a close friend
The Vengeful 'Vadam also, didn’t the tracking strength for the plasma launcher get nurfed in the final release? Because i remember it basically following you around the map in the beta and all my friends complaining constantly.
Ahhh the Reach beta. I remember I was looking forward to playing it. Then I got grounded by my parents do to bad grades when I was in 9th grade, so I missed the beta and I was very sad. Looking forward to Reach coming to MCC! Btw, vengeful I can tell you weren’t the biggest fan of Reach judging by tbe rank. I made it to Field Marshall.
Absolutely! Was digging through the beta files one day and found the music, decided to extract and upload it. Also man I really need to update this channel name - I made it when i was like 10 years old xd
Great job on this recap man! This is something I didn’t know I needed 😩 what a great beta, I loved the artistic style and those mini nuke hand grenades
I really liked the style of the beta. I remember staying up all night waiting for it to download and coming home from school the next day and playing it for hours on end on the family tv... good days...
remember playing invasion and getting the plasma launcher and sitting on the top part of boneyard looking over the second half of it and just firing it off to get overkills and more pretty much every match
the beta version hit that nostalgia itch like no other. when you were switching back and forth between beta and retail it was like night and day difference. Beta version graphics had a warm, yellow, green-y pallette and retail had a cooler, blue, sharp graphics that was indeed polished but lost that nostalgia touch.
Wow I can’t believe this was so long ago. One of the first games I ever got excited for pre-launch (everything I’d played as a kid had already come out by the time I got to it)
Hey The Vengeful 'Vadam you missed something about the sniper rifle in the beta. I'm the beta when the player emptys 4 shots in the sniper rifle it doesn't play the final reload animation. Instead it's reload is the Halo 3 counter part. And in the retail the reach sniper rifle plays the final reload animation.
I can't wait to play this again in 60fps. I doubt my PC will be able to run it but I'll definitely try it. Otherwise my Xbox one S will have to do. Either way I'm really excited to have a revived community again. I haven't been able to play my favorite Halo game's full experience in years. Invasion and firefight are gonna be so much fun to play again.
@@arbiter- If it's a desktop pc maybe you can should into getting a cheap upgrade. A 750ti probably sells for about 50 bucks and will be more than enough.
I wish I could play this beta again. I sadly missed out on the H3 one. I remember staying up until 12 to download reach while I was asleep but it didn't go live until 10 haha. I rushed home from school and didn't stop playing. Halo is one of the best gaming franchises ever made and I hope it comes back on top when it is released entirely on PC.
7:40 also want to point out that the Beta had different emblem options. Since Halo 2 I always used the red team snake from CE as my emblem, the Reach Beta had that emblem available, while retail did not.
That Beta Plasma Pistol melee was beautiful So was that beta DMR And Repeater Hecc even the Needler There were so many green lights on everything and I liked it but I'm in no way disappointed with what we have too
I didn't mind the Halo reach grenades since you could only carry 2 of them. Also it did feel like they lowered the DoT for the focus rifles in the beta which was kind of a shame. Focus rifles were not better sniper rifles compared to the UNSC sniper but they were great at knocking down jet packs in the beta. Not so much in the final product.
