The sooner we get holodecks, the better.

But the thing is, we’re wasting this amazing technology. We now have televisions capable of producing resolutions that would’ve made people twenty years ago wet themselves, and what are we doing with it?

We’re making our games look, literally, like crap.

Look at games that have been produced in the last three or four years. If you take any title that sold at least moderately well on the PS3, 360 or PC (the three platforms most capable of graphical beefiness), odds are the game features one or more burly Space Marine meatheads in big suits of power armour going around with ridiculously disproportionate weaponry capable of doing very nasty things, and commiting genocide on legions of baddies, human or otherwise. Plot cliché aside, there is potential for some amazing design to come to the fore with this sort of thing.  And what do we end up with?

This.

Now, here’s a little test. How many colours can you name in this screenshot that aren’t named in the title of this article? “Moss green”? “Rust”? “Dirt”? OK, that’s fine. But where’s the actual colour? Where’s the vibrancy, the delicious jaw-dropping visuals? This is supposed to be one of the pinnacles of graphical achievement on console platforms, and instead it looks like we’re playing with something that was dredged up from a riverbed. And any one of the poor scrubs like myself that’s ever played Gears of War on a standard definition TV can tell you that from more than ten feet away, the varying shades of mud on display just smudge together into something indistinct and uninteresting.

Then there’s the flipside – the games that try to be visually impressive by having too much graphical technowizardry on display. The kind of games that vomit bloom and dynamic lighting in our faces and dangle various other shiny bells and whistles in front of us to try and detract from the fact that the gameplay, plot and overall game performance is pretty subpar.

Yes, Halo 3, we're looking at you.

You would think, then, that despite our monolithic achievements in the areas of graphical excellence that making a game that looks good to play as well as feels good is a bit of a Holy Grail; something that gets lost in between the channels of designers and programmers; the kind of thing every developer dreams of creating but is sadly nothing more than a theory, a dream. I mean, if the the brawniest consoles and computers on the market push themselves to the extreme and still can’t come out with a gaming gem, who can? Who?

Oh, hello Nintendo.

Yep, that’s right. If you want to see what games are still going forward in terms of design, you most often have to look at the ones that are taking a step back from the cutting edge. I’m sure you’re well aware by now that the sames of the Wii since its release put its big-brother consoles to shame, and that its handheld older brother (the DS), dwarfs even those of Nintendo’s living room make-yourself-look-like-a-twat machine.

“But why,” I hear you cry, “why do these things sell so well? I’m a hardcore gamer, and I know that Wii and DS games look like something that was developed ten years ago! How can something with such outdated visuals be dominating the market the way they are?!  It doesn’t make any sense! I want my mommy!” Well calm yourself, gentle reader, and I shall explain. You see, the reason that Wii and DS games are as successful as they are is because, despite not pushing any boundaries, they still look good. And they feel great. And more than anything, they’re fun. And it’s not just Nintendo games, games from other platforms that take a step back from graphical excellence in favour of good design are also doing great.

Don’t believe me? Here, have a look at some of the more successful games of last year or two:

Peggle (various)

LittleBigPlanet (PS3)

Castle Crashers (various)

Braid (various)

Mario Kart (Wii)

Scribblenauts (DS)

Have you seen what all these games have in common? They’re all amazingly simple, yet amazingly good-looking. And amazingly fun, which is what it’s about. These are games, after all, not tech demos. These are the things you can lose yourself in for hours just because of how simplistically appealing they are. If the graphical big-hitters are the ‘roid-munching jocks that are overcompensating for something, these games are the quiet, friendly guy that sits in the corner that everyone likes. These are what games were meant to be.

This, on the other hand, is not.

The Halo franchise and I have a bit of a dubious relationship; some of my best ever gaming memories come from blasting through the Combat Evolved campaign on co-operative with my cousin for the first time, or those desperate games of Assault on Headlong in Halo 2. On the other hand, the series has spawned some real pieces of utter dross, such as the shoddy RTS spin-off Halo Wars or those last two novels which I prefer to believe were just some sort of cruel joke. So it was with caution that I set my eyes on the forthcoming public beta for Halo: Reach the next in Bungie Studios’ decade-long multi-million marmite FPS franchise. Pre-release footage displayed some admittedly tasty morsels, but I tried my utmost to keep my excitement in check – I’ve been let down by a Halo game before (Halo 3 campaign, anyone?)

And then, of course, there was Isolation.

That said, when the Reach multiplayer beta went semi-public on Thursday, my stoicism finally broke and I frantically scrambled for a code like the rest of the slavering fanboys. Through my eternal good luck I managed to wrangle a code from one of my friends, and I set about becoming one of the privileged few to play the game before the beta was made available to all through the Halo 3: ODST menu.

When the beta first went up, admittedly there wasn’t much going on. Saying as the bulk of the beta codes were distributed during the daytime Stateside, the majority of activity didn’t come pouring into Bungie’s servers until the wee hours of the morning for me. Which is why, in my capacity as a critic and semi-cynical fan, I stayed up until 4AM playing the game with some fellow bleary-eyed associates. To fairly evaluate the experience, you know.

The Reach beta first launched with two matchmaking playlists to broadly appeal to the bulk of players – Grab Bag (an amalgamation of previous game’s multiplayer playlists Team Slayer and Team Objective) and the self-explanatory Free-For-All. Some of the game’s tastier morsels were also on display – albeit in a limited manner – with a progressive experience system, unlockable armour permutations, and Commendations for good playing matching up to the player’s Bungie account on the developer’s website. Hardly making strides in the fields of innovation, but a fresh and promising start for a Halo game all the same.

Given that I’m one of those one-for-all-and-all-for-one types I gathered up a few of my likewise-prestiged nocturnal and American associates and dove straight into the Grab Bag playlist. The matchmaking system feels like a welcome throwback to the days of Halo 2 while revamping and democratising the voting system from Halo 3 - instead of simply vetoing the gametype selected in favour of another, unknown and randomly-generated gametype, players are now given a selection of three gametypes they wish to play, with a fourth “None of the above” option. Simply put, the gametype with the most votes from the players in the pregame lobby is the one that gets played; if nobody finds any of the gametypes particularly favourable, “None of the above” reshuffles the games for selection and the process repeats. A decent system that makes sure players get to play what they want to play – or, at least, are more likely to.

Reach's matchmaking system and UI have received a significant overhaul since Halo 3.

The first gametype I and my friends were thrown into was a straightforward Slayer game on the interior map Sword Base. Fans of the  previous Halo games will feel that this vertigo-centric is reminiscent of the Combat Evolved map Boarding Action, with exposed walkways and narrow corridors that also have a certain reminiscent value of Chiron TL34 or the interior spaces of Halo 3‘s Rat’s Nest. The map has a very sprawling layout but mixes things up by sprawling vertically rather than horizontally, making the readily-available jetpack a massively useful asset.

Sword Base is a warren of walkways, corridors and vertical spaces. Bring a map. And a jetpack.

Speaking of jetpacks, that’s another thing that is brought to the fore in Reach. Each time a player spawns they have the option to choose between (usually) four different Loadouts, each one offering a different Perk Armor Ability to the player. These abilities take the place of the various powerups and equipment that littered multiplayer spaces in previous Halo games: Scout gives the player the ability to sprint, covering longer distances in a shorter amount of time, perfect for ambushes; Armor Lock allows the player to generate an temporary invulnerable shield, at the  cost of making the player completely stationary and unable to attack, useful for buying a few seconds until your buddy gives you some assistance; Stalker allows the player to use an active camouflage cloaking ability, making them virtually invisible as well as scrambling enemies; motion sensors – but also their own; and Airborne gives players to the aforementioned Jetpack, allowing them to get the drop on enemies (literally) and reach otherwise-inaccessible areas.

Some Armor Abilities may lead to explosive flatulence.

Reach‘s other current multiplayer map, Powerhouse, offers a massively different experience to Sword Base. Based at an abandoned reservoir area, this wide-open map is perfect for team-based objective games – especially 1-Flag CTF, which the Grab Bag playlist sports with gusto. This map rewards players who think ahead and cover their lines of fire, while the careless often get capped from across the map. Weapon placement can often be one-sided, with one team or another often able to lay their hands on all the power weapons at once, but otherwise a great addition to the multiplayer roster.

These new gameplay options, as well as the wealth of massively-reworked weapons in Reach, can seem alien and awkward for players fresh off the Halo 3 experience, where strategy often amounts to little more than “run at player shooting with Assault Rifle, melee when shields are depleted, whoever shoots first wins”. Reach is a massively different story; many of the new and reinvented weapons are designed with distance in mind, while others encourage you to get that much more up-close-and-personal. A new layer of strategy is thus given to the game, encouraging players to have the right weapon for the job at hand and sticking with teammates to avoid being outgunned, ambushed or blindsided.

Lone wolves will very quickly learn to stick with the pack.

The new weapons are a fearsome bunch, allowing players to kill and bludgeon each other in even more inventive and brutal ways. The Assault Rifle has received yet more tweaks and alterations in Reach, making it useful for short-to-mid-range without making it an all-circumstances weapon. The Magnum harks back to the days of Combat Evolved, touting a scope and considerable stopping power at mid-range while being able to rapid-fire akin to its Halo 2 counterpart. The DMR replaces the MLG-worshipped Battle Rifle from days of yore, packing considerably more punch per bullet than its predecessor while sacrificing magazine capacity.  The Grenade Launcher is a newly-introduced power weapon that allows players to fire explosives in a long-distance arc or leave them conveniently lying around for just the right occasion – a base defender’s best friend, in the right hands.

Covenant weapons have also received some love and care from the Bungie boys. The Plasma Repeater is a reimagination of the series’ iconic Plasma Rifle – instead of overheating, the Repeater now has a function akin to reloading, which allows the player to manually ventilate the weapon to keep rate of fire and damage optimal. The Plasma Launcher is a new Covie heavy weapon that allows players to fire up to four homing plasma grenades at a time – definitely a weapon to have, and an object of fear if in enemy hands. The Focus Rifle is the spiritual successor to the now-extinct Beam Rifle, offering a genuine new take on sniping – the FR fires a continuous stream of energy that whittles down enemy shields and health very quickly, and also serves well in close-quarters combat in a pinch, but is prone to overheating if not handled carefully.

My favourite by far, though, is definitely the Needle Rifle – the bastard child of the Covenant Needler and Carbine from previous games, this beauty is able to function as an effective mid-to-long range weapon to rival the DMR, offering the player the ability to pump the enemy full of crystal shards and make them explode in a pink cloud of glory, or crown them with a single shot between the eyes to make them into pretty dead unicorn-men. Why did nobody think of a weapon this fabulous before? It’s genius!

"This is almost as fun as playing Robot Unicorn Attack!"

So the weapons on offer are a considerable and vastly enjoyable bunch. The gametpyes on offer, however, often are a letdown. One of the new games that Bungie have flaunted in the run-up to the beta has been Stockpile – a sort or rolling Neutral Capture The Flag game where teams have to gather up flags and return them to their capture point in one-minute intervals. The game sounds like a solid concept in theory, but the reality is often a completely different matter – Stockpile on Sword Base becomes a very confusing matter given the sprawling mazelike quality of the map, which isn’t helped by the fact that the two teams’ capture points are a short jog away from each other – one team is often able to muster all their players, wait for the enemy team to gather up all the flags and do the leg-work, then with a scant few seconds to spare storm the enemy’s capture point, nick all of their flags and hop on their merry way. Powerhouse isn’t much better; the red team capture point is placed on a hill beside the generator building, offering a completely open line of fire from almost all angles, while blue team’s point is covered by a wall and a tree. Combined with the fact that red team often has a literally-uphill battle to collect any flags, which often roll down the hill their capture point is placed on when dropped, and that blue team can easily run in and chuck a flag into the reservoir and undo all the hard work, it makes the game completely one-sided and massively frustrating. In general the gametype is ridiculously aggravating, to the point of being declared broken, and each time I am forced into playing it I feel like I have died a little inside.

Headhunter is another newly-introduced gametype that is only available in the Free-For-All matchmaking playlist. This game runs along the same vein of Stockpile, only being a reinvention of Oddball. Each player, when killed, drops a flaming skull, which other players are able to collect. The aim is for players to gather up as many skulls as they can, and deliver them to a collection point; however, if they die, they drop all the skulls in their possession for other players to snatch up. As such the game offers a constant weighing up of risk versus reward, and games often become deliciously tense when making a final run for the collection point with a wealth of skulls to cash in. In a sense Headhunter is the polar opposite to Stockpile – frustrating, but in a good way. It gets the adrenaline running, the blood pumping, and you’ll be swearing like a sailor when that one guy cuts you open with the game’s awesome new Assassination ability and steals all your macabre booty, but you’ll be doing so with a smile on your face.

"My skulls! My beautiful, precious skulls!"

Two of Reach‘s most highly-anticipated gametypes have yet to make an appearance in the beta, however: Spartans Vs Elites, and Invasion. The former, as the name may suggest, pits a team of the game’s iconic Spartan-III superhuman soldiers against the series’ most widely recognised antagonists, the Elites. Pre-release footage shows a team of three Spartans defending a pair of generators from an equal-numbered Elite team’s attack on a currently-unreleased map, Overlook. Invasion runs along a similar vein, in a larger setting. This gametype is a blatant ripoff reminiscent of Battlefield: Bad Company 2‘s Gold Rush mode, where pre-release footage shows a team of six Spartans defending locations from an equal number of Elites on the opposing team, in a progressive objective-based game – the footage shows Spartans defending the wreckage of a human frigate on another unreleased map, Boneyard, and new areas, vehicles and loadouts become available to both teams as the Spartan frontline fails and the defensive team falls back to defend the increasingly-crucial objectives. Both gametypes are expected to launch on the beta this weekend, so objective fans should stay tuned.

Boneyard will be the first Reach map to feature vehicles, and is reported to be the biggest Halo multiplayer map ever.

What makes these games even more tasty to fans is the fact that the Elite players will have more than a simple cosmetic change. In previous Halo games, Elites have always had the exact same abilities and stats as their Spartan counterparts; a more contentious matter among the hardcore fanbase, given in Halo canon Elites are faster, stronger and have access to better weaponry than the Spartans – not to mention the forum backbiting over multiplayer character model shape and hitbox size. Now, Bungie have satisfied both criteria of canonical correctness and multiplayer balancing – Elites now run faster, hit harder, and take more damage than the Spartans, at the cost of being gigantic walking targets. Players have been given a glimpse into Elite performance already in the beta with the lesser-spotted Covy Slayer gametype, which swaps out both teams’ usual Human characters and their typical starting weaponry for their alien counterparts. How a team of Elites stacks up against a team of Spartans, however, is something that the fans have yet to experience first-hand, and a large portion of the community is waiting toward the weekend with bated breath to see whether SvE and Invasion make or break Bungie’s multiplayer gamble.

So, Reach has some good points and some bad points. What’s the verdict? Well, the ball is still out on that matter; the beta is set to run until the 19th of May, with Bungie dropping in new playlists and gametypes periodically throughout it’s soujourn. So far, though, the game has come out swinging, renewing faith in a series that was seriously flagging in the last few years. It might not offer much in the way of groundbreaking innovation – ideas have been overtly rehashed from previous Halo titles as well as not-so-subtly pilfered from Bungie’s biggest competitors – but it brings back an element of good, solid fun that just seems to have been missing from the series since Halo 2. When asked to summarise his experience of the game in five words or less, a friend of mine replied “Halo: Combat Evolved on steroids”, and that feels true – the maps are much more complex and strategic and the weapons all feel beefier and more awe-inspiring to feel, components that’ve been somewhat lacking throughout the series since its debut in 2001. So with a wary sense of hope I set my hopes for the latter half of the year, when the full game is due to ship. Fans of the series have renewed their support for Bungie’s latest project with fervour, and critics worldwide have provided almost universally positive feedback. And as for the rest, well…

Haters gonna hate.