Its Friday (When I’m writing this, for you it could be Saturday. Cant hack staying up?) and Bungie has rolled out a update bigger than the solo career Enrique Iglesias’s mole had.  Packed full of all the maps you you will be treading on come May 3rd in the Halo: Reach beta.

Powerhouse

“The map formerly known as Settlement is set amidst one of Reach’s more desolate regions. Look up and you’ll catch a glorious glimpse of some majestically mountainous outcroppings. Across the way – jagged, primordial spires emblematic of this region’s rugged terrain. Peer down and you’ll see the rerouted river spilling into the canyon below.”

Go on, enjoy the beauty that will be one of two main ” all around” maps to come with the beta. With lashings of weapons and death laid about everywhere. Expect Slayer, head hunter and other Halo standard game types to be played on Powerhouse. As you can see from the screen shots, there’s quite a few ways to get around. Sprint for the starting advantage and weapons? Take a running jump and blast off into the sky in a attempt to call out the opposite team and get around the back? If it was so easy…

Sword Base

“It’s a base…for Longswords, right? Nah, not exactly, but you’ll definitely wanna do some flying once you get inside. The atrium you’ll be fighting over is five, maybe six layers deep. Depends on whether or not you count the upper air vent (if you happen to have the Sniper Rifle in your hot little hands, you probably will).”

If Boarding action from Halo 1 was your “on nom sauce”, then this would be the burger to put that sauce on. Like boarding action, looking up is only part of the job, take to the sky boy! Its that or a long walk up the many inner ramps and short cuts. Also that lift in the middle looks really handy, why not take a hop on board for a quick lift to the top. just don’t get caught out though, you could enjoy a face smacking Sniper shot from the top air vent.

But don’t worry, young one. If you cant kill me there’s all the defenseless and pointless computers and windows ready to be smashed throughout the level. Mind you, this could all be a trick to get you to go there, what you going to do now?

Overlook

“We’re gonna stay pretty tight-lipped on the Overlook front and let the pair of images below do the talking this week. There are some really interesting wrinkles in the way you’ll acquire weapons in this space, but all those intricate details bleed over into the game type you’ll be playing on Overlook in the Beta. We’ll get to all the ooey-gooey Generator Defense stuff soon enough. All in due time.”

Seriously, that’s all that Bungie is going to say on this map for this week. Hear have a second screen shot as filler.

1, 2, 3 ….. Wait a second!

Yes were missing one map, Boneyard is the name of this missing piece but why? Seems that your going to have to wait for Bungie to talk about Invasion before they crack open this map. I suggest coming back next week and taking a peek with us.

That’s all folks, take it easy this weekend and crack on some Halo 2 when you have the time or any of your favorite original Xbox live games, They all get shut down after April 14th.  Make sure you get in a few games, as it will give you something extra to look forward to when Reach ships this fall.

One last thing that I picked up on, taken strait from the Bungie update.

“We’ll likely dig into the nuance of each one sometime later on so you can get a better idea of how you might make the most of ‘em. Like maybe next week or later “later.””

Check Bungie over your weekend, I wouldn’t be so surprised to see a tasty Vidoc on there.