I played about five hours of the Halo: Reach beta yesterday (which explains why my eyes are so tired), and I’ll add a list of things that made me laugh with glee and scream with frustration.

Fun: Loadouts

Should I sprint or go invisible? Fly around nimbly or become a human shield? Loadouts can radically alter the way a game plays. And there’s something beautiful and poetic about seeing a group of Spartans flying through the air … before being pelted with a rocket.

Not Fun: New Weapons

It’s not that the new weapons aren’t good or balanced or anything, it’s just hard to get a sense of what each does before someone beats you over the head. Hey, this plasma cannon sure looks—oh god, it burns! Amaaaaaaaazing grace ….

Fun: New Modes

Headhunter and Stockpile are nice tweaks to Oddball and CTF.

Not Fun: New Modes

Where the fucking fuck do I take this fucking flag? Fuck!

Fun: Party Integration

You’ll never have to wonder how to invite your XBL friends to a game in Reach. It’s the simplest, most intuitive party system yet, which is really great. Or it would be, if Reuben, Brian and I could ever get online at the same time.

Not Fun: No Party Online

Then you have to play with kids who scream randomly for no reason. Or some mouth breather who kept saying something that sounded like “Six, six, six, six, six” the entire match. Or the guy who yelled at our team for losing by one point: “What part of camp out do you not understand?!” Or the kid who kept saying, “Paging Dr. Faggot” every time he got killed. I’ll have him know I never finished my Ph.D in faggotry, thank you very much. I learned it on the streets.