We’ve had five days or so to play around with Halo: Reach multiplayer beta, which is enough time to pick out some things that are nice additions to the Halo MP legacy and some things that totally aren’t.

Fun: Headhunter

Collect skulls from your dead opponents and drop them off at one of two delivery points. It’s fun because you’re never too far out of contention. It’s possible to nab a whole bunch of skulls and shoot straight from last to first (I’ve done it). It sometimes devolves into something that bears too much resemblance to Oddball, though.

Not fun: Oddball

Ball taken. Ball dropped. Ball taken. Ball dropped. Ball taken. Ball dropped. No one holds it for more than .3 seconds, and it never moves from that one corner of Sword Base. And yet somehow you always lose by like 120 points.

Fun: Stockpile

It’s a capture-the-flag variant. You collect neutral flags (there are several scattered throughout the map) and bring them back to your team’s zone (similar to the Headhunter delivery points). You earn a point for each flag you possess at the end of a timer.

I usually suck real hard at CTF types, but some reason I’ve done well in all the Stockpile games I’ve played. Maybe because you don’t have to go all the way to the other end of the map and then come back with the flag. Anyway.

Not fun: Stockpile on Sword Base

Until this morning, all the Stockpile games I’d played were on the Powerhouse map, which is fairly open and easy to navigate. Sword Base is a different story, and I suddenly had no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t find flags, and when I did, I couldn’t figure out where to take them. Those difficulties actually uncovered my main gripe with Stockpile: If you’re playing as, say, the red team, you need to take your flags to a point that’s marked on your HUD with a blue arrow. How does that make sense?

Not coincidentally, within the first minute of this Sword Base Stockpile game, I had a teammate yelling in my ear: “Dude, you’re a faggot and you’re helping the other team.” Sorry, bro. Want to smooch after this?

Fun: Team Swat on Sword Base

I’ve played only a few games of Team Swat. It’s a Slayer variant in which headshots and melee attacks kill instantly. Aaron would hate it. But I like its simplicity. In one game, I carried my team to victory, racking up more than half of our 50 kills. Sword Base works well for this kind of game, with its hallways and ramps and plentiful cover.

Not fun: Team Swat on Powerhouse

On Powerhouse, Team Swat becomes a waking nightmare. In one game I played, half the players dropped out early, leaving two teams of two. One guy on the other team was the hand of god, distributing one-shot death from who-knows-where. I never saw him. I’d run from cover to cover, looking for any sign of blue, then get picked off by a single shot from across the map. Powerhouse is just too open for something like this to work well for anyone but elite players. Aaron would, again, hate it.

Fun: Invasion

Invasion gives you some idea how a Halo/MAG hybrid would work. Players are divided into squads of two, and those squads are divided into two teams: Spartans and Elites. Elites have to get to certain points and do something, like deactivate a generator or something. Elites have to keep that from happening. It’s kind of like playing campaign with a lot of people.

Not fun: The Assault Rifle

Totally useless. Couldn’t kill grass.