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The combat style in Halo was never my favorite thing about the game. With large health pools because of shields and a dependance on head shots for other game types, I personally find it hard to savor a kill even when it's in my favor and takes five seconds to get it.

That's why my favorite game types don't necessarily depend on traditional deathmatch tropes. Take a tip from me, if you want to try Halo even though you hate Halo, stay away from playlists like team slayer and game variants like team SWAT. Try these and you may grow to love Halo for the unpredictable carnage, and not the kills.

 

Oddball

Do you hate camping? Do you spray and pray with that AR at close range and get nowhere? Oddball on rumble pit is my personal favorite. Eight players all after one ball which is always designated on your HUD equals massive chaos. Proceed to witness all manner of destruction unfold as eight players with grenades and short attention spans converge on one man holding a skull who can beat down anyone with one hit.

Not feeling up to partaking in the inevitable destruction? You can be a straggler and shoot those early birds in the back! Oddball will soon be altered to replace the drop shield ability with evade in the loadout choices, so as to prevent those cheap drop shield fortresses. The same applies to this game when played in teams except those brain dead people focused on killing rather then the objective can help play defense as the ball holder scrambles for cover.

 

Headhunter

In essence, you need to kill players to get anywhere in this game type much like slayer, but something about this variant just clicks with me. Instead of one kill scoring one point, you may sometimes hit it big and kill someone holding eight skulls for you to steal and deliver for yourself.

I just loved that thrill of having 10 skulls on my person trying to figure out how to get to the delivery point with as little opposition as possible. The top three are always marked like bounties on your HUD, leading to satisfying kills and tense escape moments.

This gets even crazier on team matches, as maps tend to feel crowded during team headhunter games. The ground gets littered with skulls and bodies as points are earned and potential points are lost.

 

Elite slayer

Elites in general are more fun to play in comparison to spartans. In elite slayer variants, everyone is an elite so everyone feels faster, stronger, and better overall. Covenant weapons also spawn on the maps, which tend to be more interesting like the needler and the plasma launcher, not to mention the sticky grenades.

Also, elites get evade instead of sprint and evade is way cooler to use than sprint.

 

Grifball

Though not on the playlists yet, you can expect everyone's favorite sport of the future to return soon. It's probably not planned yet because it's still being optimized for Reach, but Grifball is the ultimate feel good game. In a nutshell, it's football, but with energy swords, gravity hammers, and a ball that explodes when you score a touchdown. The explosion is the best part too because it's difficult to feel bitter in defeat when you know the planter also got blown to pieces.

Yeah! Grifball!

 

Rocketrace

Rocketrace is set to return soon in the October playlist changes, giving Reach a dose of kart racing syndrome when it comes back. You, a friend, armed with rockets on an invincible mongoose, racing through tricky maps. The rally and race game types by themselves are pretty boring, but rocketrace proves that everything is more fun with rocket launchers.

"Wooooo!"

Invasion

Rather then answer Modern Warfare's popularity, invasion plays to Bad Company 2's rush mode. Over three objective phases on a huge, segmented map, offense must capture two territories and a core (like capture the flag but carrying the core makes you slower). Defenders need to hold out for a specific time limit. There are only two invasion specific maps so far. Spire is an epic struggle until the spartans on offense breach a humongous tower that they need to not only fly up to but also figure out how to get the core back to the ground. Boneyard is more straightfoward and features tanks in the last phase.

The great thing about invasion is that it really does feel like Bad Company 2 molded into Halo: Reach. You pick out from a selection of loadouts specific to the objective phase and the weapons you get complement the armor ability without feeling over powered. Elites eventually get energy swords but only have hologram to help inside buildings. Those swords aren't much help out in the open.

This way, there's very little need for specific power weapon spawns with the exception of the rocket launcher in Boneyard phase 3 to help break the powerful defensive line spartans naturally have in their fortress. So during invasion, Reach plays the least like Halo than any other mode. No power weapon spawns to worry about, team mates spawning on you, and a possibility for every objective with enough team work.

Asides from these choices, there are still other honorable mentions for types that aren't on Reach yet and old variants from Halo 3. King of the hill is set to return alongside with rocketrace. Halo 3 also had many variants of oddball that spiced it up, including crazy custom types like ninjaball, speedball, and swordball. Hopefully, these niche variants from Halo 3 may someday return.

And of course, you could always jump onto firefight and enjoy good old fashion score attack.

So while Call of Duty gets points for adrenaline, overdosed action, Halo still gets me for creative ways to play the game.

If you're not feeling up to slayer, what do you like to do that doesn't fall into strict, shooter conventions? Forging a soccer field? Experience multiteam? Make your own goddamn game variants? Go ahead and share in the comments on how you make your own fun.