Multiplayer Modes:
- Assault
- Capture the Flag
- Headhunter - capture the flaming skulls dropped by dead players
- Infection
- Invasion - Spartans vs. Elites with 4 variants
- Juggernaut
- King of the Hill
- Oddball
- Race - Exactly what it sounds like with two variations, race and rally
- Slayer
- Stockpile - Collect flags in your team’s score zone.
- Territories
Gone is VIP, but four new modes are added to give you and your friends a load of ways to play together or against each other.
The multiplayer custom game menu is horrible. You change to whatever mode you want to play. Then you choose the map. Only the system doesn’t tell you if the map is compatible with the mode. So it loads the map then gives you a message that says the map is not compatible with the type of game you want to play. Really? You couldn’t have made it a single menu, choose mode, variant, map (from available maps for the mode)? That seems like the most basic and logical layout for it to me. So by trial and error you will find which maps are available for which modes. Race, specifically, is lacking in maps.
Race itself feels like it was just stuffed into the game without much thought. Not only are there not all that many maps, but there’s also no weapons. So it’s not HALO Kart racing unfortunately. It would have been cool if you could do a two-person driver/gunner race where you could actually take out your opponents. Or a vehicle-based deathmatch would have been cool. As it is, it feels incomplete and almost like an afterthought. That’s not to say it isn’t challenging and couldn’t be fun. It just feels incomplete.
Some of the modes are locked to specific maps but then when you choose them, it doesn’t automatically choose the map for you. That’s just flat out irritating really.
Stockpile, like capture-the-flag, requires team work as while carrying the flag you cannot shoot, use any abilities (like run) or drive a vehicle.
The Forge also returns for making completely custom games on the fly.
