Over the past 4 or 5 years I have become part of a universe that has been very influential on my life. It started out as a fun way to waste a few hours with my buddies. That was truly my induction to multiplayer gaming. I'd played some C & C and a little Golden Eye, but nothing prepared me for this. Gradually I found more people that were into this game for the (insert bleh here) Xbox. I had a PS2 and staunchly believed that I had the superior console. As I found more people playing this game, I began to find it hard to keep driving to far away places to play. It was at that time I bought my own Xbox. In the face of all my previous statements that the Xbox controller sucked, and "the graphics aren't
that much better." Soon I had exhausted the campaign and was finding out that LAN's were second only to sex...and beer. I realized that this game called Halo was one of my favorite things to do and whenever I met someone else who shared my passion it was like instant camaraderie.
Online gaming? What is that?
Halo 2 burst on the scene to all the fanfare and expectation of a major film production. Marketing giants with their fingers in everything had me buying 7-11 Big Gulps, and random Bungie paraphernalia. I was so into the story line of the game I even purchased the Halo novels. I loved this game. One day I got home and my room mate was playing Halo by himself. No big deal...except he had a mike on and was wasting some poor ten year old with a rocket to the mouth and there were certainly no 10 year olds in our apartment. My room mate had connected to Xbox live.
Year long pause for a year of Big Team being played for hours on end.
Finally I had bettered all of my mates and thought I had become a "good" Halo player. It was at this time that a lot of my friends had abandoned Halo for WoW and I was by myself in big team games and not having much fun anymore. For a while I played with a close friend of mine, but something was missing. It was just me and my friend. I knew there were "Clans" out there that were playing this game as a team and they were good. But I had no way to get in a clan. So, I quit playing Halo 2.
I didn't play for at least 6 months. During that time my friend was playing non-stop trying to improve. I got him started on the game and I had played hundreds of games at that point. He convinced me to get on and we started up again pretty solid playing a lot. After a time I told him we needed to get in with a clan. We were found by one of my new close friends. He showed me how bad I was...in a nice salty way! Seeing how good he was and the friends he played with inspired us and we ate drank and slept Halo. We played in online tournaments, went through dramas with breakups of friendships and relationships. We met a ton of new people and even played in the holiest of holies...MLG.
At the end of it all, I stand today with that feeling all over again. As if I was standing on the precipice of a Covenant invasion. With 10 days to go...we can only imagine how the final chapter in the saga of the Master Chief will continue to captivate us. New stories of pwning my best friend with a flamethrower or a night of "pass the potato" where we play player's choice customs all night. It's starting again all over from the beginning. Everyone has the chance to play on the 25th. And it's up to the players to play for dominance. There is no pecking order. Hopefully there will be pros from RCG. Hopefully we will fulfill the promise that we didn't with H2. Hopefully those who know more now, will go on to do even greater things in H3. Good luck RCG's. Good luck gamers. Enjoy this, the last time we will feel this way about this game. Remember everything you've experienced and remember those you experienced it with. It's time for the finale. Load your BR and fire.
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