The Halo Humpday Challenge
Bungie Vs. The US Army!
Each Wednesday night, to the best of our ability, we here at Bungie take on another team in a three match Halo 2 challenge. We call it the Humpday Challenge, in recognition of the midweek blues. The challengers could be regular joes, they could be a clan, they could even be, as they were this week, the US Armed Forces. The guys we played last night, represented the US Army (with a lone Marine), and a couple of them had just returned from 24 month tours of a sleepy little burg we like to call Iraq.
Now the guys we played last night were awesome, not just because they put their lives on the line while we sit around in our underoos, get fat and complain about taxes, but because they didn't complain, -blam!- about RPGs hitting them upside the Humvee, talk politics, or use cheap tactics to hand us a beating. We're not saying they didn't hand us a beating, they just did it in a weirdly enjoyable, non trash-talking way. They were just a cool bunch of guys.
Now,
we're
saying they represented the US Army, but we're just betting that there are Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard teams out there who want a piece of us. Except for the 2005 Hawaii Coast Guard - don't even come to us about how tough YOUR job is this week. Anyhoo, if the guys last night were any indication, we're gonna keep accepting challenges, and we'll be happy to play other military outfits, US or otherwise, home or abroad.
The Bungie Soldiers
-
SGS Scooter - Steve Scott
-
Frankie – Idiot.
-
Abe Froman SK – Luke Timmins.
-
Ruiner – Paul Bertone.
-
Eamon – Eamon McKenzie
-
Stormincow – CJ Cowan
-
Achronos - Tom Gioconda
The US Army Team
-
GODS CHOSEN - Sgt. Shane
-
Lt. Weeks - Pvt. Ben Weeks (Marine!)
-
Jarhead At It - Staff Sergeant Dave Cutshall
-
xCOOKIEMONSTERx - Sgt. Jose Hernandez
-
Final Rush
- Spc Bruce Day (and organizer!)
-
WBShiStE - Army Team Guest
-
M3THODS - See Above! Friend of Shane!
GAME 1: Team Slayer
Game Stats
Beaver Creek , Standard Weapons
Game Duration: 09:20
General Tone of Game : Weirdly Calm
You ever get beaten by folks who for no real reason, aggravate the heck out of you? Well, this was the opposite. The Army team basically used skill, tactics and coordination to beat us fairly and squarely. The
y didn't talk trash, they didn't use repetitive maneuvers and they didn't all camp in one spot. They were mobile, the reacted well to change and they handed our asses to us every time we turned a corner.
We tried holding our gro und - that didn't work. We tried attacking aggressively - that didn't work and we knew we were in considerable trouble when one of their number said, "He just used his last rocket to kill me. Someone go get it when it respawns."
The funny thing was, although we were behind by a considerable margin from about five kills onwards, we never felt like it was hopeless. We always felt like we had a chance to come back from the brink Even though we clearly had no chance at all. Silly rabbits.
Final Score: 100-54 - the US Army wins by a mile.
GAME 2: Single Flag CTF
Game Stats
Zanzibar, Standard Weapons
Game Duration: 15:30
General Tone of Game : Frightening
I think this is where we started to realize things were going wrong. I have to tell you, in all honesty, Zanzibar is our best map. In past games, where we've been owned on other maps, we've done really well on Zanzibar. Not this time. Our only consolation was some confusion at the beginning as we tried to swap out Frankie with Steve Scott for the second game. But that's not a good excuse for the beating that followed.
The first thing we noticed was raw aggression. those guys absolutely rushed us. They lobbed grenades in through the windows and bars, forcing us into tight quarters (the ones they didn't kill right away) and putting us on the defensive just to survive, never mind hold the flag.
When it was our turn to go on offense, it was clear they knew exactly what to expect. The old Bungie habit of charging in didn't work, and neither did the new Bungie habit of cowering back at the beach. They came out of their base and absolutely hammered us. Only Eamon even touched the flag, and frankly, not for very long.
Final Score: 3 flags to 0
-
US Army Wins.
GAME 3: Team Slayer
Game Stats
Burial Mounds , regular rules, standard weapons
Game Duration: 10:47
General Tone of Game: Chilling
Hey, you know who shoots folks a lot? Gamertag GODS CHOSEN. If you look at the person versus person stats, he killed everyone the most. That's a fairly unusual balance in a game where the next-most successful player gets 21 kills. We never stood a chance. They basically had their way with us in predictable and unpredictable ways. I HATE Team Slayer on Burial Mounds. After months of playing I STILL get confused in the canyons. So I sat it out. Otherwise we'd have won, obviously...
But seriously, again, the US Army team beat us into submission, but in a strangely acceptable way. No Smack-talking (I guess the numbers spoke for themselves) and very little in the way of humping. In short, we were glad to get beat up on for the first time ever. No rage, lots of pleasantries afterwards and contentment all around.
Final Score: 100 flags to 53 US Army Dominates
.
Next Challenge: Well, really we need to take on some Bejeweled players. Or maybe like, a Chess club. This shooting and running business isn't workin' out so well.