Wet, mangled, and reeking of dog breath.
Another offering from the
Ascendant Justice cargo hold, Vociferous has been living up to his moniker for quite some time now, lending his magnifying glass and floral prose to those looking for more insight into Halo's narrative. Like his comrade Cocopjojo, his words are often so close to the source material that we seldom feel the need to offer up any corrections. This man knows his Halo. If you want to learn a little about his own non-fictional tale, read on for some information about the man behind the "Wall of Text."
Q. Who are you and what do you do?
A. I'm Jeremy, but most folks know me as Vociferous from Ascendant Justice. Outside the Jundland Wastes of the internet, I'm a fairly simple guy; I spend most of my time hanging out with my wife and son, who is easily the biggest Halo fan I know.
When I'm not reading or writing, I spend most of the time working a real job: I'm a community administrator with a leading wireless company's website. Essentially, I babysit grown adults on an internet forum and support center - about 1.6 million of them.
Q. Diaper change time must be a drag. Where did your tag come from?
A. "Vociferous" actually came into being around the launch of Halo 2. At the time, I had tossed around a few ideas with some of the originals from
Ascendant Justice and this one was the one that stuck. Anyone who knows me personally will advocate its depictive accuracy.
I'm rolling with Mr Vociferous now because I committed the cardinal sin of changing my original tag which was, in fact, "vociferous". Now some dude has that gamertag and and as internet justice would have it, the last game he played was PGR3.
Yes, that's right. PGR friggin' 3.
Q. Kudos to him for being savvy. What forums do you drift around in when you have the spare time?
A. I originally hail from
Ascendant Justice's forum, but as of late, I've been participating heavily on
NeoGAF - both are good folks. I got involved in all of this by starting a small thread on a backwater forum which was really just a way to organize my own thoughts on Halo 2. A lot of helpful hands later and we had a small, fledgling group of guys who loved discussing Halo as much as they enjoyed playing it.
Q. What do you enjoy about that play experience? Do you ever invite your friends and family to share in the fun?
A. Since the advent of Halo: Combat Evolved, I rarely steer my ship far away from the port. I was a heavy gamer in earlier years, but with a family in the picture, I find myself fine tuning my gaming focus on things with guaranteed payoffs. Halo's easily one of them.
I'm really hoping that the new maps and the upcoming expansion re-energize my original base of friends at Ascendant Justice. I have fond memories of razing enemies with those dudes across the geometry of Lockout, Midship, Sanctuary, Turf and Terminal for hours on end back in 2005. I'd like to recreate that in the next few months.
Q. Ah, the future. It will be glorious. But what about the past? What was the first Bungie title you played?
A. My first full Bungie experience was Halo. I had known about Bungie and their games before, but Halo caught the corner of my eye while I was on the way to pick up a GameCube and I have never looked back. There's something magical about that first game. I think what Bungie has done with Halo 2 and Halo 3 is revolutionary and to be applauded, but for me, the first Halo had this powerful draw and charisma about it that I still find myself drawn to.
Maybe it was the crisp controls and movement, maybe it was the sprawling majesty of the nonlinear environments or maybe it was just the perfect composite of sandbox and combat together -- whatever it was, I was hooked on day one. I played hours upon hours, sometimes reloading the same exact encounter repeatedly for six months in a row just so I could experience it differently each time. (Two Betrayals, you have my number. Call me some time.)
The game was friggin' brilliant.
Q. Are you surprised by your friggin' level of community involvement?
A. Nah, I'm not really surprised. Relatively speaking, I've always been this involved in the Halo community since 2004. Thanks to Jironimo, nowadays I have a channel now for my writing - the blog. Before that, a lot of my stuff got tossed onto forums and then eventually passed around the internets as gospel or rumor until it came back to me, hitting my front door like a wet and mangled newspaper with the stench of dog breath.
I'd get my hopes up because someone would tell me that they had an official document chalk full of content for the next Halo game, only to realize that they were talking about something I wrote in my spare time. ULTIMATE SAD FACE! In the end, Bungie surpassed my wildest imagination in their sequels, so it made little difference. At least now I write things and there's no question where it came from.
Well, except for the -blam!- stuff. That's urk's fault.
It hurts me when you say that, Voc. I think we better wrap up.
Thanks to Vociferous for supplying the answers to our pressing questions and for the walls of text he supplies over at Ascendant Justice. We're looking forward to what comes next...as long as it doesn't arrive wet and mangled on our Internet doorstep.