This week we played another Halo 3 Humpday, actually starting a bit of a regular thing with this. We’ll hopefully be able to do a bi-weekly Halo 3 Humpday. It’ll be easier than it has previously, because I’ll actually be able to name some maps and talk about a few other weapons that we’re using.
We recruited six to play in the Humpday.
Red Team
FriendlyFrank- A little too friendly with that rocket launcher. Especially to team mates.
deckardo- Know how you’ve always had that friend who can just pick up the game without having played in forever and he’s still good? Joe Staten’s one of those. [OMG love Joe much KP? - Frankie ]
ske7ch- Man cannon aficionado.
Blue Team
TomAchronos- Thinks he can just coast through the final match if it doesn’t matter.
mrstosh- Was not making approved use of his time.
K4yP- Who took KP on partnernet*? Better yet, who took KayPee? Er... I did, months ago. But I can’t retrieve them. :sadface:
*Partnernet- Microsoft’s internal Xbox Live network, which is how we played these games. Oh yes, look out for the hilarious Partnernet codename for what game we're playing.
Game 1: Team Slayer
Still Classified, AR start
Game Duration: 7:00ish?
General Tone of Game: Nail-biting
Closest. Game. Ever. The teams we chose actually proved to be incredibly well-balanced. It went back and forth the entire game. The teams were either within two of each other or tied up until about 30. Then, through the skilled rocket whoring of one Mr. FriendlyFrank and the proficient sniping of deckardo, Red team jumped ahead by about five or six.
I was able to flank deckardo though, as he wasn’t in a very defensible position. I had the tactical advantage of the elevated terrain , in fact. Despite my tactical advantage it was actually a pretty lucky stick from about 50 yards that took Staten down. I threw one right at the side of the rock he was using as cover and he happened to pop out at just that moment and it caught him on the torso. Once I grabbed the sniper and was able to cover Stosh and Achronos as they came through in the clutch on the interior and exterior of the base’s wall.
Speaking of clutch, Frankie had some key betrayal/suicides which, as Sketch so dutifully points out, made up the difference between the two teams’ scores. In the closing minute, Blue Team pulled off the comeback to tie it up at 47 all. The last 20 seconds were pretty chaotic. I don’t really know what happened, I was just firing my assault rifle and throwing grenades. All I know is that Blue team got the last three kills and stole the victory from Red Team.
50 to 47. Blue team wins.
Game 2: Team Slayer
More Classifieder, AR start
Game Duration: 8:00ish?
General Tone of Game: Fire and maneuver.
This game was differently paced. It’s a smaller, snowier, boundier, symmetrical map, so it’s a bit tougher to hold an area (especially at this stage, where people aren’t yet familiar with the nuances of the maps) for a while as you take advantage of whatever weapons you have. Much of the battle was AR on AR fighting going on in the middle of the map between the two bases and focused on and around a trench. Because of this the shotgun and other close to medium-range weapons figured heavily.
Realizing that it would be tough to gain a lead that way in such a melee, my general strategy became to whore the sniper along the periphery of the map with a secondary, medium ranged weapon like the battle rifle to handle bum-rushes. Support came from Achronos and Stosh via ghost-whoring. deckardo tried a few times to gain control of the sniper but every time he did get his hands on it he took up position behind a base which gave him limited vision and limited escape routes. He was never able to control it for more than a few kills worth.
Red team also tried to counter our ghost whoring with their own, but every time they attacked with the ghost they made the mistake of trying to charge us with it. It’s really easy to take out a ghost that’s charging you, especially if they’re boosting, with stickies. Stickies right now, are working a little more aggressively than in Halo 2. So we’d just wait for them to do that and stick them. They were never really able to get a strategy going that worked as well as ours, so we took this match in a more convincing fashion than the first.
50 to 36. Blue team wins.
Game 3: Team Slayer
Most Classifiedest, AR start
Game Duration: 15:00ish
General Tone of Game: Just awesome
In reality we played one last grudge match on the same map as the first game, but it was pretty much the same game, except Red team won with a similar score (50 – 46). The just for fun match after this was much more fun, however. Noguchi subbed in for me this round and after complaining about the fact that my monitor’s not as nice as everyone else’s and has no sound (their way of reining in ma skeelz) Frankie started up a match on a majestic, damn near heavenly map.
Because it was 3v3 on a map roughly the size of Blood Gulch (maybe bigger, really), there was a lot of vehicle antics. However, because of the variety of anti-vehicle measures, no one team completely dominated the other for more than a couple minutes. There was a lot of tomfoolery going on as ske7ch tested various applications of our patented Man Cannon© technology.
Red team jumped out to an early lead and held on to it despite quite a few surges from Blue team throughout the match. Noguchi, feeling he had some sort of standard to maintain while playing under my name, actually went positive (+2) while Achronos went -12. While I wasn’t even playing, I was just watching ske7ch play, it was probably one of the most fun Halo matches I’ve ever witnessed. Witnessing people just enjoying every second of it as they discover new subtle nuances to the maps and the gameplay is a pretty awesome experience.
50 to 44. Red team wins.