We gotta be honest. We played next week’s Humpday early and we played it on old maps, since we played it Monday night. So for this week’s crotch-to-face festivities, we traveled the obvious road and played the customary three round match on the maps from the just-released Heroic Map Pack. Because Rat’s Nest and Standoff are so accommodating for mid-to-large size teams we brought a seven man roster with Frankie and Larz taking turns on O’Connor’s gamertag (why the two of them were together at 9:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night we’ll leave to your wet and wild imaginations).

Bungie

• Eamon – Eamon “Tom Brady Fanboy #1” McKenzie
• Cunbelin – Cameron “It’s mah debut in the Humpday, I hope I don’t screw up” Pinard
• Ske7ch – Brian “Can we play Grifball for future Humpdays?” Jarrard
• New0001 – Joe “pom poms” Tung
• Frankie - Frank “Lars and I are sharing a box” O’Connor
• Butter08 – Steve “I know these maps becuz I was in charge of making them” Cotton
• TJ Scoot – "Footprints painting"

Clantacular

Clantacular is a multiplayer focused community that has been providing a ranked clan match service since Halo 2 and has obviously continued their support for Halo 3. They’ve been around since June 2006 and went as far as to put a countdown on the front page of their Web site leading up to our showdown.

• DEMONCORPSE – Founder of Clantacular and, uh, apparently really into Metal.
• UnEarthed Saint – Ew, smelly.
• Aliendude19 – Plays as an Elite.
• Dub Dub F – I think it is written Jub-Jub.
• HydroKreeper – This means swimming slowly, right?
• Siingle shott  – A single shot, with two “I’s” and two “T’s,” get it?
• zZSnowman13Zz – I’m just surprised Snowman13 was taken.
• I Am Misery – I don’t think the taint tattoos that are going to be decorating your chin are going to alleviate your misery L
• CsR SmoKe – Just had to get that extra capital letter in there, eh?

Game 1

Team Slayer on Foundry (Lintendo 64’s Great Wall)
Tone of Game: Up, up and away

Last week we ended the Humpday with Tower of Power on Spire, a terror-filled ascent amidst chaotic carnage created by LordGideon from PraetoriaGuard. This week, we started the Humpday with a variant of Foundry created by Lintendo 64 called “Great Wall.”

Great Wall takes Foundry and bisects it where the single wall extends creating Foundry’s U-shape and builds a massive, multi-level structure in its place. This single wall is the defining trait of Great Wall. There are four levels, with the fourth level primarily accessible by deploying one of the Gravity Lifts that rests on both sides of symmetrical map.

Rarely used weapons like the Beam Rifle and the Fuel Rod Cannon show up, as well as a cache of dual wield weapons and a pair of Needlers on both sides of the map.

There are shield doors that serve as pathways through the Great Wall, in addition to providing cover and combat variety, those doors coupled with the Wall actually break up the combat spaces and accommodate a higher player count – in its standard form Foundry plays a bit tight with the six on six configuration in the Heroic DLC hopper.

Off we go. We got out to a pretty sizable lead in this one, but it wasn’t too long before Clantacular tightened their belts. We’d played a single game as a group of six during the previous round to check out the map and make sure the spawn points were reasonable and that there weren’t any shenanigans or game-breaking issues.

Slowly, Clantacular crawled back into this one, but ultimately Eamon and I’s combined 41-20 Kp/D was probably too much to overcome.

Final Score: 100-91 Bungie Wins
Download the Film Here
Download Great Wall Here

Game 2

Team Slayer on Rat’s Nest
Tone of Game: Seriously, Joe. Get out of the Warthog.

When only two people on your team kill more dudes than kill them it’s going to be a problem. But not nearly as big of a problem as when some guy with zZ’s in his name puts up 24 kills and dies nine times. I haven’t watched the entire film, but in the postgame lobby when someone asked “Who died the final time?” No one our team said anything. All I know is that it wasn’t Ske7ch or me, we were back at one of the bases, hiding like children.

The problems here involve the Warthogs on the map. It’s the classic Spider-Man “With great power comes great responsibility” situation. The Warthog possess great power, and the responsibility when getting in it is to put up at least a Killing spree, since when you die it’s pretty likely that you and your driver are going to both go down in a blaze of glory. We didn’t execute in the Warthogs like we should’ve, maybe in part because it is pretty hilarious driving the Warthog over the click like Thelma and Louise.

Final Score: 100-99 Clantacular Wins
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Game 3

Multiflag CTF on Standoff
Tone of Game: What's "Organization"

Standoff Multiflag is my current favorite gametype in Halo 3. I could play it all night, every night. It's the peanut butter and chocolate of Halo 3 at this very moment. Despite the drama and pagentry of the 100-99 upset loss in the previous game, it was not a glimpse into the future for Clantacular. Instead, their future involved watching Eamon dodge, weave and bob like Gale Sayers through their swiss cheese defense.  Granted, a bunch of us have been playing Standoff for a significant amount of time, but all that’s really done is show us where the weapons are and there’s not a whole lot of trickery to moving around the map or commandeering a power weapon.

After colliding against their defense a couple times Eamon said “This is going to take hours.” Moments later New0001 was on his way back with the Flag. On our second capture Eamon and I crept in the low door and he stuck a poor soul watching his radar rather than using Halo 3’s most importance piece of equipment according to Chris Butcher: Situational Awareness.

Eamon squirted out the birthing canal (low door) and hoofed it back to the base. On our third capture he went almost the same way but was protected by Bubble Shields. For all of his “sit outside the left side of our base and try and kill guys,” Clantacular’s siingle shott is probably back in the practice lab learning about coordinated tactical strikes. Thankfully, we’ve put together an 11:22 second video for him to watch to aid his progression and development.  Watch Frankie's withering patience as their last flag steal attempt is set up for failure.

Final Score: 3-0 Bungie wins
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