The Halo Humpday Challenge
Bungie Vs. the HBO Legkolos
The HBO Legkolos can best be described as a fringe-nut communist organization bent on changing consumer laws to better reflect the needs of the morbidly husky. No wait, that's not right. Let me try again. The HBO Legkolos are a clan built from Halo.Bungie.Org regulars, and they're all perfectly nice. We played 'em last night, and what started as horrible torture turned into one of the more fun sessions we've had.
The Bungie Hive of Scum and Villainy
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Shishka - Lord British, Born Here, 1979
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Frankie – Best Guy of All Time (s)
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New0001 – Joseph is our Leader
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Yeroen – Knows the Konami Cheat for Halo 2
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Shunji – Kind to Puppies
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MiloBNG - Hears the lamentation of your women
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Stormincow - Hearts Kittens
The Legkolos
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Prometheus - King of Space
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Arashi90 - Time Bandit
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BigJoe38025 - Aunt Sally
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Retsimolah - Your move, Cream of Wheat
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Myro - Where's the Map?
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WhoKnew - Ate all the Pies
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mejp90 - Also has meaningless vanity plate
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Dr. Fool - Rhubarb or Apricot
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GreyWolf - Friend of British?
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Snake1021 - Now this is a lot of dudes.
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xWolfLeader x - he uses those little x's.
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True Monkey - Unfake Simian
* It looks like the Legkolos had like, ten extra players. Well, I think they did. That's all. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. But maybe they cycled players in and out, who's to say?
GAME 1: Monosnipe
Game Stats
Coagulation , Sniper Rifles
Game Duration: 15:42
General Tone of Game : Owie
Hey, you remember that movie Scanners? You know, the one where psychics could make your head explode from the inside out, just by concentrating? Well that's what the HBO Legkolos were doing to us for much of the first game.
So first things first. I've been to an HBO LAN party, and if you like normal rules, conventional weapon sets and familiar experiences, you'd best just stay out in the yard eating tacos. HBO folks are like the anti-MLG. Where MLG likes predictability, order and evenness, HBO likes invisible bedlam. Monosnipe is single flag CTF with sniper rifles on Coagulation. And it is, in my humble opinion, exactly as much fun as trapping your nether regions in a bag of angry cats.
That's largely because I can't snipe, at all. In fact, I didn't get a single kill until I switched to Battle Rifle. Now, starting position is also all important. If you pick the Blue team, you can use the cover of the tall central hill to approach the flag in comparative safety. If you don't pick the Blue team, you can feel free to leave a trail of brains and viscera all over the gulch. We picked the red team. Cue superior sniping, frustration, a complete lack of organization and lots of screaming. Legkolos HAMMERED us.
Pop, pop, pop. Ow, ow, ow. We got to the flag like, three times. The flag reset time on Monosnipe is also incredibly short, so getting the flag doesn't really help, since the Blue Team has an hour to pick you off while you hobble back to your base. You could hear them over the mic, paying bills, finishing dinner, and scratching things best left unscratched.
As HBO swapped players for the next round, the departing souls bade us a fond farewell, thinking it was already over.
Final Score: 5 flags to 0 - Legkolos Win.
GAME 2: Multiflag CTF
Game Stats
Sanctuary , Standard Weapons
Game Duration: 17:45
General Tone of Game : Contemplative
The second game was one we picked. Classic CTF on Sanctuary. We just wanted to play new maps. It was frenetic to say the least. I personally LOVE Sanctuary. It's such a changeable map. One strategy not working? Try another route. In CTF the phenomenon of inching the flag closer and closer to your base is as thrilling as it is unavoidable. And that's exactly what happened. At least to Bungie.
The Legkolos kept taking advantage of our inching to basically run uncontested back to their base when they did get the flag. I personally flung myself into their base every opportunity I got, while Lord British and Joseph used some retarded thing they call "skill" to pick off players "accurately." What a waste of time! They could have been hurling themselves pointlessly at the enemy base! Why use one bullet when you can use 123 and then kill yourself with your own grenade?
Anyway, it was a close game, but truth be told, the Legkolos played too conservatively. If they'd been more aggressive, I think they might have beaten us. Lord British's one-man stand with the sword near the end of the game was one of the deciding factors. He killed almost their entire team and then calmly walked back to our base with the flag. That Lord British. He sure is British, and Lordly.
Now, I have been accused of using profanities in this match. Nonsense. I'm from Scotland, and a lot of quaint Scottish-isms sound like swear words. For example, "braw" means, "great" and the expression "hoots" means, "goodness me!" so everything I said was innocent. And the expression "Piss up a rope, you festering bag of butt-vomit," means, "I say old chap, you are doing terribly well, aren't you!" Innocence.
Final Score: 3 flags to 2 - Bungie Wins. Barely.
GAME 3: Crazy King
Game Stats
Warlock , regular rules, standard weapons
Game Duration: 10:12
General Tone of Game: Warlocky
The last game, I ducked out of to make room for The DiploMat (Mat Noguchi, who, if you know him, is plainly no more fit to be a Diplomat than R Kelly is to be a babysitter). Which was just as well, since he may have tipped the balance in our favor. Crazy King is a game that can tip easily in the favor of any team. Strategies vary by map, but the basic skill is to coordinate an offense to kill as many players simultaneously as possible, so that you have the maximum uncontested reign in the "Hill." Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men aft gang awry (Scottish for, "omg WtF BBQ a nade is stuck to my face!!11 OhTehNOES!!11")
Warlock works beautifully for Crazy King because the islands of raised platforms give you an easy route to chase the hill. Understanding where the teleports take you also helps. In the end, there was nothing in it. Legkolos played as well as we did, and in a five minute game, our ten second lead meant nothing…and everything. We won. Just.
Final Score: 5 minutes to 4:48 - Bungie Wins. Again, barely
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Next Challenge: Xbox Marketing was going to do it, but admitted they were literally too scared of our epic skillz. And they drive slow in the fast lane. And they merge like, wicked slow, then speed up and down, so that they totally screw the right hand lane for everyone. And when they drive in the empty carpool lane, they go at 30mph because they're scared someone in one of the other lanes will cut in suddenly. And they won't turn right on red, even when it's safe to do so. And they can't parallel park if there's traffic behind them, because they're scared. And they drive Hummers, even though they can hardly get in and out of them with high heels.