Archive for October, 2007

What a night! We had 16 people. Not everyone played at the same time. We had 2 classics playing Halo2 for the novice players, 2 360’s setup for challenge matches playing Halo2, and my HDTVplaying Halo3 and Han’s 360 & 24″ (?) playing Halo3 together.

I placed everyone that showed up in a starting position on the ladder based on what I knew about their game play. I’m sure some are not placed right but everone will find their spot once the challenges begin. I drew names out of a hat to select the challengers and let them pick their opponent.

We started with:

1. David
2. Jacob
3. Parker
4. Connor
5. Ed
6. Paul
7. Tommy
8. Kyle
9. Hans
10. Alan
11. Dmitri
12. Sanjeev
13. Kristen
14. Jay
15. Oliver
16. Caden
17. John

The matches were (challenger listed first):

Caden defeats John 6-5 on Ascension. Actually pretty close. John is just learning and Caden has only played a few times. John actually reached 5 first but they kept playing and Caden uses a Banshee to go ahead of John.
Jay defeated Kristen 5-0 on Coagulation . Jay chooses high ground and Kristen boldly ascends only to be beat back by Jay.
Alan defeated Hans 15-13 in Ascension. Very close match, Alan jumps out to an early lead, Hans catches up and takes the lead, Alan makes a comeback and finishes up ahead. This match was all about who could get to the better weapons first. They played by the original rules of no rocket-launchers or snipers.
Conner is defeated by David 15-13 on Headlong. Another close match. David took an early lead and kept a slim 2-kill margin the entire game.

Leaving the current standings:

1. David
2. Jacob
3. Parker
4. Connor
5. Ed
6. Paul
7. Tommy
8. Kyle
9. Alan
10. Hans
11. Dmitri
12. Sanjeev
13. Jay
14. Kristen
15. Oliver
16. Caden
17. John

Next week I’ll place the people that didn’t participate in a match in a hat and draw again for challengers.
I learned that there was probably no reason to enforce strict rules. I had thought banning snipers and rocket launchers and vehicles would create a more even field but I soon came to realize it didn’t matter. Since players only challenge one or two rings up, it’s already even! There won’t be a case of a very experienced player playing a less experience player and the less experienced player being out-gunned.

Halo3 was a big hit and the first time several players had played it. Lots more weapons, deployables, new maps to learn. When Connor played David in Halo 2 he commented “It’s nice to be back in familiar territory”.

I’ll review the saved games on our 360 and see if there are any cool clips to post.