For those of you who don't know, my family was gripped by "Halo fever" over the past, what, eleven months. My brother could play for his country and even my Dad got pretty good (I, of course, was the perfect balance of wisdom and youngish reflexes. Whilst not as lightning fast as my little bro I'm as cunning as a fox. Oi! No heckling at the back). But over the past few months my play has fallen of. I have a new job with long hours and I'd probably overdosed on Halo a bit. To cut a long story very slightly shorter Halo 2 came out recently and I've wished very hard that I had an Xbox so that I could play it. Sadly I don't have the money for that. So I've returned to playing Halo 1 online for the last couple of nights and I've noticed a very interesting phenomena. It's changed. Where once there were loads of servers there are far less and also a lot less players. And the games have changed... Where once cheaters and hyper-egos waged acrimonious war there seems to be people playing for fun; the way it was meant to be. It's amazing, I've seen hardly any cheaters and the teams have been co-operative and friendly. A few months ago you had to try server after server to find a good game, now it seems like every server I go in is running a good game. Last night my team were communicating and co-ordinating attack and defence (I play "Capture the Flag"). What's more the enemy cottoned on to what we were doing and began developing counter tactics that forced us to adapt in our turn. It was marvellous! It became a tense and hard fought campaign, where the tide of victory came and went and came again. Enemies were complimenting each other on their play even!
So what's happened? Why is it so different? My only conclusion is that the "professional" players have left to go play Halo 2. The obsessive and fanatical game players have all bought Halo 2 and/or Xboxes and would no longer lower themselves to play Halo 1. Well, I say good riddance, it's so much fun without 'em.
Added to my pleasure at a good game was the best compliment I've had playing Halo and it was from my enemy not my team! At the end of a game where I'd pinched the flag a few times, an opposition player said to my team: "You only won because you had a one man army on your side." He was talking about me. When an enemy flatters you, you know it's the truth...
Added to my pleasure at a good game was the best compliment I've had playing Halo and it was from my enemy not my team! At the end of a game where I'd pinched the flag a few times, an opposition player said to my team: "You only won because you had a one man army on your side." He was talking about me. When an enemy flatters you, you know it's the truth...