LAN

Today we have a report about HaLAN 3, the third instalment of the sort-of twice-yearly Halo 2 LAN (Local Area Network) gaming event. The first time there were 8 people (4 teams of 2), last time 12 people (4 teams of 3) but this time 16 (4 teams of 4) which reaches the limit that Halo 2 can manage in a single game.
There were three rounds of five identical games against each of the other teams. At the end were 6 games with all four teams vying for victory. This made a total of 21 games. I would list the 4 teams but that would be mainless meaningless, suffice to say that I was on green team.

Here follow a brief report of three of the most entertaining games and some highlights of the rest of the 20 hours without sleep.

-----

1-Flag CTF
Relic
Against Yellow team

We were on attack first. Everything went well at first – we rushed the hog up to the flag, grabbed it, and drove off the relic. Someone followed Hayden off and landed next to his hog while I was running to help him. I decided that hurling a grenade would help Hayden. The grenade killed his pursuer, killed Hayden (earning me a betrayal) and sent the burning remains of the hog spiralling into my face, counting as a suicide. I therefore single-handedly allowed their team to manoeuvre into position and hold back our victory for considerably longer. Not my finest moment.
Their first attack was quicker than ours and got them an instant capture, and then we got a second, far smoother capture the second time since we rock. Intense spawn camping followed their second attempt for a capture and in the end the flag returned, at which point we raced back through the teleporter they'd originally opened to defend the base for the last few moments.

2-1, green team win.

-----

Shotgun Slayer
Turf
Against Yellow team

This game was absurdly close. For the first half of the game the teams were exactly even until around 25 kills a piece at which point yellow team pulled ahead to around 45-38 or something similar. It seemed a fair bet we weren't going to win, but then Hayden and I between us got around 7 kills in the best part of 10 seconds and basically closed the gap up. After some careful owning we somehow emerged victorious with the tiniest of margins, despite our team racking up a good five betrayals.

50-49, green team win.

-----

Slayer
Lockout
Against Red team

This game wins the award for most ownage during the entire tournament. To cut a short story even shorter (the game took around 3 minutes I seem to remember) I whored the sniper and the sword, Hayden had the shotgun and we held both the battle rifles. I got a nice spree of 17 kills before being dispatched by a lucky stick but by that point the score was 23-1. To us. Upon losing my two weapons (they fell off the map) our incredible ownage decreased a little but not enough to change the tide of the game. And let's just say that when the sword and sniper respawned, I was already waiting for them. My personal score was 24-3.

50-24, green team win.

-----

Other highlights :

The games with all 4 teams in were generally very close. One was won 100 kills to 97 while another team finished with 5:00 of time in the Hill, only 5 seconds ahead of those in second. No-one except Richard got higher than a Killtacular (4 kills within 2 seconds of each other) except in the later zombie games which really don't count.

On the 4 vs 4 ascension match, I didn't realise at first that only dual weapons were on the mpa (for those who don't know, this means one-handed weapons). Thus, I jumped to where the Rocket Launcher normally spawns to find a needler in its place. What a sick, sick joke.

A last amusing note - some of you will know the importance "hosting" the game makes. If the game is effectively being played on your Xbox and others are connected to it, you are faster than everyone else. Only by a little, but it does make a difference. In one game where Richard was clearly host, I was complaining about his blatant hax. Richard replied "Well, I'm just better" at the same time I hurled a plasma grenade onto the floor. For those who don't know, plasma grenades are big, fizzy and shine with bright blue energy. They are impossible to miss. A second after declaring his incredible skills, Richard walked straight onto my grenade and blew himself to pieces.

We later watched Die Another Day and ripped that pile of shit to pieces. "Hey, I know! Let's add an 'electrocute self' button to my power suit! That's a great idea!" was one of the complaints about the Korean-Swedish businessman/balloonist/hockey world champion Gustav Graves.

I played around 2 or 3 hours of Gears of War, and my impressions on that will be coming tomorrow. However, anyone who was there will probably know my impressions already from my early comments.

Conclusion :

We won, but by a much narrower margin that last time. Between rounds were different things including a Halo 2 Quiz, blindfolded campaign and a warthog race.

This is where we were particularly cunning. Half the teams chose Metropolis because it is a short level but they forgot that you do infact have to kill the pair of Wraiths next to the building, and killing things while being directed with someone else is fairly difficult. We cunningly landed upon High Charity which can be zoomed through without being forced to actually get a single kill.
The hog race on Headlong was a nice change from the regular matches, and 16 players in one place gave me a nice opportunity to crash into them all like a game of skittles.

Finally, watch the video!