In Response To: Gamestars. And c0ld. And BOLL. *VERY long* (Stuntmutt)
: My alarm didn’t go off yesterday morning. Bloody Casio. Not to worry, I woke
: up early anyway. By early, I mean really early. What we British
: affectionately refer to as ‘sparrow fart’. My eyes were still half closed
: as I stumbled up to an East London bus stop. Presently, a red double
: decker rounded the corner and squealed to a halt in front of me. The bus’s
: destination read Stratford. This morning, it was actually going to take me
: to Zanzibar.
: The Docklands Light Railway is a cute affair. It’s a bit like a Tube train
: except it runs overground and has big, open carriages. To my mind it’s
: reminiscent of a theme park ride. Albeit a theme park of redeveloped urban
: wasteland and various monstrous edifices that have never quite managed to
: attract the businesses they were built to house. The Millennium Dome
: shuffled past apologetically. A massive space no-one really knew how to
: fill that people wandered round, scratched their heads and shrugged about.
: Pay attention. I’ll be coming back to this later.
: The next stop was Canning Town. Various young men shambled on to the train.
: The aforementioned young gentlemen had a similar caste to them. They were
: pale, wan creatures with wide eyes and earnest expressions. Gamers. The
: carriage was half full of ‘em. It was safe to assume they were heading
: where I was heading, the ExCel exhibition centre. It was home to a gaming
: expo called Gamestars. Which in turn was home to a playable demo of Halo
: 2. The expo didn’t even open for a good hour and a half yet, but still
: there were quite a few of us keen to get there ahead of time, keen to beat
: the queues. I noticed one chap with his back to me had a symbol on his
: shirt that I recognised. I’d seen it somewhere before. Ah yes. It lives in
: the bottom left hand corner of the HBO front page.
: I got up and wandered down the carriage. Now I not only recognised the
: bungie.org logo, but also the tall, young man standing opposite the guy
: wearing it. I walked up to them and smiled. There were four gentlemen in
: this group. They lookd at me then look away again. It was a bit
: uncomfortable for them; I was in their space. My grin broadened. The young
: man in the HBO shirt looked at me, looked away quickly, then looked at me
: again. Suddenly, he smiled as realisation dawned. A bloke in a shabby
: black jacket who appeared to be staring at him was the bloke he was
: supposed to be meeting at the venue in about ten minutes’ time. Me.
: Three of us had talked at great length on many occasions via e-mail or irc. I
: felt we actually knew quite a bit about each other even though we’d never
: met before. But we only really knew each other by our online nicknames. In
: the bungie.org shirt was c0ld Vengeance. The tall guy opposite was Boll.
: All of a sudden, calling each other c0ld, Boll and Stunt seemed rather
: silly. Yet bringing myself to say our real names felt rather odd too.
: “Ross? Andreas? I’m Jason.”
: Smiles and handshakes were exchanged. I was introduced to Ross’s friend John
: and Andreas’s cousin Johan. Ross and I made small talk about modes of
: transport, how we got here, how amusing it was we ended up on the same
: train and so on. That took us nicely up to Custom House and our
: destination. ExCel. We headed up the stairs and off towards the venue
: itself. Ross nudged me and pointed out a bar as we passed it on our way to
: the entrance. A bar. Just outside the expo. Nice one.
: We shuffled into the main hall. Ross and John had been here, seen it, done it
: the previous day. Andreas and Johan had flown in specially for today’s
: event. And I mean specially. I believe it was actually the first time
: Andreas had left his own country. Ross pointed out where the queue would
: start, and that no-one had actually bothered to form one yet, so maybe we
: should get a coffee. Ross was friendly, outgoing and very easy to get
: along with. Andreas was very quiet. In fact, he was silent. From many
: chats online, forum posts and emails, I was expecting a cross between the
: Muppets’ Swedish Chef and the Tazmanian Devil – hyperactive, crazy, off
: the wall.
: The reality is he’s a serious, thoughtful and quite shy young man. At least,
: he is when you first meet him. There was a flash of craziness though.
: Andreas turned round and I suddenly saw the back of his T shirt. In big,
: heavy-metal lettering it said BOLL.
: It was half past eight in the morning now. People started to form up in front
: of the gates, so we joined behind them. I asked Andreas if he was excited
: about getting a chance to play Halo 2. He thought for a moment, then
: replied, “I’m nervous.”
: “Why are you nervous?” I asked.
: “I’m always nervous.”
: One of the reasons Andreas was nervous was that he hadn’t actually got a
: ticket yet. He’d bought them by credit card and had just been told to pick
: them up on the day. As yet, there was no way to do so – the ticket booths
: were empty.
: We chatted, read the paper and kicked our heels a bit for thirty odd minutes.
: Ross, John and I talked about the upcoming England match. Andreas and
: Johan muttered to each other in Swedish. There were a lot of people behind
: us now and the place was starting to buzz. Some ladies appeared in the
: ticket booths so Andreas and Johan hurried off to retrieve tickets. They
: wandered back a few minutes later with bemused expressions.
: “At first she could not find my tickets because she could not spell my
: surname,” explained Andreas. “I had to write it down for her.”
: I felt some sympathy for the lady. I sent Boll a parcel once and writing his
: name involved a lot more R’s and S’s than I was prepared for. I was
: halfway through scribbling it when I ran out of envelope.
: T-shirted staffers were now passing up and down the length of the queue and
: handing out flyers. Some were competitions. A lady thrust one at me.
: “Win a skateboard,” she said.
: I gave her a look. I’m the wrong side of thirty. What the bloody hell would I
: want with a skateboard? As if to rub it in, Ross chose that moment to
: inform me that I reminded him of his uncle. Cheers mate. Still, could’ve
: been worse I suppose. He could’ve said Grandad.
: Then, movement. A gentleman in a security uniform ushered us all forward.
: “Here we go,” said Ross. But something was not right. We were herded past the
: set of gates in front of us and towards a second set much further down the
: corridor. Ross looked concerned.
: “The Halo 2 section is back there. We’re on the wrong side.”
: All of a sudden, the people who had been way behind us were in our prime
: spot, and we were miles away from where we wanted to be.
: “Right,” said Ross, “when we get in, we run. Don’t worry – most people don’t
: realise there are two queues for Halo. There’s a second queue round the
: back. Follow me.”
: The gates finally opened and the crowd surged forwards. All semblance of an
: orderly queue had been replaced by a scramble to push to the front.
: We managed to squeeze our way in, and true to his word, Ross set off at a
: sprint. Andreas had been behind me in the queue and I was worried he might
: get left behind. I turned to check he was okay, only to see six foot of
: lanky Swede hurtle past me in a blur. At the recent Olympics, had Andreas
: been entered for the 200 metres and been told “there’s a Halo 2 demo at
: the finish line” Sweden would undoubtedly have taken the gold.
: I loped after, crossing the floor and darting between the stands. Sure
: enough, there was already a daunting queue in front of the Halo 2
: structure. But Ross’s friend John was frantically waving to us from the
: other side.
: As he and Ross had discovered the previous day, attackers went in one side.
: But defenders went in the other. A lot of people assumed there was only
: the one queue. We ran past, rounded the corner and saw just six people in
: front of us. Within minutes, everyone seemed to wise up and the queue
: behind us was suddenly enormous.
: As we waited, a young lady in a Halo 2 shirt handed out yet more flyers. This
: time there were Xboxes and Halo stuff to be won. I thought some of the
: questions were pretty tough. Like “Do you own an Xbox?” and “Do you own a
: PS2?” etc. To my left, Andreas was ticking boxes like a dervish. We got
: the impression he owned every piece of computer and console gaming
: equipment going. But could always make room for more.
: After a short wait, and a little wangling, the door opened and the five of us
: were allowed in as a team.
: A female announcer echoed over the tannoy as we formed up in front of our
: screens.
: “This is the E3 build of Halo 2. You will be playing capture the flag on
: Zanzibar Island. The controls are set to normal, please do not invert
: them.”
: There was much grumbling from all of us. Andreas was standing next to me. He
: scowled down at the S type controller.
: “It’s small,” he said.
: So then. A small controller. Set to ‘normal’ view. Ehhhhhhhhh…
: And there I was. An Elite on the beach at Zanzibar. Behind me, Ross was
: already talking tactics, jumping into a Warthog and racing off. I just
: started to wander round and check things out. I made the Elite look down
: at its own legs. I threw a grenade to see if it had changed. Indeed, the
: new animation is very sweet with the restyled frag grenade spinning in a
: spiral as it’s thrown. I shot the SMG. Not actually at anyone or anything,
: just to see it and hear it, then reload it and watch the melee animation.
: This was great fun. So I went off in search of other toys. I found the
: Battle Rifle propped up against a wall. I zoomed in, zoomed out. Zoomed
: in, zoomed out. Then I became aware that someone was shooting at me. Oh
: ho, I thought, take THIS, you blackguard! I jammed down the trigger, and
: three shots cracked out from my rifle. But just the three. There I stood,
: with the trigger held down and nothing coming out of my gun barrel. Until
: there I no longer stood. There I lay. In a heap. So then – Battle Rifle
: does not equal Assault Rifle. For stream of bullets, use SMG. For repeated
: fire with a Battle Rifle, keep re-applying trigger. I get it now.
: Most of the action seemed to be happening off in the middle of the arena.
: Looking up at the Big Fan, I saw the Plasma Sword. The Plasma Sword. Let
: me say it again, the Plasma Sword. Woo Hoo! I decided to try something I’d
: seen Mr Smiley do on a video. I threw a grenade up into the alcove and
: sure enough, the sword flew straight out towards me. This was going to be
: great. This was going to be fantastic. I walked towards the sword and
: pushed my thumbstick to look down so I could pick it up. Which is how I
: came to be looking up at the sky when the sword exploded by my feet.
: Lesson number two.
: I found the Plasma Rifle. I actually managed to kill someone with it. I found
: the needler, and dual wielded it with the SMG for all of about ten seconds
: before I got killed again. I blew up a couple of fusion cores, just
: because I could. I was really enjoying myself. Just then, one of the
: staffers sidled up to me.
: “You need to get the flag and bring it back to the beach,” he said.
: I could barely stifle my laugh. In that room were five people who eat,
: breathe and sleep Halo. We dissect every screenshot, every scrap of
: information, make films, make comics, make flash games out of it. We’re
: obsessed by it, consumed by it, enslaved by it. And here was some bloke
: explaining what Capture The Flag was to us.
: Admittedly, in my case he could be forgiven. I was getting shot in the back
: all the time as I wandered round, aimlessly sampling the delights of a
: melee animation here, a sniper scope zoom there, the fact that I could
: jump as if on a trampoline.
: “Woo hoo,” I yelled, “check out the jump.”
: My Elite bounced up and down on the sea wall as a voice behind me wailed “I’m
: on the beach. I…need some help.”
: Poor Ross. He was making a brave stab at actually winning the game. And my
: actions were somewhat counter productive.
: I jumped down to help. Straight into the path of a Warthog. I possibly got a
: better look at the words ‘Respawn in…’ than anything else during the
: course of the demo. Don’t all rush to sign me up to your clans at once.
: Then, it was over. The middle door opened and we were marched out, as
: irritating tannoy lady informed us we had been some of the first people in
: Britain to experience Halo 2.
: Standing guard over the exit were two gentlemen in Nightmare Armour replica
: Spartan outfits. One red, one blue. Ross very excitedly hauled out his
: digital camera. We lined up with the Spartans as a passerby stepped in to
: do the honours.
: “Get in closer,” he called.
: At which point, one of the Spartans put his arm around me and gave a thumbs
: up. I have no idea why, but I automatically copied his gesture. The flash
: went off. Great. Me. With a Spartan. Both of us giving a thumbs up. I
: don’t look like a geeky nerd at all. Whatsoever. My girlfriend must NEVER
: see that picture.
: The queues either side of the Halo structure were now ridiculous. Basically,
: if we hadn’t got to the venue early, got in so quickly or run to the empty
: side, we would have been standing round waiting for hours. As it was, we’d
: played Halo 2 and were just about done by half ten. So then. What next?
: We moped around a bit. Andreas got very excited by Burnout 3. He and Ross set
: it up so that you earn points for crashing in to things. The more stuff
: you bust up, the higher your score. We all took a little turn. Ross became
: quite sullen when he pointed out that he’d actually had two bad crashes
: for real in recent weeks. So my advice would be, if you’re ever Romford
: way and see a Vauxhall Diesel heading towards you, get off the road.
: Quickly.
: Ross and John had seen everything the day before. Andreas and Johan wanted to
: wander off and explore for themselves. I took a quick turn around the
: whole venue. It all seemed a bit half-baked to me. There were motorbikes,
: tanks and stages that seemed to have been tacked on to game demonstration
: stations almost as afterthoughts; there were young ladies in branded
: t-shirts who had all obviously been hired on the strength of two things;
: there was a bloke MCing on a walkway to no-one in particular. He only
: managed to drum up any attention by shouting out “goodies time” at which
: point he offered up handfuls of third party controllers and accessories to
: a knot of outstretched, grasping hands.
: The space was quite big, not quite full, and people were wandering around,
: scratching their heads and shrugging. See? I told you’d I’d come back to
: the Millennium Dome.
: “There’s only one thing for it,” I said to Ross. “The Eleven Oh One club.”
: Eleven O’ Clock is the earliest you can purchase alcohol in most British pubs
: and bars. So sure enough, John, Ross and I were there at opening time for
: that all important first beer of the day.
: And the second.
: And the third.
: It was sometime round about then that Andreas and Johan rejoined us. They
: don’t drink beer, so I got a couple of Coca Colas in and we all sat down
: and chatted away. Andreas was a bit more lively now. We talked about the
: origins of our nicknames, stuff we’d seen, what we thought of the demo and
: so on. I was rather struck by some of Andreas’s facial expressions. In his
: posts, and on irc, he often types in little smileys that look like this
: o_O
: He really makes those faces. Really really!
: More beers and Coca Colas came and went, we talked about HBO (Louis Wu’s ears
: must have been BURNING in Minnesota) and Andreas mentioned my comic strip.
: Both he and Ross have done some fantastic One One Se7en strips of their
: own. But Andreas complained that sometimes he found it hard to get the
: drawing right. I laughed. The whole point of the cartoon was to make the
: Master Chief as simple as possible to draw. In fact, the head is made up
: of about ten simple lines, like a grid. I got a little notebook out and a
: felt pen, and did a quick scribble.
: “There,” I said, “easy.”
: When I looked up, to my horror Andreas was fiddling with his digital camera.
: Issuing from it was my nasal whine, talking ten to the dozen, and a little
: video of me doing a very, VERY bad drawing.
: Gah.
: More beer. More Coca Cola.
: A little while later, we decided to go back into Gamestars. Again, Andreas
: and Johan wandered off on their own. John, Ross and I went to play Fifa
: 2005. Ross loss to John 4-0. I lost to John 5-0. We then played a ‘Fight
: Club’ game. Much button mashing later, it became apparent that Ross had
: invited John along purely so he could kick our arses at any game that took
: our fancy.
: In the middle of the exhibition was an offers outlet – cheap games,
: preorders, that sort of thing. They had empty cases with dummy Halo 2
: covers. Ross’s eyes glazed over.
: “I,” he said, “have GOT to have one of these.”
: He reasoned that the dummy sleeves would actually be quite the collector’s
: item after the real game came out. I was interested in the blurb on the
: back of the sleeve. I jotted it down in my notebook. It mentioned the
: Covenant coming to Earth and Master Chief being our only hope, but that
: there would be “…unexpected allies and a secret so incredible it will
: change the Galaxy for ever.”
: Unexpected allies?
: When I looked up, Ross was over at the counter, arguing with the manager. I
: wasn’t quite close enough to hear, but one of Ross’s attempted persuasion
: techniques was to point at the back of his bungie.org shirt and try to
: namedrop “…the number one Halo fansite inna world.” This naturally cut no
: ice whatsoever, and Ross came away empty handed.
: So then we wandered back to the Halo section. By this time, there was no
: queue at all. Which was great. This was because there was no demo at all,
: the games having finished for the day, which was not so great. One of the
: staffers came to shoo us away. Ross began to point at the back of his
: t-shirt again…
: Back at the bar, Andreas and Johan strolled in with bags full of goodies;
: pens, posters etc. We had a couple more drinks. Ross started to scroll
: through the photos on his camera.
: “Here’s one of you drinking beer. Here’s another one of you drinking beer.
: And another…”
: Hmm. I asked Andreas if he’s had a good day. He smiled and said he had. I
: hope that was the case. I’m not sure I would have flown to another country
: for that exhibition. But I’m glad he did, and I’m glad the three of us got
: to meet in person. For me, the day was as much about that as it was a
: chance to play five minutes of Halo 2.
: Not long after, we said our farewells and exchanged warm, manly handshakes on
: the railway platform. Earlier in the day, Andreas had said he was always
: nervous. To be honest, if I had the prospect of a hung over c0ld “Two
: Crashes” Vengeance driving me to the airport at five o’clock the next
: morning, I’d be bloody nervous too.
: There’s a little epilogue.
: At about quarter past seven that evening, I met up with my lady friend and
: some of her colleagues. I was very polite, well spoken and chatty. Which
: is how she knew, in all certainty, that I was drunk as a rat. I tend to
: overcompensate, apparently. Anyhow, there I was doing my best to be
: eloquent and charming when my watch started beeping away.
: So that’s why my alarm didn’t go off in the morning…
Stuntmutt= 1337
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