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| My story - OMGWALLOFTEXT | |
| Posted By: vlad3163 | Date: 11/15/08 11:09 p.m. |
In Response To: Halo - a look back over seven years (Louis Wu) I had pretty much typed up my entire Halo story before I left for work today, but trashed it because I had the feeling that most of it was inaccurate (my terrible memory being to blame). However, I put some thought into it, and most of it was actually correct, so once again here we go. Sometime in 2001, before the launch of the XBox, I was with my aunt at a local mall. Being 14 and male, I wasn't too interested in shopping, so I was left alone in EB Games while my aunt went and did whatever she needed to do. They had recently put up their new xbox display with the plethora of launch game demos. Now to be honest, I hadn't been following the latest generation of consoles. My friend had a PS2, and I knew about the Gamecube, but the Xbox was pretty much new to me. Halo seemed to be the demo of choice for most people, so I decided to have a go at it. Of course the demo level was what I would soon come to know as The Silent Cartographer, and I was hooked. The beach aerial insertion, the pelican dropping off the Warthog, and the first driving of the Warthog. I knew I had to have an Xbox. That Christmas it was one of the top things on my list. Unfortunately, being 300 dollars, and with money being somewhat tight that year, I was unable to get one. In 2002, the year I started high school, was also the year that I stumbled upon this site. From my last semester of middle school, all through the summer and my first semester of high school, I lurked on this forum, and occasionally glanced at the story page, though I never read through it, as I had not even played through the story mode. One of my friends, who is also a big sci-fi fan like me, showed me the awesome new book he had just bought, The Fall of Reach. This was my first foray into the Halo Universe, I was re-hooked. I doubled my efforts this time in trying to obtain an Xbox for Christmas. It payed off, and for Christmas of '02 I received an Xbox, as well as a fairly good amount of money. I spent the next 4 or 5 days playing Jet Set Radio Future and Sega GT 2002, until my grandparents went up to another mall, and I tagged along to visit the Gamestop there. At long last I obtained a copy of Halo 1, the same copy I still have today. When I returned to my grandparents' house that evening I played Halo until late at night, though I only made it to the Library. Having to keep the sound down doesn't help with understanding what's going on one bit. After actually playing the game through a couple of times, I dived back into the forums here, and picked up every bit of knowledge I could find. Every time a Halo novel was announced I found a way to be at a bookstore to pick it up. My best memory of one of these situations was the release of First Strike. I was with my class on a trip to see a play being put on at Crown Center, which, to those not familiar with Kansas City, is where the headquarters of Hallmark Cards is located, and also contains a mall, some hotels, and many restaurants. During our lunch break, I used some of the money I had been given for lunch to buy a copy of First Strike from the nearby bookstore, then used the rest to get a decent lunch. Some of my greatest memories are of playing Halo with friends, and some local LAN parties that some friends threw together. Eventually it got to be where a core group of my friends would get together every weekend to play Halo. With Halo 2 and Live we were able to play together every night, but we still gathered on Fridays or Saturdays anyways. After a few months of being pretty much the only game I played, I had to put Halo 2 away for a while. I actually just stopped playing games for a while, with nothing really interesting coming along. When the 360 was released in '05 I knew about it, but was broke and unable to buy it, and I wasn't to interested at the time. After graduating high school in '06 I got a job during the summer, that paid quite well, so after my second week of working there I splurged a little and bought a 360. When the Halo 3 beta went live, I spent a lot of time with my one friend who didn't have a 360, playing a lot of games until the beta went down. When the summer came I found myself without much to do, except finally finish off my Guitar Hero 2 expert career. Then suddenly the mysterious "AdjutantReflex" started making his cryptic posts on B.net (I also remember the reaction he got here). Just like with ILB I was sucked into an ARG again. Only this time I wouldn't be going solo. I followed an open invitation to all from Avateur into an AIM chat, and met a lot of awesome HBOers. After Iris was over, and the game was set to launch, me and one of my friends hit the midnight release, after which I went home and started making my way through East Africa. I can't remember how far I made it that night, I think it was The Ark or The Covenant. Though I don't think I could tell my Halo tale without the metaphorical cherry on top, that being me and Av's trip to San Diego Comic Con, the Halo Universe panel being THE reason we were going. Despite barely being able to afford the trip I am very happy I decided to take the opportunity. Major highlights of the trip were meeting Joe Staten, meeting Eric Nylund and Tobias Buckell, getting my Contact Harvest signed by Joe and my friend's First Edition copy of Fall of Reach signed by Mr. Nylund, identifying myself as being from HBO and not being asked a question due to Av's quick-draw answer, and meeting some of the Rooster Teeth staff (Jason, Kathleen, and Gus. Luke was there too supposedly but we missed him each time we passed by.) With the release of Recon next Fall, I'm hoping Bungie makes another appearance at Comic Con next year, and we make the trip again.
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