Halo 3 has always been a game to me that has been all about the multiplayer aspect of it, rather than it’s story. When I was first introduced to this franchise, I was really reluctant to actually play the game for the simple reason that i was not that good at it. As I saw my neighbors at the dorms get really into the Halo 2 multi-player I was intrigued, yet intimidating to me. The main reason for that was that I had not played a competitive shooter since the Golden Eye days. As time went on, I was encouraged by the aforementioned friends, and began to get into this game. In the beginning, I absolutely hated it. The control scheme was like nothing I was accustomed to in gaming, and to be quite honest, the dual joysticks were something that was putting me off to this otherwise, great shooter. For me, it became really easy to understand why modern games are so intimidating for casual gamers, and why something like the Wii, Kinect, and Playstation Move would appeal to most non-gamers. More after the jump.

Let’s face it, the Halo franchise is a franchise made for the hardcore gamer, and it occasionally appeals to casual gamers as well. At this point, I was in the transition from being somewhere in the middle of these categories to transitioning to being more of a hardcore gamer. By the time Halo 3 came around, I was hooked on the game, especially its multiplayer. In fact, I had not completed, or attempted to play the campaign. All I cared about was getting better at multiplayer, and slowly but surely, my skills began to improve. No longer was I the player that would end up in last place every round with a big goose egg for a score. Improvement to my game was becoming slow but noticeable. The improvement was a combination of playing more, and adapting to the play-styles of my friends. Like any great comedian, actor, athlete, you name it, I would study they way they played, and tried to emulate those techniques while merging those of the other guys together to be able to create a better play-style for myself.

Like most of the things I write about on this blog, the experiences I had playing this game were made great by the people I would play with. This was a way to kill time and just have a good time with good people. The Halo sessions we would have were something else. On a regular basis, we would have at least three people hooked up to Sir Nate Campbell’s glorious HD tube television. This doesn’t say much for our study habits, or our midweek social lives. At the end of the day we were socializing like most college age dudes would, around a television, knocking back a few brews and having a great time doing so.

One of the things that was the most fun about playing Halo with the old college crew was that we could never work as a cohesive unit. This was one thing I could never emulate and adapt as my own play-style. However, this was where most of the fun occurred, and where most of the most memorable moments were created. One of the things that quickly comes to mind is how I would always get betrayed, and in turn, would betray Mr. Cheng. This was not a something that was isolated to the two of us. In fact, we were all became pretty decent players individually. As a team, it was a completely different story. We could never win consistently, and most of the time our games would just boil down to being betrayal fests. At the end of the day, it was always great fun.

Since graduating, the Halo sessions have gone considerably down, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Halo sessions are now down to once or twice a week at the most. In essence, it makes me appreciate that a little more, and it also makes me realize that we have all moved on, and our well on our way to developing and pursuing our individual careers. All I know is that whenever the group gets together the betrayal and the fun will continue.