Today, I went home for a lunch break from work and decided to play a few rounds of Halo.
Round 1: Firefight, Attack on Sanctum. The game is going great, a couple of close calls, but I’m having fun, 2nd on the team, destroying the enemy… only to get the four-mech finale and watch as, even as I destroy three of them basically by myself with a tank, we lose the match because zero damage has been dealt to the one inside of the building. Rage. Frustration. Really guys? Nobody tried to take him out the rest of that round? A loss in WZFF, more time to go until I complete that commendation.
Round 2: Let’s try that Firefight again, this time, Raid on Apex 7. Again, a great game… I’m doing well, team is winning pretty handily, we get four Knight Luminaries or whatever at the end, I take out two of them in another tank, and again, we lose, because one of them remains and has literally no damage dealt to it. Rage. Frustration. Seriously?! Two losses today?!! So frustrating…
I’m about to call it quits for the day and get back to work, but decide on one more game, try to end a miserable Halo experience on a good note.
Round 3: Community Action Sack, Mantis Breakout. Sweet! I love this! Maybe I’ll even get another Unstoppable or Against All Odds here! Hopefully I have good teammates… Round 1. We’re absolutely destroyed within a minute or so, 4-0 them. Ugh. Are you kidding me?! Again with a loss?? Round 2. We survive a bit longer this time, but again, all die fairly soon, maybe 3 of them remaining. I got one. This is terrible. Could this experience today get any worse?
Then comes Round 3.
My teammates get obliterated, again. All four of the enemy Mantises remain, vs. just me. Unbelievable. So I do the logical thing and just try to survive the round, give us another shot at beating these guys. I immediately take cover and hide in the nearest space available to me, with no intention of moving unless they find me. A full minute remains on the clock, so surely, I’m screwed. Not to mention I’m kind of in plain sight, right in the middle of the map.
…
I watch as not one, not two, but THREE enemy Mantises walk right past me, circling the perimeter of the map, trying to finish me off and get the easy win. And NONE OF THEM SAW ME. For a full minute!!! Time expires on the round and I wasn’t touched once during that time. A tie. A crazy survival, when I should have been toast. We’ll probably still lose, but at least I kept them from obliterating us in three rounds. We still have the same terrible team and are likely going to get butchered the next round, right?
You’d have thought I road in on a horse like Braveheart into battle.
Because WOW DID WE RALLY! Not one, not two, but three straight rounds after that, it was like it was an entirely different game altogether. We DESTROYED them… I think we maybe lost one Mantis during the final three rounds between the four of us. It was crazy! What a game! What a comeback! Just insane! The other team is probably pissed right now because they had it in the bag back in round 3 before they couldn’t find me! Such a rush. Awesome.
And that is why…
I love Halo 5. Two miserable games, I’m having a terrible time playing, only to have one amazing comeback story game that made it all better again and got me stoked for the rest of the day. It’s a emotional roller-coaster man, so much fun, and so many great memories.
