YOUR Halo story..

Community General Discussion
#1

These games hold so much sentimental value to me not only as a gamer, but as a hopeful college student looking to these games as inspiration in the Game Design field.(I go to SCAD before you ask). I just felt like expressing some of my personal history with the games, so feel free to share yours as well.I just did the numbered ones in lou of the MCC

Halo Combat Evolved: I was in 2nd grade and got an Xbox for Christmas when it first came out. I had three games; Project Gotham Racing, Shrek, and Halo CE. I was strictly told NOT to play Halo as I was too young to play. Day two of owning the console I managed to sneak into my parents room and find the game and play it while they weren’t home. They noticed that was on the TV certainly wasn’t me driving a Ferrari into countless cones like usual, but for some unknown reason I was never told to stop playing. I got hooked. And so did everyone else I brought over to see this wonderful new game we discovered called “Halo”. Whether it was jumping off the bridge on the 2nd mission, or freaking out for the first time I met the flood, or playing 4 player coop with friends and family on Hang Em High, this game changed me.

Halo 2: I believe I was in 6th grade at the time. Aside from my freshman year in college birthday bash on 11/11/11, the birthday party I had on this date was probably my favorite. I already was a fan of Halo, but back then I didn’t know about gaming news unless it was on a “demo-disc” with my Xbox Mag or GamePro Mag. The plan was for my parents to take my whole class out to go see the newly released Spongebob Squarepants movie and then bring back the boys in the class for an epic game-filled slumber party. I should’ve known better because every time who’d go the local mall, my parents would distract me away from GameStop. So with my failure to not read the magazines and just look at pictures, I had no idea Halo 2 was out. My parents brought me down a present(aside from the little things from earlier), and I opened up my Halo 2 Limited Edition like the N64 kid from YouTube. I can’t remember too much from the night in particular, but I remember getting yelled at on multiple occasions for being too loud!

Halo 3: By this time I knew how to work Google and to this date I don’t think I watched a single trailer more than I did for the Halo 3 Teaser. I was anticipating the next entry in my favorite series so much and had my Legendary Edition pre-ordered months before release. There was only one HUGE problem. I had a football game to play at my high school. The whole locker room was talking about Halo 3 and how they wished they could “call in sick”, but there was no luck for us. Now, my parents were well award of how badly I wanted to play the game when it came out so they actually left in the middle of the game to go pickup my copy. After the game was over I noticed my little brother sent me a picture message on my LG Chocolate(yeah); It was my Halo 3 Legendary Edition waiting for me on the counter! I called him after I got out of the locker room and asked where Mom and Dad were, and he told me, “Oh, they’re in bed now.” Now, luckily, I didn’t live very far at all away from my school(maybe 1.5 miles), but the fact was that I had my Halo 3 copy waiting for me at the house and nobody was going to stop me. So I took off running football gear and all, and might’ve set a new record time for my schools mile pace in the process. I played the first mission and fell asleep because I was tired…

Halo 4: Where to start. The fact it was being made, the “first look”, the E3 demo. I was looking forward to this game more than I was for even Modern Warfare 2. And I knew THIS was going to be the game of all games. I don’t really have any stories about this game, but I did set a personal record for most money spent on a game’s release. With the Limited Edition Halo 4 Console to replace my disappointed MW3 one, a brand new Triton Warhead Halo 4 Edition, extra UNSC controller, Limited Edition guide, Dogtags, T-shirt, Poster, Soundtrack, and of course the Limited Edition Game. I spend upwards of $1,000 on what I still say is the best title on the Xbox 360.

Thank you, 343 Industries, for creating such a masterpiece. I do trust you with the universe I love.
See you star side…

Charlie

#2

Wipes tear from cheek
Wow. These games, this world of video gaming, this community, it can really hold some special places in people’s lives. It always fun to read these stories. (Oh, and I had a birthday on 12/12/12. So close.)

Anyway… my Halo story. I guess I’ll start from the beginning.
Halo first popped into the world before I even knew what video games were. Halo 2 passed me by as well. By the time Halo 3 released in '07, I was well aware of popular video gaming franchises such as Halo and Call of Duty, but I didn’t really carry a positive connotation for them at the time.

To me, video games like that were bloody, gory, violent sources of entertainment that didn’t really interest me at all. This of course, was a biased opinion. I had never played any of those games and thought that Mario games and Pokemon were quite enough. Fast forward a few years, I was over at a friend’s house for a sleepover. That popped in the notorious Halo disc and played some custom slayers. Having no interest in what they were doing, I tucked my Spartan away in a safe little corner, and pulled out a book to read.

The book was boring and uninteresting, and when you’re in a small room with 3 other people, your lazy Spartan tends to be noticed. They pressed me to play, and, seeing how I really had nothing better to do, I picked up the controller again.
I was horribly massacred, but the fact that when succeeded in little things such as hijacking or grenade damage, I had a mad grin on my face. Most of the time, I would try and snipe them out with an Assault Rifle, throw a grenade when trying to melee, or become a feast for hungry death barriers.

I played Halo a few more times here and there before getting my first actual game, that being Halo 4. Yeah, I know, little late to the party, huh? Don’t worry, I had played Reach and H3 plenty of times of then, and it only got funner (more fun?) every time.

My love for Halo has only increased with this community. I’ve conducted multiple gamenights, taken part in many discussions, and made many good acquaintances and even good friends on here. I’ve had so many great times on the Halo world, and I can’t wait for the MCC and Guardians to release. :slight_smile:

#3

Around the time of Halo 1’s release, I would have been 6 years old. At that time, I still had never touched a console, nor had I any knowledge of what a “console” was. The idea was arbitrary to me, since I had been playing computer games since I moved to my new house in 1999. My first experience with Halo was in 2003, if I remember correctly. My cousin William who was one year older than me lived island (about 30 minutes away), so we didn’t him very much, but when we did, especially in the fall and rainy-seasons, my favourite thing to do was watch him play this first-person-shooter game called “Halo” on his classic Xbox. I was always fascinated by the technology of the game. However, given that I would have been 7 or 8 at the time, mom wouldn’t let me even touch the game because it was “violent” and had “guns and killing”. But alas, I did not let that stop me from enjoying this seemingly wondrous, enchanting game.

In the summer of 2004 we moved again, down the road to a small house for rent, as we were currently building a new house in a new subdivision in the municipality. During our first christmas at the rented house, my younger brother and I opened up probably one of my most favourite christmas presents of all time still to this day. A shiny new GameCube bundled with Kirby’s Air Ride and F-Zero GX. This was my true first-introduction to console gaming, and the reality soon came clear to me exactly what “Halo” was. At this time, video games were still an unpopular topic at my local elementary school, and even the idea of “consoles” which I was learning so much about was shunned as a “waste of time”, but I choose not to listen to any of the negativity, because I knew that this was the start of something big for me.

After finally moving into the new house we built, a 3-tiered townhouse in a blossoming, small neighbourhood, I met a kid my aged named Bryan who introduced me to another fascinating FPS game. For the couple years that I knew him, I never got the name of the FPS game we played every afternoon. We had a lot of fun playing 1v1 on this small island-esque map. A beach surrounded the perimeter, and there was a large grey building structure in the centre of the map with a tall, triangle-shaped dull window-less skyscraper jutting out into the sky. (It wasn’t until sometime later that I had an epiphany and discovered what this game was, which I’ll divulge into later)

The fall of 2005 finally marked the beginning of my adventure into the world of the Xbox. I finally convinced mom to let me sell the GameCube (big mistake) and buy an Xbox. This was when I really started getting into console gaming, even though I still wasn’t allowed to play M-rated games, I still had a blast, and made a lot of friends in my new elementary school who shared an affinity for the console. I remember games such as i-Ninja, Star Wars Republic Commando, Star Wars Battlefront, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, Crimson Skies, Mechassault 2: Lone Wolf and a whole lot of other memorable video games I can’t remember. Needless to say, console video games were about to change my life dramatically.

Through 2006 and 2007 I changed back to the GameCube again, and then the again Xbox finally before purchasing an Xbox 360 for the long-anticipated Halo 3. This was a big moment for me because I was finally able to play M-rated games (despite being only 11 years old). At this point, I was also teaching myself about the Internet, where I learned most of the information about Halo that I had since long sought. For Halo 3’s release, I went to the local Roger’s Video and bought used copies of Halo and Halo 2 (Halo 2 I had yet to play) specifically for the campaign which I wanted to catch up on before Halo 3 came out. At this time, it felt truly great to be alive. I was transitioning into Middle School and now had in my possession one of my mots favourite video games from my childhood.

I blasted through the two campaigns right in time for Halo 3’s September 25th release. I spent every night playing the campaign until January 8th of 2008 when I got my very first Xbox Live subscription with the ridiculous handle of “Spartan477805”. This was my second big leap into console video gaming. Now, every afternoon after school I spent hours playing Matchmaking and infection customs for a very very long time. Most of my memories from that time are from playing Halo 3 with all my friends, man the fun we had. I feel that Halo 3 really revolutionized the online social experience in video games. Through all the years that I played Halo 3, I never had a single complaint about the game.

Late into the summer of 2008, I took a look at Halo 2’s legacy multiplayer, and downloaded all the DLC maps which were now free. Before adventuring into its online world, I took the time to get back into Halo 2. I replayed the campaign, more slowly this time so as to enjoy everything that it is and stands for. I then took myself for a detailed tour of all the multiplayer maps, and that’s when it hit me. The last map I started up was called “Relic” and as soon as I entered the game I froze and began to tear up because I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. The small island map with the structure in the centre and the tall triangle spire. It was this map. All those days I spent playing that unnamed FPS with my friend, was actually Halo 2. I felt a strong sense of happiness and content, along with the feeling of closing a long-overdue chapter of my life. I couldn’t help but smile to myself and relish in the fact that I had really played Halo 2 all those years ago and didn’t even know it!

The three years after Halo 3 were the most important for me in determining what kind of gamer I was and would become, as well as where my skills and intelligence would make their nest. I became very literate with computer technology, moving way ahead of all my friends who didn’t really know even how the internet worked. I felt that technology was my calling, so I decided to stick with video games, namely Halo, for the long run. And here I am today, an avid/semi-professional strategist in multiple video games, an excellent shot with the BR and burning passion to to the best I can in video games these days, but I digress.

To close off all those words you just read, I’d like to simply that the Halo franchise really changed my life for the better, and taught me a lot of valuable life lessons. I learned a lot of social skills from Halo 3, including communication, manners, respect, and a whole slurry of other necessary things that real life had yet to teach me. I’d also like to brag that all those hours of playing Drive or Die actually taught me how to drive a real car. (As scary as that may sound, it’s really not. I feel I really did take away a lot of knowledge about vehicle handling from the warthog in Halo 3). I made it to Field Marshall in Halo: Reach before Halo 4 came out, and haven’t touched the game since except to replay the campaign a few times.

Fast forward to the present day, and while I don’t have the biggest passion for Halo 4’s multiplayer, I still strongly follow the story and campaign of the Halo Franchise, Master Chief’s journey. I feel like we all need someone to relate to in life, and for me, while I’m no 7 foot tall Spartan Warrior, I feel I can share some resemblances with the Chief in terms of his personality, which makes me all the more excited to continue his, and my, journey in the universe of Halo.

#4

Where to begin…ah yes! Christmas 2004.

That year my family spent Christmas down in Georgia with my Paternal Grandparents, and my father left temporarily for reasons I do not remember. What I do remember is that we had a classic xbox for about a year and our games library was lacking. (We only had Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and Baulder’s Gate, both are titles I greatly miss). Well, he came back with an interesting chrome DVD case that I thought was going to be a movie until he told me it was another game I couldn’t play. What it really was, was a copy of Halo 2 limited collector’s edition. (I still find it funny that my Dad only bought the game in that condition without any prior knowledge of the franchise past that his friends saying it was great.)

He popped the disc in and he started having a blast. I eventually watched enough that I couldn’t stand not asking to play anymore, so I did, and when he let me I hated every moment of playing. I couldn’t figure out the movement, got stuck in corners, killed by easy bots, etc. Fast forward a few months later in '05, and I found myself giving it another chance, and I loved it. From then on, I was raised with split-screen gaming with friends, family, and eventually I got SW:BF2 and enjoyed that alongside Halo 2. The following year in 2006 I bought Halo CE as a birthday gift for my Dad, which he ended up not liking as much as Halo 2, but he beat it with me, and I played it over and over. Then 2007 came along and when September came along, I came home from school one day to find a Legendary edition box sitting on the living room coffee table. I was psyched.

That same day my Dad and I played through half of the campaign before being stumped by the scarab walker on “The Storm”. We couldn’t figure out where the weak spot was, which in hindsight was silly. I replayed Halo 3 for the entirety of the time between it and Reach, whilst playing games such as ODST, Oblivion, and CoD. I enjoyed every minute. Then when Reach rolled around in 2010, things changed. I became absorbed irreversibly by Forge, and Multiplayer when gold weekends came by. (This was truly my first online experience as neither myself or my Dad had wanted to spend money on a Live subscription.)

Finally in 2011 I convinced my Dad to sign up for the yearly family pack including 4 accounts for $90. (Only because I paid for my part of it. $45.) The changes that came were irreversible. Reach took me by storm, and with it my grades, and eventually after over-indulging myself on Reach and Black Ops I went back to try out older Halo games on Live, and just older games in general and was taken aback by how much better some were than the ones I was playing, although Halo 3 never left as big of an impression on me than did Reach. When 2012 came about that is when I got serious in learning Halo’s background lore, and eventually as of last year I became interested in the competitive aspect of the franchise. I’ve been drooling over the return of Halo 2 since then. (I predicted this before. I also predicted that it’s multiplayer portion would be on a Halo 4 engine of some kind as well.)