The Humpday Challenge: Seasoned Gamers
That's it. I am DONE playing against people who ASK to play us. People who ASK to play us practice long and hard and sometimes, in their dark times, they dream of crushing our dreams under a giant teabag. But sometimes, we make it tough for them. I'm not sure how much of that applied to our match against the Seasoned Gamers, a loose-knot coalition of older, wiser gamers with less swearosity, almost no use of the word "noob" and plenty of polite, enjoyable custom game experience. They're not all old and crusty like say, Marty's Army, they're just well, seasoned. And fun to play against.
The Bungie AssClown Killaz
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Shishka – dumbest mistake: Draining moat, rusting chain mail .
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Yeroen – dumbest mistake: Relying on Frankie to defend bomb.
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Ske7ch – dumbest mistake: Picking up the bomb without telling team mates.
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Frankie – dumbest mistake: Joining in
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Yoozel – dumbest mistake: Letting Frankie take my place.
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Achronos –dumbest mistake: Shooting Ninja in the face...by accident.
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Ninja on Fire –dumbest mistake: Having a huge face.
Seasoned Gamers
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BringYoGreenHat - Jeremiah Jones - Big Hands.
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JAMO33 - Tom Kelly - Founder of Seasoned Gamers
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Ace McKilty - Rick Bray - hacker extraordinaire
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X Venom X - Nathan Bu-blam!- - Owns two tarantulas
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Hollywood524 - Matt Burch - "Snatcher of Flags"
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KillerAssClown - Anne Wolanski - N.I.L.F (her description)
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SG Moderator - anon - big feet.
GAME 1: CTF
Game Stats Headlong, BR starts, 2nd weapon pistol Game Duration: 8:45
General Tone of Game : Lulling
I sat this one out while Yoozel, one of our mods, took my place.My freakin' Xbox detected that a new sexy rival was coming to stay next week, and chose this exact moment to take a huge dump. No video. Murky blackness. I restarted, thinking the game would be nearly over, one way or another. It wasn't, I sat on the sidelines and watched the names scroll up and down. However, Sketch filled me in. Stupidly, no time limit had been specified (by us) and so it was a long, drawn-out battle for the flags.
There were no overshields, so a couple of pops across the map would take you out. That meant stealth rather than aggression paid off. We also realized Warthogs are a deathtrap with no shields on. Achronos and Sketch drove right into the lower base to demonstrate. They may as well have parked in a car-crusher.
The lack of shields also meant a lot of allegedly accidental betrayals too. Eventually though, Bungie capped three flags, forcing a complete shutout on the Seasoned Gamers. Now normally that's an important and obvious signifier of what's to come. Not this time, however. Things were just about to get interesting.
Final Score: 3 flags to 0 - Bungie tastes the sticky nectar of perfection.
GAME 2: Ninja Assault
Game Stats
Sanctuary, Invisible bomb carrier
Game Duration: 9:10
General Tone of Game : Bomby!
After the stunning sweep of the first game, this one took on a more frenetic, and less clinical feel. It was Ninja Assault, which you HAVE to try. It's a blast. Literally and figuratively. Amazingly, with literally thousands of games under my belt, including some really stupid ones, I just never got around to playing this variant. The main thing it adds is a sense of terror to the defenders. they have to sit, wait, never quite sure if the Bomb carrier is miles away or right under their noses, waiting for a chance to pounce. Radar is off too, so there's no last second clues. All of a sudden, that glassy jerk is right in your base, arming the bomb as if he owned the place.
You also find that battle rifle are kind of useless against invisible players - you just can't get a real bead on their heads, even when you do spot them. I found myself shooting AT the bomb. Actually, it would be sweet if a direct hit detonated it.... Anyway, I digress. This game was actually pretty even, although the score doesn't reflect that. We got lucky, they got lucky, we strategized successfully they did too. You get the drift. Unfortunately for us, a couple of bad spawn points are all it takes for a successful cap, as I saw to my horror when I reappeared in the center base, and watched three red Xs, and a whole gang of Blue jerks squatting in our base, too far for any meaningful defense.
Brian also made one terrible gaffe. Tired of defending the base, and thinking time was running out, he decided to make a pointless lone crusade across the map with the Bomb, leaving our base totally unguarded for a few precious moments. That was really the end. We shoulda, coulda, didn't try harder. Next time!!!
Final Score: Five bombs to three. Seasoned Gamers take one back. Uh-oh..
GAME 3: CTF
Game Stats
Zanzibar, Classic CTF with BR starts
Game Duration: 18:33
General Tone of Game: Press X to do zip
It's going to sound lame, but it happened twice, so I insist on this claim. Twice, I tried to press X to grab the flag in what would have been successful, and possibly flag capping scenarios. Twice, it failed me and I passed through the flag like a ghost. meanwhile, enemy fire proved there was nothing wrong with collision detection. But apart from that, the ownage visited upon us by Seasoned Gamers was legitimate, hard fought and even enjoyable for us. Can't say we were too happy about BringYoGreenHat's laser-accurate sniping, but everything else, we kind of deserved.
In a lot of ways, they played like us. Rush, overwhelm, bail fast, even on foot. They just did it ten percent better than us. 50% if you count sniping. Which we ahem, won't.
We couldn't get a break. We grabbed their flag every time, got it almost to the sea wall every time, and kept eating huge portions of their hearty defense.
Final Score: Three flags to zero. Bungie lays another bum-egg.
Next Challenge: MEXICO! Si. Bungie is taking on some Mexican gamers. We thought we would stay here that night, use our T3s and insist on playing Shotguns only on Midship. I keed! We'll be taking a Thanksgiving break, but when we get back, things are going to get muy caliente up in here, as we take on some cool kids from South of the Border.