Since Halo 3 released, we haven’t lost a Humpday. There have been some close battles, some sketchy outcomes but we haven’t out and out taken a beating yet. Now that’s not to say that we’re going to stay unbeaten, we don’t want to be the Patriots – the team everyone looks at and hopes they lose.  We want to be the kids learning how to triple deke, the kids you’re really hoping makes it happen with the coach’s daughter, we want to be that one good dude from Varsity Blues.

Unfortunately, that means no matter who we’re playing, they have to be the bad guys. Or in the case of last night’s crotch-to-face experience four bad guys and one bad girl even though they were perfectly friendly, kind and hilarious – the admins from Web site http://halo3.junk.ws had to be treated like generic villains in a Seagal flick.

Halo3.junk.ws (HJW) is a community-driven website that expands on the statistical tracking done via Bungie.net and takes that data, repurposes it and displays it in a variety of ways. They have graphs, charts, forum signatures and some leaderboard functionality. The only way they can track your stats though, is if you sign-up over at their website.

Here’s the cast for this week’s show.  

Bungie
New0001 – Joe Tung “Hey, you don’t die instantly when you’re shot in Halo 3”
JonnyOthan – Jon Cable “You guys wanna try out this new Rocket Race variant?”
TJ Scoot – Luke “I have a Madden game after this.”
Frankie – “No, srsly, my Internet is fine.”
Thug Larz – Lars Bakken “Can we hurry up, I gots more assassinations to do.”

Halo3.junk.ws
Important note: We’re just using the titles they provided and there are a lot of “these players should be really good” type titles. Naturally, we were concerned.

xATHENAx – Community Rep and Halo 3 Junkies Leader
M0NKEYNUTZ – Forum and Internal community manager
oi1 – Web site creator and site programmer
Indutiomarus – Database manager and site programmer
Excardon – Community representative and Halo 3 Junkies Team Leader

Game 1

Team King of the Hill on The Pit
Tone of Game: Spammy, with a side of pork.

So, about the whole “pink” thing. For whatever reason when he joined the lobby, New0001 switched to the pink team, probably just to distinguish himself from the chatty horde in the lobby that he’d just joined. So I switched to pink and as the room filled up, each Bungie player just followed suit and switched their team color to pink. It wasn’t until the second game had begun and Frankie pointed out that the Emperor, wasn’t naked, but rather, clad in fleshy pink. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, pink is just a softer shade of red. I’d wear a pink sweater, I think Frank would too.

I remember the Team King rules I’d arbitrarily made a few weeks ago – and maybe I made those because I was irritated, but I forgot to change the settings before this game, so we played some good ol’ default Team King, instead. There’s a bunch of slippery corners to hide around barely outside of the explosion radii of well-placed spammed grenades and that’s where we made our encampment.

Lars spent a ton of time in the Hill and we got out to a pretty sizable lead before our communication broke down and we started to lose focus, lose time and just lose. Almost.

Final Score: Bungie wins, 150-116
Watch the game here

Game 2

Lowball on Guardian
Tone of Game: WTF Frank

Before the first game there were nine of us in a lobby waiting on the last person. That person was Frankie and he was having issues with his Internet, again. There was something wrong with his router, just like there seems to be every week that he plays. He “fixed it” and then joined. We suggested Lowball, a kindler, gentler change from our typical Team Slayer on a symmetrical map.

Lowball, for those folks who haven’t played it before, is just like Oddball, but the only score that counts is the score of the lowest person on your team. With default settings, each player has to hold the ball for 25 ticks and then once each player has 25 points, the game ends, hence the name – Lowball.

We got out to a big lead in the Shotgun corridor on Guardian. We holed up and were passing the rock like the Showtime-era Lakers. Cable was dishing it like Magic, Tung was killing dudes like Kareem, Lars was consistent like Worthy, and while he might've come in the post-Showtime era, Frankie was pulling an Elden Campbell. I was running around trying to keep folks from harassing the other fellas while they shared the Oddball. Then, disaster struck.

After getting his 25 points AND an Overkill (that clip of the cosmos aligning is available for download in Bungie Favorites, this week), somehow Frankie was disconnected. His Internet connection struck again, only this time with horrific repercussions. When you’re the last guy who needs to grab the ball on Lowball, you become a huge target and we were a man down. Halo3.junk.ws organized, focused their fire like saavy MMO players and kept killing me over and over again.

Down a man, their time ticked upwards and ours didn’t move at all. To their credit, the Halo3.junk.ws folks asked us if we’d like to rematch the game with even teams, but we respectfully declined. Life gave us lemons and our faces were puckered up.

Final score: HJW Wins (25-10)
Watch the game here

Game 3

Team Slayer on Isolation
Tone of Game: Redemptive

Originally, we had planned on trying out one of the HJW folks’ new gametypes – a hybridization of Slayer and Oddball where teams earned points for kills and toting the ball – but because our first two games had been objective-focused, HJW chose a Team Slayer game for the pivotal third match. With Frankie’s Internet still on the fritz, M0NKEYNUTZ stepped aside, as well.

Isolation Team Slayer is pretty straightforward, while Froman prefers to take the “if you camp it, they will come” tactic of hanging out in the goo-tunnels, we decided to just run around the top of the map spraying foolishly with the Needler. And by decided, I mean "with no planning whatsoever, this is what unfolded naturally over the course of battle." 

Mid-game, the Internet fairy visited Frankie’s house and turned on his connection. He rejoined as a member of the blue team, he may have killed us a few times, but he did switch colors and then moments later, M0NKEYNUTZ rejoined as well. The penalty killing was done for both teams.

Frankie's five kill performance in limited action versus M0NKEYNUTZ  lone kill upon rejoining turned the tide (not really, actually).  

Final score: Bungie Wins (50-41)
Watch the game here