This week saw the death (online at least) of one of the best FPS games ever...Halo 2! Released over 5 years ago, this sequel was to become one of the most popular online games ever, the most popular on LIVE for two years after it's release in fact, only being toppled by Gears Of War..It really doesn't need much of an introduction...If you know videogames at all, you'll have heard of Halo 2...
Now although Bungie Studios crafted a lovely single player campaign, as always with Halo games the real fun was to be had in multi-player. I was introduced to it one night about four and a half years ago at my cousin's house...he'd invited me and a few other mates round for a few games of System Link. Four guys sat in one room, four in another and four in yet another! I'd never experienced a game against so many other real people before, and after that night I was sold on the idea! Cushions, beer, crisps and profanities were hurled between the rooms as the night wore on, and a few games became almost 50 as daylight started creeping in over the hill....
Many more nights like this were to be had, but it wasn't until last year when I finally got connected properly up to Xbox LIVE, that I experienced the online community of Halo 2 fans....They seemed just like any other bunch of gamers online - A mix of angsty, teenage Americans and unemployed wasters like myself, with the odd random gamer girl drowning in a deluge of "What are you wearing?" type questions...."Meh!" I thought....seen one game community, seen them all....
The one thing that did shine through was the love of the game amongst it's fans...they tried to do pretty much everything they could with the game, and discovered crazy ways to reach bits of the multi-player maps not meant to be seen by prying eyes! The mythology of the Halo universe was lost on a casual observer like me, but these guys knew it all and conversations online were filled with things I knew nothing about...But I hung around, bought the novels and learned to just keep quiet and let them get on with it! And eventually, having entered the game thinking it was all over-hyped nonsense, I began to enjoy it all the more because I knew stuff like Master Chief's past, or how the Spartans came to be....
And then, just as I was really getting into the whole Halo thing, the news came that Microsoft would be closing down the servers for original Xbox games, meaning that no-one would be able to play Halo 2 online anymore.....By this time I had Halo 3, but Halo 2 just seemed better as a multi-player somehow...more fluid, better maps, more epic....just better! Apparently, everybody was going to have one last night of Halo 2 gaming to send the game off in style! I knew I had to be there to see the old gal go.....
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