It Takes All Kinds...

I’m New Here - I should have joined 2old2play years ago. The gaming community is like no other. An article about the over-40 Halo tourney got my attention. I have spent some more time reading around the site. I like it. People from all walks of life, with all sorts of points-of-view. I’m a Christina Hendricks fan as well. Bonus!

I have been fascinated with video games from the get-go. I’ve taped up Odyssey screen overlays and battled RF converters with the 2600. I loved the interactive aspect, but it was a logical step, I was already addicted to the television screen. Star Trek, Lost in Space, Green Acres, Buffy, Jody, Mr. French. Educated by Mr. Wizard and Shoolhouse Rock.  I’m fortunate my humor is based firmly in the Warner Brothers cartoon reruns of my youth.

Games were getting better, but it wasn’t TRON. I wanted to be IN the game! The quarter-arcades jumped in and the games pulled you deeper into the ‘virtual world.’ First-person and third-person perspectives and controls changed what was cool to play. The home computers followed and it kept getting better. I left my initials on plenty of Pole Position and Battlezone machines around. Evil Quarter-Eating Demons… On PC it was FPS that jumped forward with depth and environments. I swapped BMPs for wall graphics in Wolfenstien3D with mods from friends. Which was a twist that showed me that these games could be fun in ways other than those intended.

In the 90’s, as the consoles were doing the VHS/Beta dance I went playstation, going for the Driving/Flight-Sim games. The Test Drive Series helped me stay sane as I started a family, and as they grew up with controllers in their hands. The PS2 was our stand-by, Crash and Guitar Hero were regular living room guests. I used the Disney-Kingdom Hearts game like a bedtime story some nights. Luckily, they have become teenagers on the way to being fine young men. Three sons who now regularly kick-my-butt in whatever game we play. Pretty awesome, really.

While working for an ad agency, mid-90s, a graphic artist/IT wiz friend of mine, re-wired our company network for optimized cross-platform Bungie: Marathon matches. We would play through the lunch-hour and just laugh as you’d hear the shouts and foul language from a dozen cubicles. I loved the run-and-gun multiplayer. Then this friend clues me into the secret Forge bizzaro-code to mod and build maps. I failed to build anything good, but thought it was “genius” to let players create their own space. Fast-forward to just a couple years ago, my sons convinced me to try the xbox360 and get Halo3. To summarize, the PS2 and its gear now live in the garage on a shelf, and the boys have bought a second xbox. We have had a ‘riot’ with the Halo games, campaign and online, each of us has different things that make the game fun for us.

They discovered the Halo3 Forge, then their friends’ maps, then other players’ maps, then VIP Race maps… They sniffed-out a way to have fun with the game that wasn’t originally intended - I love those kids. However, that is the point when those bad children of mine asked me to build them a mongoose race map. I have been hopelessly hooked to the Halo Forge since. The forge in 3 was a bit unforgiving, so my maps are what they are, but the Reach tools give a little more skill to the unskilled. Almost every map I’ve done has a Race setup, some are Race-Only. Feel free to try the maps out, no claim is made that they are special or great, but they might be fun for you and your friends. One thing I’ve learned about Halo players… They don’t like being told HOW to have fun with Halo. So, because everybody is entitled to play the way they want, there is no wrong way to have fun. So I’m OK with an occasional ‘your map sux’ comment, I get a rare ‘cool map’ which just goes to show…

My sons recently got caught up with machinima & RvB, they said… “can’t we do that Dad?’, “…Um, sure we can”, says Dad. So we did some goofy tests at home, cool to watch the three of them cooperate on something, fun stuff, not for the general public. The oldest wanted to do some clips from our race maps, they turned out OK, three now posted to see online at YouTube. (keegraphicsmi) One video linked below.

http://youtu.be/3mxWNOwHZp4

GT: Kenjamin1 MI – search Reach maps in-game

I’m looking forward to meeting more of you here at 2old2play, Game On!

Please excuse any formatting or link issues, I’m not a frequent blog or forum writer.

Let me know if there is any interest in a future 2o2p Halo Race Night or ‘Family’ Race Night?

[Less spilling of the children’s blood with Mongoose or Warthog.] -Checkpoint Reached

JAMN