Halo 3 Australian Xbox Forum Gamers Night;

by GrathiusXR & Sith Lord Jim

© 2008 Arthur Kotsopoulos

UPDATE: Sith Lord Jim’s Impressions & Pics have been uploaded this evening, scroll down to read and see media Box, or jump to read about his rooms fun times . .

“Coming off the success of 2 Australian Xbox Forum Game Nights, Sith Lord Jim and I saw to do things a little differently for the next game night. To celebrate the release of the Legendary Map Pack on April 15th we thought we would make the Game Night for Halo3 with a little twist; those entering could spend their time crafting a Forge game to submit to the party leader and be eligible to win 1500 Microsoft Points that Sith and I went out and bought to show our thanks and give back something to the community which has shown their support and joined in on these nights to make them fun and enjoyable.

The night started off quite frustrating as few who put their names down did not show up at all, luckily few had friends who were playing at the time and both rooms filled up while not to 16 to a respectable number of 12. A couple of hick ups here and there as the night started but ended up being a great night and showed everyone what LIVE is really about; having a great time with a group of Australian gamers and having fun while doing so, and not needing to worry about any complaining or horrors that plague LIVE, oh and that Halo 3 still has winning formula.

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Congratulations to TWODOGSz with his Pyramid Frenzy Map taking home the 1500MSP with a staggering 5 vote, while Dimorphic got 3 votes for his High Security Escort map, xXFreeekXx getting 0 votes, Rossa AU getting 2 votes for his Cage map and Optimus Danny receiving 1 vote. Even though those who entered did not win everyone had a whole heap of fun playing them. An honourable mention goes to Solid 4 Sn4ke for his Golden Child Game Variant on his Doom Fortress map. It was a real heated battle and very frustrating, and most definitely a love or hate map, 12 players were not meant for that map at all so much carnage for 2 little rooms.

Putnum our friendly neighbourhood moderator popped in for some games as well, although a tad rusty with his trigger finger and not having the Heroic Map Pack he had a good time and enjoyed the few games he had with us. Cheers mate and great to see you participate in these nights as well.

I would like to say a big thanks to the female gamers that showed up AussieGamerGirl, IamFergalicious, Me2aGirlyGamer just to name a few. Great to see the female community showing some interest in these game nights as well, and breaks up the male trend. I can say these gals held there own against us which was great. I hope to see you participate in future game nights.

Overall the night was a success in both rooms, with carnage everywhere and great fun that everyone had and at the end of the night merging to create a full room of 16 and having some good infection on Valhalla.. Thanks to the Australian Xbox Forum Community once again for showing your support and joining in on the night without you guys these nights would not happen. We aim to please you guys with these nights and so far we have done that.

Along with this I got some comments from the guys from my room on the night they all shared their thoughts on how they thought the night played out and how much fun they had.

Sith Lord Jim’s Impressions of the evening:

©2008 Jim McIntyre

“I will be the first to admit that our experience was a somewhat frustrating one initially. Lag made a rather regular appearance in the first few matches that we played, but we pushed through and had a good night.

Congratulations to Ice Anesthetic for winning the forge competition with his Warzone game on his Skirmish Ground map. Runners up were Shadow Wave and Stone with Just Awesome on Just awesome, and MLGTSV3 on ADD respectively. The highlight of Ice’s map for me was the Man Cannons that forced you to leave spawn rather than camping in the room. I definitely recommend checking the map out if you get a chance.

I I Stone dominated all night long and topped the kills in the majority of the nights matches. He is without a doubt a force to be reckoned with when it comes to halo. Other honorable mentions go to OMG its Sheepy and Ice Anesthetic and for their performance.

For me the greatest match of the night was the infection game we played. The match began with some specular mongoose driving and ended with some massive groups of zombies chasing down players while yelling “Brains”. It was a ton of fun and I have attached some screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks again to all who attended and we hope to see you at the next event.

xXFreeekXx

Great night Great people, There was some good maps, awesome maps and silly maps, but it didn’t matter as it all summed up to be a fun night for us all. Better luck next time to everyone who submitted a Forge map, and congratulations to TWODOGSz for becoming 1500MSP richer thanks to his outstanding Pyramid Map which would have been better with stairs. Thanks to GrathiusXR and Sith Lord Jim for organizing the night for us forumites to enjoy. Hope to be around for the next Game Night in 2-3 weeks and hope to see more forums users involved in the night.

Putnum

Although I wasn’t there for the main games, I did get the chance to join in for a few games at the end of the night with the remaining players. I haven’t really played Halo 3 since I beat it on Heroic. I played a fair bit of multiplayer in the beta but when you do custom games it’s totally different so I had to get used to each game as we went through. It seemed like everyone was enjoying themselves and I hope the Xbox forums can have many more nights like this one. Pity I didn’t have the heroic map pack, but I’ve learnt my lesson (it’s downloading right now!) After I left the group though, I finished off the solo mission of Vegas 2 on realistic so it wasn’t a complete loss! Just one mission to go now. Woo!

Optimus Danny

It was an awesome night, but with the lack of people that made forge maps that it was a hard task in the end. I had heaps of fun, there were some really good maps and some that were abit weird but overall it was great to see the creative side of people, only thing though it didn’t help with the randoms’ joining in as that contributed to some real crazy lag throughout some of the game, but things happen.

Dimorphic

The game night was a good idea, but for the future it needs to be better organized. Too many people didn’t show up and there were too many random people joining from other people’s friends lists. There were some great maps though, TWODOGSz pyramid map was fantastic and a deserving winner of the Microsoft Points and the Golden Boy game-type was a classic as well. We just need to get it organized better for the next time we do it. I also think that a Friday night may not have been the best time slot, maybe a Sunday when people will be more likely to be home and not out for the start of the weekend. Though to be fair I did have a lot of fun and look forward to the next one, it’s, in my opinion, a better thing than the DarkLAN because people who live outside of Sydney can get involved with the community, and that is what Xbox Live is all about.

TWODOGSz

The Aussie Xbox Forum Halo3 Night started fashionably late but soon enough two rooms were full with eager Aussie gamers, boys and gals, ready to have their forge maps put to the test, whilst secretly they hoped that they would die on the battlefield rather than forge-fuelled embarrassment.
Thankfully, the maps had a wide variety of design and game modes providing for tactical team games on Pyramid Frenzy and High Sec Escort; frag fests on Cage Match and Stairway to Heaven; and complete and utter mayhem in a room not made to fit16 Spartans but nonetheless created, Doom Fortress!

AussieGamerGirl

It was really cool to meet some of the regular forum-ites and play on their sometimes odd but always interesting maps. I fell asleep with “VOTE GOLDENCHILD” ringing in my ear..er I mean, singing it’s soothing and hypnotic song. Thanks guys for the great night! I had fun.

It was a night in which I was reminded why the Xbox360 and Live are so special. I can frag other people on any gaming system, but only on Live can you get 16 jovial Aussie gamers making friends and having laughs without worrying too much whether they win or lose.
Thanks to everybody who participated, and on behalf of all a big thumbs up to GrathiusXR and Sith Lord Jim who sponsored and organized the event, along with the support of the Australian 360 community freelance game-site, XboxOZ360-gamer.

Additional Media

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