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TriXie interviews crew116

Crew116 is made up of the most ass-kicking Halo players to be found. And, they almost all work at Microsoft. Founding crewmanchar—who was so good in the Halo® 2 beta that Bungie hosted a "Death to char" contest—remembers that three years ago, when Xbox® and Halo®: Combat Evolved launched, almost every Microsoft group formed their own clan. "There were e-mail challenges and death threats," char said. When clans clashed, the best members from both sides would get together and play. Eventually, crew116 became the best of the best.

Back (l-r): Tj, Loren, Nitsuj, Coreman, Flummox, Pi. Way back: BenS, Hiro, Jacob. Front: Fox, Tantrum, Sully, Tails, char, Ad, Striker.

They took their name from Building 116 on Microsoft's main campus here in Redmond, where they first held their weekly Halo nights. (They've since moved operations to another, newer building because it's got the best equipment.) Every Thursday night, these guys take over four conference rooms for a button-mashing beat-down. They meet around 7:00 P.M. and wind down around 1:00 A.M., though they have been known to go even longer. They told me about one memorable Halo night when char had to get on an early flight for a business trip. He figured he'd just keep playing until it was time to go to the airport. And, if char was gonna keep playing, the rest of the crew weren’t about to wuss out and go home, so they all powered through the night.

The Setup
Four conference rooms, each equipped with an Xbox console, all hooked up to a projection screen. They've also got the speakerphone on in order to communicate with teammates in a neighboring conference room. So, here's how they do it. They set up a dedicated sub network and run System Link through that network. They use a VGA adapter (the Crew swears by the one at x2vga.com) to hook up the Xbox video game systems to the conference room projectors. Other essentials: pizza and burritos.

The Crew takes a much-needed pizza break.

The crew
Here are some facts about a few of crew116's founding members. By the way, many of them answered the "who's hotter" question with "my wife" or "my girlfriend." Guess that's what keeps them off the leash all those Thursday nights. There are generally about 12 to 30 members that show up each week. One night they had 50 people. Interesting fact: About 75 percent of crew members use the original Duke controller.

Nitsuj

TriXie: Best game of all time, besides Halo?

Nitsuj: Either Final Fantasy III or the SNES Mario Kart.

TriXie: Hours per week gaming?

Nitsuj: Usually 10 to 20 hours a week, including the six hours spent playing Halo every Thursday.

TriXie: Best film?

Nitsuj: Strange Days.

TriXie: Best album?

Nitsuj: Post by Bjork.

TriXie: Greatest gaming moment?

Nitsuj: Hitting the kill limit (100) on aQuake 2 server in five minutes and having people comment on how they didn’t know there was one.

TriXie: Desired super power?

Nitsuj: The ability to move at the speed of light.

TriXie: Band you'd like to tour with?

Nitsuj: Lords of Acid.

Go to Nitsuj's Halo 2 tips.

Striker

TriXie: Best game of all time, besidesHalo?

Striker: The original Quake is the best game of all time—much better than Halo.

TriXie: Blaspheme! Hours per week gaming?

Striker: Lately, 10 to 15 hours per week. More if we’re training for a tournament or if a new game arises.

TriXie: Best film?

Striker: Die Hard.

TriXie: Best album?

Striker: Pearl Jam's Ten.

TriXie: Who's your inner rock star?

Striker: Eric Clapton.

TriXie: What cartoon character is most like you?

Striker: Wile E. Coyote. He’s the engineer of the Loony Toons. Most of his stuff doesn’t work though.

TriXie: Who would be the worst celebrity roommate?

Striker: Tom Green.

char

TriXie: 'tag tale?

char: It's a bad developer joke. A char is a basic C type representing a character. Get it? It also happens to mean "to burn or scorch."

TriXie: Best game of all time, besidesHalo?

char: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Hands down, the best game of all time.

TriXie: Gaming hours per week?

char: Mostly it’s just our Thursday eveningHalo sessions. However, I have been playing a decent amount of World of Warcraft lately. I’d say 10 to 15 hours a week.

TriXie: Best album of all time?

char: The black album, a.k.a. Metallica’s eponymous album.

TriXie: What's your greatest gaming moment?

char: Finally saving up enough cash as a kid to buy an NES. Looking back on it, my parents got a great deal on painting that garage …

TriXie: Who's your inner rock star?

char: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? He’s got technical skill out the wazoo, but a little bit of flair, too. Plus, he’s about as old-school as it gets.

TriXie: What cartoon character do you think is most like you?

char: Calvin.

TriXie: Desired super power?

char: If I could fly or had x-ray vision, I’d just get myself into trouble. How about being a morning person? Maybe I just need a super-powered alarm clock.

Go to chair's Halo 2 tips.

Sully

TriXie: What's the best game of all time, besidesHalo?

Sully: Zelda. The original NES game.

TriXie: Inner rock star?

Sully: Jem. She’s truly outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.

TriXie: Who should play you in a movie?

Sully: I’ve been told it should be Hugh Jackman. He did play Wolverine. I could play Wolverine … but I’d still have to bum rides off of people.

TriXie: What's your karaoke song?

Sully: "Touch Me" by the Doors.

TriXie: Desired super power?

Sully: I’m not sure. Maybe something like the ability to turn off gravity around me. That would be great for parties.

TriXie: What band would you like to tour with?

Sully: Motley Crue. I’d be on stage, and Vince Neil would throw up the horns, and I’d be like “Yeah!” and he would be like “Yeah!” and then me and Nikki Sixx would be chillin’ back stage, and he’d be all like “Dude, you rock!” and I’d be like “No,you rock!” and he’d be like “No, you rawk!” and I’d be like “Yeah!” and me and Tommy Lee would be driving around town afterwards, scopin’ the ladies, and I’d say to him, “Hey, man, isn’t Pam gonna be mad?” and he’s all like “Naw, dude, she knows you’re cool and stuff” so then we speed to the hotel, and Mick Mars says he has this great idea to crazy glue the furniture in the room to the ceiling like all upside-down and stuff, and everyone just points at him and laughs and says he’s a dork, and then I’m all like “Guys! I got this great idea! Let’s crazy glue the furniture to the ceiling all upside-down and stuff!” and they all look at me for a second stunned-like, and then they’re all like “Dude! Rawk! You're the coolest!” and I’m like “Woo!” and then we all paint our faces like they used to do and pass out because it’s been a long day, and when we wake up the next day, we’re all like “Man! Why are we sleepin’ on the ceiling?”

Go to Sully's Halo 2 tips.

Lord Pi

TriXie: What’s your Gamertag story?

Lord Pi: There is a funny story behind it, but like all funny stories, it's not funny and long and really dumb. In high school, my friend was taking a quiz on the 'net, and one of the points was for knowing more digits of pi than anyone else in the room. So, as a result, a bunch of us decided to memorize pi (I think I won after everyone else forgot about it). A few years later, I was playing in a PBEM game that required some roleplaying, so I invented a character for it called "The Dark Lord Pi." I'm lazy, so nowadays I shorten it to "Pi" or "Lord Pi" or "Tasty Pies" or whatnot.

TriXie: What's the best game of all time, besidesHalo?

Lord Pi: I assume "besides Halo" means "besides the original and/or Halo 2." In that case,Cyber Empires, an old PC game by Silicon Knights.

TriXie: How many hours a day or week do you spend gaming?

Lord Pi: About 12 hours a week.

TriXie: What do you think is the best film of all time

Lord Pi: John Woo's masterpiece of action-drama, The Killer.

TriXie: What's your greatest gaming moment?

Lord Pi: It's not really my greatest, but the death of Nei in Phantasy Star 2 (Genesis) was pretty intense.

TriXie: Who's hotter: Cameron Diaz, Angelina Jolie, or Halle Berry?

Lord Pi: Keira Knightley has been statistically proven to be the "hottest" actress.

TriXie: If you could trade places with anyone for one day, who would it be?

Lord Pi: A ninja. Ninjas are almost as hot as Ms. Knightley.

TriXie: If you could go on tour with any band, which would it be?

Lord Pi: Whichever one needs a tone-deaf singer without any musical talent, but with crazy hair.

Go to Lord Pi'sHalo 2 tips.

Hiro Protag

TriXie: What’s your Gamertag story?

Hiro Protag: A reference to Hiro Protagonist, the main character from Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash.

TriXie: What's the best game of all time, besidesHalo?

Hiro Protag: Capture the flag (the real one that involves running around through the woods with your friends). If you’re talking only computer games, I’m going to have to go withHitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You’ve got to respect a game that’s willing to let you play basically all the way through to the end, only to reach certain death (eaten by a dog while traveling in a microscopic space ship), all because you didn’t have the common courtesy to toss the dog a sandwich at the beginning of the game.

TriXie: Well, thanks for ruining the end, dude. How many hours a week do you spend gaming?

Hiro Protag: Depends on the week, but it’s relatively stable around 12. I need to have time for my other hobbies, too (music, disc, mountain biking).

TriXie: Best film of all time?

Hiro Protag: I’m a film buff, so that one’s hard. I’m going to go with The Princess Bride because it does a great job telling a fun story in a way that appeals to both children and adults. It’s sort of the perfect fairy tale with enough of the ridiculous thrown in to make it great.

TriXie: What do you think is the best album of all time?

Hiro Protag: Also really hard. I’m going to go with The Wall.

TriXie: What's your greatest gaming moment?

Hiro Protag: Beating Super Mario Bros 1for the first time. I know it seems trivial now (last time I tried, I could run through the game without getting hit in about 8 minutes, 30 seconds) but it was the first console-based game that I worked all the way through. Man, when the princess was like "but I have another quest for you" I’ll admit, I was pretty annoyed. What, rescuing you isn't enough? Geez.

TriXie: What cartoon character do you think is most like you?

Hiro Protag: Jonny Quest. He was kind of a computer geek, but had lots of fun.

Get Halo 2 Tips from the crew116 clan.

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