GamerSpeak:

My Halo 2 Launch Party

We recently asked gamers to tell us about their Halo® 2 launch parties, and we love the responses we received! From a garage in Texas to a church in Montana to a boarding school dorm in Connecticut, Halo devotees came together to celebrate this momentous occasion. TriXie says the next time she's in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, she's hanging out with aRmAgg3dOn—this dude and his friends kept the action going for 25 hours! 

"Friday, November 12, 2004, 9:00 P.M.—the beginning of the greatest gaming night ever. After eight hours of playing and digging through nine large pizzas, two bags of chips with salsa, and 12 two liters of soda, the greatness of Halo 2 was dawning on all of us. With 32 people at the party, it was quite easy to make teams. Of course, only 16 at a time, but hey, no one's complaining. With the help of a 54-inch big-screen TV, an 80-inch screen with projector, a 32-inch TV, a 20-inch TV, a 400-watt surround system, a 200-watt stereo, four Xbox consoles, and 16 controllers, we dove into the depths of Halo 2's multiplayer. We had everything from Slayer with all swords to three teams of four on King of the Hill. Elimination went over the best, and the 100-kill Slayer was a close second. Heck, we even tried territories once. We played every game type and every level; it was one of the greatest parties ever. I don't remember all the details, as it went into the morning hours, but I distinctly remember wanting to throw a Plasma Grenade onto somebody's Warthog, I mean car."
—Mallachi, Simi Valley, Calif.

"We started off on Wednesday at about 5:00 P.M. (Sadly, I didn't start 'til 7:00. I begged and pleaded the managers of my work to let me off early, so they sent me home one hour before I was scheduled. (Woo hoo! I lost money to play Halo 2. Worth it!) Then, we went on a hunt for TVs. We got to my house, picked up the wireless router, my TV, my Xbox, and my LAN party cup (the Mountain Dew Halo 2 cup … woot!). We proceeded to my friend's house and let the gaming begin. We played Assault, Swords, Capture the Flag (CTF), and Fiesta. (Bungie is right. That mode rocks.) A favorite became Fiesta-style random guns with multiple Team Slayer instant fu. We then broke for pizza, and funnily enough (judging from the article on Xbox.com) we ordered from Domino's. We then kept playing. Some of the lesser folk left around 11:30 P.M., but the hardcore players stayed all night. At about 2:00 A.M. we broke out the Legendary co-op because we got owned in Legendary single-player. At about 5:00 A.M. we decided to go to sleep. We woke up at about 10:30 A.M. and started playing again. There were only six of us left. Then, more showed up. We stopped for some eggs, Eggos, and bacon. We then proceeded to play until 6:30 P.M. with 12 people strong!
—aRmAgg3dOn, Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada

"I think I had a pretty awesome Halo 2 party on November 9. I preordered my Limited Edition copy way in advance, with next-day shipping, so it would come ASAP—and it did! It came on November 9 exactly. I live at a boarding school, and we have LAN's set up in all of our dorms. I was the first one to get it in our dorm, and then three other people went out and bought the normal version. We set up four 19-inch LCD screens with surround sound in four separate rooms, and we had couches and chips galore. We all opened our boxes together, and then we quickly popped in the disc into each Xbox console, which were connected through our school's LAN. I watched the opening credits and then admired the Halo 2 logo and menu. We then made our first game, which was in Zanzibar, Team Death Match, eight versus eight, Brown versus Green. It was amazing! We played for two and a half hours straight, until we then all ordered 150 wings, three extra-large pizzas, and some bread sticks to go around. It was glorious! We quickly inhaled our food while we discussed future strategies and our new knowledge on things like hijacking vehicles and dual wielding weapons. It was a blast. Then we went straight back to the game and switched to Free-for-All Slayer, which I dominated in, and played for about 45 minutes before trying Assault. And that was it. We cleaned up after about five hours of gameplay, and we all marveled at the holiness of Halo 2 while brushing our teeth and getting ready for curfew. It was the best night of this year so far, and every day since we have been playing Halo 2 to the max. Thank you, Bungie, for making a video game with anything I could possibly ask for plus more! Thank you, Microsoft, for making the best console around! This is the defining game for my generation, and the party we held was the perfect way to start things off.
—DaABCs, New Canaan, Conn.

"My party went pretty well, although this first one took place at my friend's house instead of mine (because my parents were sick of me doing it at our house every week), which made it harder on me because I'm the one with most the equipment. I have an Xbox, four controllers, a switch, all the cables for the switch, and two TVs, but it was still a big success. We got 14 people on the LAN, and it was awesome. The people that came were my friends that come about every week to these things, and this time we also got one of the kids (Bruce) to bring his twin cousins and two of their friends. We didn't really have anything to eat because I usually have everyone eat before they come, so I don't have to deal with all the food getting on the controllers and stuff. We played from about 6:00 P.m. to 10:00 P.M. It was really fun. We played one game of Capture the Flag that lasted about two hours. Then, Bruce's cousins and their friends had to leave, so we did a bunch of Team Slayers and had five teams of two.
—a Bean, Snady, Utah

"Lost in chaos, excitement, and of course, lots of fun. Free for All heaven on, of course, our favorite map, Zanzibar. Julls (on the left) always makes weird faces when he's playing Halo 2.
—DB Blade, New York City, N.Y.

"I held my Halo 2 party on November 12, 2004. My friend and I started cleaning up my garage at 4:00 P.M., and after we were done sweeping it all out and had everything out of the way, I set up three of the TVs I had at my house. Then, my other friend showed up with his huge TV (gotta love that
spirit), and we set that one up, too. When everyone arrived at around 7:00 P.M., we plugged in all our controllers, turned on all the boxes, made sure everything was connected, and began our five hours of fun! We played Slayer games for about an hour for everyone that hadn't played Halo 2 yet, so that they could get used to all of the new features (especially dual wielding) and vehicle stuff. After everyone had given me their money, we ordered pizza and took a 10-minute break from Halo 2. Then, we went back to our fun! It was so much fun that we played until midnight and could have gone all night, but most of us had to work in the morning, one had a hockey game at 10:00 A.M., and the others were just wimps and wanted to sleep. Ha ha. All in all, it was the most fun I've had in so long. We all were on the edge of our seats, yelling orders to each other from across the room or right next to each other. One guy even lost his voice. "
—Capn Rad, Allen, Tex.

"This is amazing, that's all I have to say. Wow! It's getting to the point where we are planning on renting a small location for the day in order to have 25+ people to come over just to play. Many people do not talk to their family members or get along with them. Many others have girl friends. To them, in short, what Halo 2 has done is brought brothers together, brought family members to talk to each other and try to get along. And as for the women—well, it's safe to say many if not most hate sports and hate Halo 2. Halo 2 is my new girl friend."
—TW XeNo 805, Camarillo, Calif.

"We had a Halo 2 kickoff party for a new Xbox ministry at Harvest Church in Billings, Mont., on November 12. We had more than 100 people at our first event and expect the ministry to quickly grow."
—Jason, Billings, Mont.

"Hey, Xbox! We just wanted to send over some pictures from our recent Halo 2 LAN party that we had right here in Chicago. It was a blast. We networked four Xbox consoles together and LAN'ed it up on Halo 2 all night long."
—minc3d, Chicago Ill.

"Hey, this is David, and I'm gonna tell you about the chillest Halo 2 party ever. Okay, we got 12 sophomores who are in high school playing Halo 2 System Link in my friends casita (a separate house above the garage complete with two rooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom), and we went 24 hours straight. No joke. We started around 5:00 P.M., and around 8:00 P.M. we ordered three Manhattan Giants (they weren't lying when they said "giant"). We had to turn them parallel to get 'em through the door, they were so big. With the pizza came something better—some girls from the girls Lacrosse team. (We all play Lacrosse, too, so we had our sticks, and they came over wanting to play catch.) Obviously, we didn't! So, we did little three-on-three guys-on-girls matches (the other kids played co-op on Legendary), and it goes without saying that when a girl finally figures a game out, she's pretty damn good. So, now it's about 10:00 P.M., and the chicks leave, so now we're back to 12-player Death Match. Coagulation is by far our favorite level because we are so accustomed to Blood Gulch. We usually play Snipers on that level, too. Now, the most memorable moment (apart from the girls) was when we did Beaver Creek with Energy Swords. Oh my God. I mean 12 guys in a level that small! And, there's really nowhere to hide. So fun. Then, we just messed around on other levels until 5:00 A.M. the next day, and we all went home and tried to sleep. I doubt anyone did, though. They probably played Halo 2 single player finally. So, yeah, this is the Halo 2 party that we had 4 hours and 48 minutes ago (at the time I sent this message), so now I have to get back to Xbox Live Halo 2.
—David, Carlsbad, Calif.

"All right, my Halo 2 Party was the best party thrown ever. Period. My party took place in my living room (very large living room). My food consisted of Mountain Dew in Halo 2 cups, five party-sized pizzas from Papa Johns (friends helped pay for that), wings, chips, pretzels, and even home-baked cookies with Master Chief's head on them. (Mom baked those.) Anyway, the food was great, but Halo 2 was greater. Ten of my friends brought over their Xbox consoles. I hooked up my flipping rad Surround Sound. We had about four TVs hooked up, and also I had my two computers moved downstairs, so we played Xbox Live also. The party started at about noon on Tuesday. (No one was at school on Tuesday except PS2 geeks.) The party ended at 6:00 (because of damn school). Well, as you see, my party rocked."
—Lone Wolf 6902, Akron, Ohio