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GamerSpeak:

Halo 2 All-Nighter

The most recent Xbox® All-Nighter took place on April 21 and featured the new maps for Halo® 2. We also gave gamers the chance to play the hard way (against the PMS Clan) and the easy way (with Xbox Ambassadors). Here's what some of our hardcore night owls had to say:

Trainwreck13 in the Halo 2 chapel.

Our Halo All-Nighter started some days ago by sending out many messages care of Xbox LIVE® to all of our friends. We have a dedicated room for all of our Halo and video game nights. It is set up with many Halo figures everywhere and the walls painted like a space scene. The room is only 10ft. by 10ft. but we use it by adding 4 TVs. It gets a bit crowded but it's fun none the less.

After setting up the All-Nighter, we all prepared with a pre-all-nighter Friday night, making sure we knew both of the new maps. As the day finally came, we had an arsenal of energy drinks, candy, chips, pizza, and many more video game worthy munchies. We went out to the local electronics store to pick up a new LCD TV so that we could get one more TV in the room. After that purchase, our night started out gaming as soon as the sun set. We only stopped when we were waiting for games, which made for quick bathroom and food breaks. As games came and went, the noise level climbed as we consumed more and more energy drinks.

The level was intense the whole night with everyone shouting as they were the hunter or the killed. Everyone was ready for more as the next game started. Before we knew it we could see the sun start to rise and the All-Nighter was coming to a close. We all left with our eyes red and sore, tired as hell and drank more than the recommended amount of energy drinks but we didn't hesitate to do agree to do it all next weekend.
—Burn My Eyez, Trainwreck13 and Master Kush 13

My friends and I spent Saturday night, through...well.....Sunday mornin' playing on Tombstone and Desolation tearing up the carnage. Then after we had our fill of the mayhem, we began our journey to find the most sacred object in the galaxy, Ling-Ling's head, and after seven hours, I regret we have not encountered it.
— I 1 up I and BigCookiez

deadpirate 21 and baby pirate.

Just letting you know how the All-Nighter went. It was pretty good because I haven't really had anyone to play the new maps with and it was cool having 16 people to play. One of the people I played with was TheDangerDoll and I played with a few Ambassadors: haloaded, perfect code and die coward.
—NotoriousJo

That was a fun event. Once I got in (it took forever) I met a whole lot of new people and my moderator was great (PMS Kitty) she was fun to play with, and kept the room jerk free. Staying up all night has never been so fun. My only suggestion would be to put more Gamertags out there so that big rooms are easier to find. P.S. The new maps are sw33t.
—I Flightless I

Me and 16 other blokes stayed up all night (Aussie time) and played HALO 2!!! It was really wicked, and I slept the whole of today LOL! Thank-you for the great suggestion of this night, we had TONNES of fun, and are in fact thinking about making set dates ourselves to have inner-clan all nighters.
— xSkipper

Psychopathic at 2am.

Holy Crap. The most fun I've had since I was 5. I didn't quite make it till dawn because of my parents, but I was prepared to. My brother Eagle PWN and I played games in the new maps with some of our friends like MormKing & KidWitPotential. It was really fun, I'm sad that its over. I'll prolly never have that many people in my party again.
—The 7th Crest

Hey there! I had a blast last night playing with my buddies on the new maps. I even got a chance to play with some of the PMS chicks. Here's a link to one of the most fun matches of the night. It was pure chaos, I wasn't even aware of where I was half of the time. There was so much smoke and dust flying around from all the grenades, you couldn't see your own weapon in front of you! Had a blast with this event and I really thank Xbox.com for setting up this great event.
— Xwing 2000

I think this All-Nighter deal was just something to use to get us to purchase the new maps. Well guess what, it worked. The maps are bad ass.
— San Muerte505

After 12 hours and 13 minutes of pwnage.

The Halo 2 All-Nighter was a big event in our household. Night officially got underway with a BarBQ at 6, but unofficially started on Wednesday night when we practiced our all night playing abilities. Thursday night was another practice round, so by the time Sat rolled around we were tired gamers determined to play a full 12 hours straight.

FR1CK3R got to the pad about 8:30 and the gaming was on! The night from there was a blur of pure pwnage, bullets, swords, and of course, rockets. The house favorite was definitely Slayer, but throwing in a few objective games between rounds. We caught up with some of our old friends, made some new friends as well. Got to check out the new maps which were both fun as hell. We won some, we lost some, It friggin' ROCKED!

At exactly 8:43 am this morning, the gaming subsided … we had made it. 12 hours and 13 minutes. It was a glorious moment that ended when we decided to drag our tired bods to bed. We are all up now, IRxboxKILLa is making biscuits and gravy … and more than likely it'll be on again in a matter of minutes!
—IRxboxKILLa , FR1CK3R, SDRAIN420

Welcome to Tombstone.

Hey, first of all I want to thank you for putting up this all-nighter. I have a 360, so all my friends play Gears of War®. This was my first chance to play the new maps with real people. On Tombstone I played lots of games (Slayer, Team Slayer, CTF, and King of the Hill). On Desolation, I played Slayer, Rockets (my favorite on this map), and Bomb. My all time favorite game was King of the Hill on Tombstone. Normally, I dislike King of the Hill, but on this map it was amazing.

Overall I had a great time and hope you do this again. I met new friends and had fun … ok well I gotta go play some more Halo 2 see ya. PS: You guys need to do this for the Halo® 3 Beta.
— sexy donut head

iSpaz and iAndro, fuelled by Bawls.

Well, it has been a late night and a lot of Halo for me and my brother. We have officially completed the Halo All-Nighter! It was very fun indeed, filled with a lot of exciting games. We attempted several times to play with the PMS clan members or with the Xbox Admins. We just kept getting the same message of how their friends list was full, I'm sure they were very busy playing with the enormous Halo fan base.

I enjoy the All-Nighters you host, it lets me connect with my friends from around the country and have a good time. That's what playing games is all about, having some good clean fun. I hope everyone enjoyed the All-Nighter as much as my brother and I did.
—iSpaz and iAndro

Wow, this is the first all-nighter I have participated in and I have to say IT'S SWEET!!! It's 4:29 AM right now. I started off playing at around 1 PM on Saturday and still going! I am trying to last until 6 AM but I might just go a little farther because of some really good rounds that I have been in. Peace out!
— Shadow4692

Run Master Ry's gaming setup.

The Halo 2 All-Nighter was great. I made a ton of new friends. Playing with the PMS Clan was the best thing a boy could ask for. Getting pwned by them multiple times was terrific. I wasn't able to stay up and greet the sun, but that's ok. I still had a blast fraggin' with the likes of PMS Kitty and PMS Rambo. Everyone made the night great. Thanks Xbox, and I hope we can do it with the Halo 3 Beta!
—Thradriend

This night was awesome, met some really cool people, and had a lot of fun on the new maps. This was a very cool experience to also meet some new people, and have an all around great night. Thanks Xbox.com for setting up these kinds of events.
—Anakade

Can you feel the Desolation? I think you can.

Hey, here, just want to tell you what a great time I had last night during the All-Nighter. I met a bunch of new people, including Jared from Joystiq. I could only stay up until 4:30 when my parents forced me to stop. One of the better parts is that me and a group of new people stayed together until 4-ish, which made the experience so much better.

We played too many games to list, but my favorite had to be Zombie on Desolation … it was great distracting a red team member by hitting the glass center below him, making him look down, and watching him get killed by about 4 zombies when he wasn't looking. Anyway, I had a great time, let's do it again next week.
—Toneslice