Hello, and welcome to the very first Matchmaking Monday! In this article series, I’ll be recounting stories from online shenanigans that vary from stories in Campaign to the most exciting/fail-filled matches in Slayer. Now, while not technically matchmaking, I thought I’d share this story because it’s pretty recent in my mind. This is a short recount of my attempt and success at obtaining the Annual achievement in Halo 3.
So in the beginning, there were four. Me (Ken Raves), PsychoVandal (on his son’s account), and my friends ElusiveEagle519, and AKACptShadow. I won’t bore with details such as our arming up, or our small skirmish across the snowy hills up to the control room. What I will recount here is our first major obstacle: grenade/double jumping. We march over to the far right of the spire, opposite the side with the ramps you normally should be ascending.
We tried to double jump (someone jumping on top of someone else while they’re jumping) and get up the small slope that was the wall. We spent about five minutes here, before getting someone up. Two more get up there, and then our first death. We restart at the checkpoint, spend a little bit of time and get three up there, with one trying to grenade jump up. After a few tries, Eagle gets up with us and we move to the elongated pillar that comes down the center of the spire.
Eagle suggests we grenade jump onto it and head up to the icy cliff to rendezvous with Sgt. Johnson. We spent fifteen minutes here, grenading and jumping. The first person to die was Psycho, who blew himself off the side of the wall. After about six or so minutes, Vandal discovered that frag grenades worked much better than plasma grenades, allowing you to throw them against a wall, and jump to the side as they bounce back, blasting you upwards and to the lower end of the pillar. So we try that, including some interesting combos such as two people on one grenade, or a plasma grenade thrown from the pillar down to someone (resulting in two or so sticks.). Eventually, through trial and error, we all ascend – just for someone to get killed by me meleeing them, or “high-fiving” as I phrased it. We try once more, get up in quick succession and ascend. We hit another checkpoint, much to our pleasure. We’ll need it.
We get to the ledge, Vandal falls right as we get a checkpoint, having to hold his own against the Flood while Eagle and I support from the cliff, with Johnson and Shadow. (Though after a few deaths and respawns I started to just wander, admiring the view, with Shadow running about and Eagle trying to get the Spartan Laser from Johnson.) After a number of times, hearing the dialogue made by the Gravemind, we get in. We watch the cut scene, discussing some of Halo’s plot, relaxing for a quick break. We fight the boss, killing him once, then twice. (Shadow was pegged in the face by Spark’s laser just before I killed Spark.) We watch the next cut scene, I take solace in making it much further than I had in my last attempt (the first Flood wave.).
We move forward, popping Flood forms. We did this a number of times, mainly because of taking the Ghosts too fast, and right off a cliff, or pissing off the super accurate Sentinels that spawned outside the control room. We eventually push forward, getting to the Warthog spawn. We get in formation and boost. No one dies, things are looking fine. We make it, not only past the first rotunda, but also through the first ramp-hangar-room. We get a checkpoint as we land on the next rotunda, starting a long series of goof-ups. Now, I’m aware that a lot of the problem was just taking it too fast, or breaking formation and falling off the ledges, but I personally blame Vandal, who, along with me, seemed to just hold the boost trigger and swerve near or into the Flood Carrier forms, which would either fly back and hit me, explode and flip me, or just explode and flip him into me. After fifteen to twenty minutes, we just take it calmly (my screaming like a banshee and our laughing like crazy), and make it through the next area. We make the next rotunda and head for the second ramp-hangar-room. I speak up, saying, “Aren’t you supposed to take the left or right ramps on vehicles that aren’t the Warthog?” Someone said, “I don’t think it matters”, and me, Vandal, and Shadow go off the center jump, and into the red abyss.
Fast forward ahead – we’re together. We are nearing the Frigate. I’m ecstatic, I’m having a blast with friends, and I can tell they’re having one too. We can see the engines. Everyone just goes and boosts for it. And the highlight of the evening for me; everyone boosts off the ramp so that they would, if the cut scene didn’t take over, make it in the hangar. I, however, hit a hunk of metal, and the ramp collapsed. The cutscene triggers, literally inches before I hit the “kill-wall”. We cheer, laugh and watch the cutscene. Making jokes and chatting. We continue watching, going through the credits to see the legendary ending, discussing some random things like ODST and funny dialogue. We played some recordings of funny dialogue both used and not used in the game, and recounted funny lines we’d heard. We see the legendary ending; I’m smiling a huge cheesy smile because I’d never caught the Legendary ending on my TV before. The game came to an end and we got the achievement. “Vidmaster: Annual, was unlocked”. We headed off for some customs, and some of us played until nearly three in the morning, but had fun; what Halo is about. We had a blast with each other, friends, and we had obtained an achievement that would get (some of us) closer to the end of the Road to Recon, and taken a peak at the implied continuation at the wonderful story to Halo 3.
And I’d do it again Seven thousand times.
Ending stats (From Bungie.net, keep in mind my stats all read 0 for some reason):
Total Kills: 90
Total Enemy Kills: 90
Total Vehicle Kills: 0 (Was above thirty that I saw in the saved film and can remember.)
Deaths: 307
Betrayed Co-op: 6 (Should be about eight or so, as I did some betrayals.)
Betrayed Allies: 1 (Eagle killed Johnson for a laser.)
