Back when I was in fourth grade, (2002) I vaugely recall playing a game at a friend's house, that I'm fairly certain now, was Halo CE. I loved it, but didn't think about it again until much later when I was in 7th grade. During a trip to the mall with some friends, I decided to buy a computer gaming joystick, while I was in the store, I thought, "Hmm I'm going to need a game to go with this". Looking back, this reverse logic makes me laugh uncontrollably, but I was young and still very immature mind you.
I bought a flight simulation game that I never figured out, and a few weeks later, upon returning the game, I decided to look for another. As I was browsing the computer game aisle, one paticular game caught my eye. To this day I don't know why, but Halo CE jumped at me. I loved it instantly, and I played through the entire campaign with my computer joystick. A few months later, I spent an all nighter with some friends, playing none other than, you guessed it, Halo 2. We had a two console system link going than ran the entire length of my friend's house. In that night of mischief and mayhem, I learned the hard way, many things: Getting in the purple plane is a very,
very bad idea, the glowing sword is very,
very deadly and hard to find, and lastly, the map that looks like the one from Halo 1 isn't quite as fun as the original.
Later that year(2007), I heard about Halo 3's release. I was ecstatic, because I had already built up a love for Halo. I didn't even have a 360, and never owned an xbox. I played the Pc version of CE, and couldn't play Halo 2 either, because the Pc version of halo 2 required Windows Vista, and our computer had XP. Needless to say, I decided to reserve it anyway, hoping that somehow, I would get a 360 in the summer, before halo 3 came out in the fall. Sadly it didn't happen, and I remember reading about the release, not holding my copy of the game, and still penniless, without an xbox 360. We had a wii, but my heart was absolutely set on Halo, the only game I had ever been obsessed with. The joy came later that year on Christmas, when my dad got me a laptop. Which ran Vista. I was overjoyed, and overlooked everything about the computer, until I bought Halo 2. I played through the campaign, not quite as many times as I had CE, but enough to memorize the storyline. The first time I played Halo 1, I was enthralled with the story, and promised myself I would memorize the storyline of all three games as I got them. With the summer of 2008, I made some new friends, who in turn, owned 360's. I can still remember the first time I saw the intro to the Halo 3 campaign. We didn't play the campaign (just multiplayer), but I vowed to buy a 360 even if it cost me my life, just for the campaign. We played mutiplayer for months, getting together whenever we could. Finally, in March of 2008, I got a 360. It was the happiest day of my life. I bought Halo 3 with it, and beat the campign for the first time. During my first couple of playthroughs, I found out about achievements, and was pretty much obsessed. A few weeks later, during spring break, I beat the campaign Solo Legendary. One of my best friends was such an encouragement to me throughout my first experiences with halo 3. We did everything together. He was even there to walk me through setting up my xbox live. (and the creator of my hilarious gamertag, "CRANKdatMoNkEy") As a side note to this story, I just wanted to let you readers know, I have never been able to play online. I have satellite internet out where I live, and DSL isn't possible. I can still connect to xbox live, but the only things I can do are send voice messages, and track stats and progress. It is definitely a sad thing for me, but nontheless, it makes me love Halo all the more. The few chances I get to play online at friend's are like windows into another world, short, ephermeral chances to earn achievemnts and hone my skills. It might make the average fan quit and never return, but not me. My love for Halo will never fade. In June of 2008, I got involved with 405th.com,and have been here ever since, building and meeting new people. It occupied a vast majority of my time from that June until September 22nd 2009, when Halo: ODST was released. During that time, a lot happened. I steadily worked on my costume, having many failures and learning experiences along the way. I also went on vacation in the summer of 2009, to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We rented a beach house, but ironically, I spent more time at the house than at the beach. The house had DSL, and I had brought my 360. That week, I earned more achievements than I could shake a stick at, and had made a few friends online too. The last day I had online was a saturday, double xp weekend, and I had played grifball a lot. I realized I had unlocked the Lightswitch achievement, and decided to drop grifball, and get a party for Annual. That 6 hour journey was truly an unforgettable day, and I have vowed to one day repay two of the guys who I got it with, and majorly thank the guy who had to endure it
twice. But that's a story for another day.
Back on topic, my suit, some parts made, most parts bought, was unveiled at my local gamestop at midnight for the release of ODST. Since then, I've gotten to know some other games personally, but none as close as halo. I'm still here, waiting diligently for the release of Halo: Reach.
If you actually took the time to read this, thank you! I'm really not sure why I decided to write this, but I guess I just felt like it. Hope you enjoyed! I'm thinking about starting a thread so everyone can tell their halo story.