Halo: Reach is officially launched on Tuesday, so I thought I’d take a look back at my time with the franchise – I can hardly believe it’s been ten years!
It all started way back in the days of working at Game, and the launch of the original Xbox. Halo was the big game of the launch and my manager at the time raved about it. I admit, I was unimpressed when he was telling me how the Pistol was the best weapon, and there were grenades that stuck to your enemies, and that one melee attack to the back of an opponent was an instant kill… But then I played it. Campaign at first, it was immense. I never really got on with other console First Person Shooters such as Goldeneye, Quake II or Perfect Dark on the N64 as they never quite felt right, but this did – the controls were sublime. Lugging an Xbox and TV to Craig’s flat was so worth it. Our Halo LAN sessions were never frequent, and there were only a few of them, but they remain a fondly remembered highlight of my life so far. Given that there were only eight of us playing, Sidewinder and Blood Gulch were probably not the best maps to choose, but man, those CTF games were epic, and it was incredible hearing the shouting and swearing come from the other room when we thwarted an attack and recovered our flag.
As you may have read in my post detailing the blessing of Karl and Hannah last week, I teased that the view from our hotel window was interesting. I am now going to expand on that and go into the gory details. Be warned – it gets quite racy.
In Coventry, no less. Who would’ve thought such a thing was possible? This is a long post, so you may want to go and make a cup of tea before you settle down to read it!
It all started on Friday, with a trip to Cosham on the bus. We were sat behind this obnoxious group of girls who were randomly phoning their friends and leaving “funny” messages on their answer-phones if they didn’t answer. Hilarious stuff, especially if you’re 12. Then it was the train to Southampton – excitement levels slowly rising. We stopped off for a baguette and a coffee in Southampton Central while we were waiting for the train to Coventry and I stabbed a bit of hard baguette into the roof of my mouth. Like all the other times we’ve went up to Coventry for RF ‘Fests, the train was packed. Luckily, we had reserved seats! Apart from discovering the game-breaking “Air Vent” on Scribblenauts for the DS, and Jane nearly choking to death on a sweet, it was an uneventful train journey.
Finding the hotel was a slight issue – we knew which general direction it was in, but no route was planned. We winged it, and after walking right past an unmarked side of it, eventually found it. We stayed at a Premier Inn this time, rather than the usual Ibis. We figured that because we had more free time than we usually have on ‘Fest weekends, because this one was nearer the City Centre we’d have more stuff to see and do. They took security very seriously there – you had to swipe your key-card to get to the lifts, swipe it to get from the lift to the corridor, then again to get into your room!
The room itself was nice – it was a bit bigger than we’re used to in the Ibis. It had an open wardrobe type thing, but the shelf under the hanging department was too high, Jane’s dress couldn’t hang properly with it there so we improvised and strung her dress on the coat hooks. There was a desk and chair, as well as a nice comfy tub chair, and the air conditioning actually worked and was pretty quiet. The bed was quite comfy (although Jane got on with it better than I did), and it had large sofa-like cushions so you could sit comfortably on it while watching TV. The bathroom had a bath and a shower, and the view from the window was… interesting, to say the least.
