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#10 – Not Making A Jump / Suicides

You’re having a great match, bouncing around the level and just mercin’ dudes. All the sudden, you are getting shot from behind, and in the middle of your turn you jump to flip around faster and kill this joker. Next thing you know, you’re five feet away from the edge of the level, and for the brief second you hang in midair, all you think is, “Shit.” Then you fall infinite feet (because evidently all halo levels are suspended in midair somewhere) to your death, all the while your character doing a very believable (hah) flailing arm death animation. Damn you non-realistic gravity.

#9 – Having Nubs For Teammates

You’re laying down the law. Turn left, headshot, turn right, headshot, just absolutely crushing the enemy. However, you turn the corner and see your teammate standing still, shooting at someone all the way across the map with the assault rifle. Great. After the match ends, you check the scores, and see that even though you managed to go +25 (35 kills 10 deaths), you somehow still lost by 10. I guess playing like God’s testicles was not quite enough, especially when you have Moron’s #1-3 as your teammates.

#8 – Using An Accidental Powerup

I can’t tell you how many times I have been in the middle of a fight, and I accidentally press the ‘X’ button, and next thing you know I have completely drained my own shields by using my own powerup. Sometimes I feel like they should be called powerfucks not powerups because all they seem to do is fuck me over greatly when I use them. In a fight about to snipe someone in the head? Why not accidentally throw a bubble shield and shoot that instead? There’s a winning combination for you.

#7 – Picking Up The Wrong Gun

Somehow you were able to slaughter the guy with the shotgun and his friend with the sniper, even though all you had were regular grenades and a lowly assault rifle. However, when you go to try to pick them up, you don’t realize that there is a plasma pistol next to them. So, you spend the next five minutes trying to pick up the right gun, while in the meantime the enemy sniper lines up your head, takes his sweet time, and POPurdead. If only Bungie would implement a nice menu select system when there are multiple guns near you, all problems would be solved. However, that idea must be much too difficult for video game creators to think of…hah.

#6 – Guests Still Playing For Original Team

So this picture describes this a lot better than I ever could. I love how Bungie splits up people playing on the same console on separate teams. Everyone knows they’re still going to end up playing for their teammates, and that always gets accomplished in one of three ways. 1. They team kill their own team endlessly. 2. They drive for an enemy gunner. 3. They just run around like chickens so that they are an easy kill for their friends on the other team. All of these options are equally annoying for me, although the one that really festers is option 3 because it not only hurts you, but pads your opponents stats.

#5 – AFK Teammates

Just for those of you that don’t know, AFK means ‘Away From Keyboard’. I love starting a ranked match, and telling your teammates where the enemy is, and that you need backup. What do you hear in response? Nothing. Before you know it the enemy is swarming all over you and you’re just getting massacred in 3-on-1’s over and over. When you respawn, you realize your teammates haven’t moved, and are just facing the wall. Great, you have been blessed with having AFK teammates in a ranked match, God is smiling upon you.

#4 – Quitters

This picture might not make much sense, but let me explain. You start a match, then you hear the tell-tale, “Ughhhhh” groan that Halo makes when someone quits, and you realize that it is now 1 on 4. Every time you get in a fight from now on, you will be outmatched in sheer numbers. This not only forces you to try harder than necessary, it also makes you rethink your whole strategy to maximize damage on not one player, but multiple at the same time. Because of this rethought, quitters have made it high up on the list. Fucking quitters.

#3 – Spawn Killers

When you are outmatched greatly by an opposing team, one of the worst things in Halo can happen to you: spawn killing. When you are playing someone who is not only better, but knows where the spawns are, watch out. Every time you respawn, instant death. Not only will this make you get crushed team score wise, but you have NO chance to preserve your own individual score because you will be getting hammered as well. When the other team has spawn killers, no one is safe. Your best bet is to hide as soon as possible, otherwise you will just be in an instant death loop.

#2 – Team Killers

Ah, one of my (least) favorites. Team killers. Remember when you pissed off that one guy by accidentally hitting him with the warthog? Guess what he will be doing the rest of the round. Probably following you around and continually killing you, so you will either end up dying at his hand or being an easy kill for someone on the other team. Thankfully, Bungie can’t differentiate between team damage and opponent damage when both are attacking you, and they always give the kill to the other team. If your teammate shoots you many times and you end up dying, you should have the opportunity to boot him, or in the very least retaliate without booting. With my luck, what always tends to happen is someone will team kill me several times, and I will never get the option to boot. Then, when I retaliate and kill them, I get booted instantly. Thanks Bungie!

#1 – Running Out Of Ammo

You’re in the middle of heated battle. You no scope the enemy once, and just as you pull the trigger to finish him off, you hear that fatal noise: ‘Click’. Oh. Fuck. No more ammo. Not only is this terrible because you can’t finish him off, it sucks majorly because you know that you are COMPLETELY defenseless. This not only sucks in Halo, but every shooting game. Have you ever played the new Resident Evil? For the first few levels, you never have more than 5-10 pistol bullets, and are constantly fighting 10+ zombies at once. Fuck you game creators! Running out of ammo does not make the game better, it just makes me not want to play it all. Not only does having no ammo make a game not fun, but it makes it extremely frustrating as well.

What are your guys most frustrating moments?

Of course, the Urlacher drama finally comes full circle. Urlacher can’t handle not being the most popular player in Chicago anymore, so he has to attack his new teammate, who could possibly be the savior of his career. I mean, if I got an awesome player on my team, my first thought is obviously to attack his manliness and credibility. Give me a break Urlacher. You’re still the pseudo-leader of the defense, and “savior” (dubbed by Chicagoans) Cutler can’t ever take that away for you. What happened to the Brian Urlacher who when he stood among Sayers and Butkus at the defensive legends of Chicago event, said he felt “embarassed”. Gone is that humble farm boy, and replaced is someone who is a little too comfortable with his success.

The real question here, is don’t you want a ring Brian? Maybe if you do you can stop causing ridiculous drama like a teenage girl and put your eyes on the real prize, a superbowl for Chicago.

Reflections on McNair murder/suicide.

Yes, Steve McNair was a great quarterback. Yes, Steve McNair was a well respected member of the Tennessee community, and as the announcer for Titan’s football (as heard on 670 The Score Chicago around 9:45am) put it, “One of the founding father’s of football in Tennessee.” However, the way that I think he will be remembered is as a man who was cheating on his wife, and who gave in to the desire of lust that led him down an eventual road to his death. A person’s legacy is possibly one of the most important things in life, and all of McNair’s great stats and contributions to the community will be overlooked because he was found killed with his 20 year old girlfriend, who he had bought a condo for, who his wife knew nothing about, and who his niece said was the reason for a divorce that McNair was about to initiate.

Think of all the consequences of this situation: mother outlives her son, four boys grow up without a father, a wife learns that her husband was cheating in the worst possible way, ex-teammates are emotionally affected (Eddie George broke down during an interview), and the whole community in Tennessee is deeply saddened. All of this because McNair made a choice, to not be faithful as he promised to himself and God, and honestly once he made this (see: selfish) choice, it ended up not only affecting but destroying and devastating many of the lives around him.

Our society is so selfish, which I think is really bred by capitalism, with the divorce rate over 60%, with everyone striving for the ‘idealistic’ image, sometimes it becomes hard to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. Just remember, trust your initial judgement, and you won’t go wrong.