First and foremost, let me say this. I AM NOT a Halo fanboy. My hatred for Halo 2 and Halo 3 is directly proportional in magnitude to my love for boobs, or as some of you prefer, bewbs. In my opinion, boobs are the greatest thing on the planet.

That said, I come from a generation where multi-player only meant friends coming over or going to a friend's house to play a game with more than one player at a time. It meant getting our controllers dirty and stained with pizza roll grease that the host's mom nuked. It meant hitting A & B together and taking one of your friend's extra lives. It meant playing a game with your friends without interruption.

Now, multi-player means putting a head set on, getting online via game console or computer and most of the time playing with people you have/will never meet. It will involve people like 13375NiP3|2, H4XXrK00L or W33Dsmoke420BoNgRiP, instead of Jason or Mark. I don't mean to say multi-player is absolutely terrible now, but (call me old fashioned, or just old) I prefer the simpler times.

For me, Halo 1 is the best multi-playing action I got out of a video game. It surpassed Goldeneye and that's no simple task. I remember going up to my friend's church and seeing Halo for the first time. There were two big screen tv's, a 30" in another room, and another smaller one someone brought from his house. All 16 slots were filled and we had to wait for the game to end for our turn. At first, we weren't that into it. It was just a pretty cool game that you could play with a lot of people....ok, that's cool, whatever. I had no intention of buying an XBOX. Then something happened that would change the game in mine eyes forever.

CTF BG
This, of course, means capture the flag at the map Blood Gulch (I punctuate it like it's a proper noun. That tells you how much respect I have for this).
The following criteria had to be met for a good game of CTF BG:
1. Murder mix. This was our custom soundtrack of slaying music including bands such as White Zombie, Slayer, Pantera, Vision of Disorder, Lamb of God, Buckethead and many more!! Call now to get your Murder Mix today and we'll include a set of earplugs valued at $9.99 at NO EXTRA CHARGE!!!!!
2. Only one vehicle. Warthog.
3. No radar
4. No plasma weapons. Only manly weapons. Pistol. Shotgun. Rocket Launcher. Assault Rifle. Sniper Rifle.
5. Multiple flag. 3 caps. Had to have your flag secure in your base to score.
6. 3 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 4 is the only way to fly.
7. optional: the partaking in the inhalation of plants (hey, man it's college).

I recall so many instances where I swore nothing greater could ever happen in a video game, only to be outshined by something a week later. Our games would always start the exact same way and everyone of us knew exactly what to do. White Zombie's Electric Head pt.1 starts up, we get in our respective warthogs and head for the middle. Full-throttled warthogs with a manned fully-automatic .50 cal on back headed toward each other with one purpose and one purpose only: slaughter.

I can't express the feelings of happiness, frustration, amazement, heart break and temporary hatred for an opposing player I felt throughout the time we played that game. Nothing is more satisfying than hearing a loud thump come from the other room where you know your friend is gritting his teeth trying hard not to let you know how pissed he is that you just did something to make him wish he had never tried to tangle with you in the first place....but you know how pissed he is....you know. The kind of pissed off where you don't talk shit about it, because it happening in the first place is sufficient enough for the time. The look of desperation on the last surviving opponent's face (even though it's hidden behind a mask and non-existent) as you look through your scope letting him live long enough to watch his flag vanish into the distance before you put a hole in his computer is a very pleasant feeling (run-on?). Seeing your teammate barreling down the hillside one hand on the wheel, the other holding waving victory as a rocket screams at his bumper is almost as terrifying as hearing your girlfriend's dad open the front door mid-coitus. The disappointment you feel as you make a brilliant half-aimed half-judged rocket blast at the warthog carrying your flag, just to have it blow up and launch the flag 3 feet from their front door is unmatched.

Here are the things that went wrong in the transition from Halo 1 to 2 (contains lots of sarcasm).
-No pistol. Wow. Congratulations, you took out the best weapon in the game and replaced it with what? Oh, another assault rifle and an air soft pistol. Bravo. F'ing Bravo.
-Warthogs take damage. You've got to be kidding me! Do you remember this video?

I mean what is cooler than launching an indestructible turret-mounted ATV through the air that may or may not land perfectly and keep rolling like nothing happened, especially if you are driving? Nothing. Nothing is.
-The grenades have about 1/100 of the power they had. Then, if a grenade landed anywhere near you, there was one thing you had to do. Run. Now, it's like hurling a pine cone at someone. (pine cones are abundant where I live)
-Heat-seeking rocket launcher. Oh, thank you!! Now, I don't have to bother with aiming to kill someone. What a relief, I mean why should I have to aim to get a kill? That's just too much work. Thank you, Halo 2. I love you.

-You know, there are too many things to say on this subject and the little kids with microphones is a whole other issue I won't delve into. This is about my Halo 1 experience, not about the disgrace and absolute disappointment Halo 2 was.

We didn't only play CTF BG. I swear. We had some excellent custom game modes.
Bird Nuts was a king of the hill game where there were only shotguns, infinite grenades and invisibility the entire time. Chill Out was the best map for that one.
Shit Race was a race, where you had to get the checkpoints before the other team did. I think it was usually 3-5 laps. Only rocket launchers. I can't remember if there were infinite grenades or not. I don't think there were. We would elect one person to drive, one to watch the driver, and one to take out the other warthog.
...just to name a few

In about an hour, I am actually scheduled for a Halo 1 multi-player outing. "At least 3 on 3" is what I was told. People who still prefer Halo 1 and play from time to time get my stamp of approval, child-rapist or not. Work is going to suck tomorrow.

The reason I got an XBOX, as I'm sure was the same reason a large percentage of people did, was for Halo 1. I didn't buy another XBOX game. The only other XBOX game I played was Psychonauts, which is great, by the way, for anyone who has never played it. I don't even feel bad about that. I should, but that game gave me so much, it made up for everything. I remember the first day Halo 2 came out. We started playing it immediately with the same people that always played and one hour later, we were playing Halo 1 again.

Just returned from Halo. I'm hungry.

Halo 1 had its fair share of glitches, which some people hated the game because of. I can understand that, but that's the kind of thing that you have to accept and play with as if it were made to be in there. Everyone took advantage of the glitches. One of my favorites is how you double-tap the reload button and switch to the other weapon and the first keeps reloading. In fact, I probably did that about 300 times tonight not even thinking about it. A glitch I hate is the term we coined "phantom rocket". This is when you fire a rocket launcher while turning and it vanishes like a black man when he sees the po-lice acomin' (no offense). Ooooh the squat jump is great. You can fall from really high and if you time the squat just right, you take no damage. That's a good one that actually requires a bit of skill and practice.

Those Red vs. Blue videos came from Halo 1. How can you not like that?

And this was made.

Damn, that's sweet.

I will say this about Halo 3 that is actually a great idea. The replays. If we had that during our games, I would have endless amounts of entertainment on hand.

Best game ever? Not even close.
Best multi-player game ever? So far. In my opinion anyway.

And to further clarify my love for boobs: