With the Legendary Maps just a few weeks away, we’ve been taking some “action”-oriented screenshots, in addition to the artful, placid environment shots that people who can actually see color (i.e. everyone who isn’t me and Frank) take, folks take screens from a bunch of actual games to release either on the Web site or to other media outlets. When we’re playing to take screenshots, things like “four-shotting with the BR from across the map” and “using the Sniper Rifle” are generally considered verboten. If you’ve used the Screenshot tool in Halo 3, you’re probably aware of how boring screens that feature a dude sniping another dude across Standoff can be – despite the “ban” on scoped weapons, I just can’t seem to ignore the lure of a Sniper Rifle or a Battle Rifle, even when we’re “just playing for fun.”

Carlos, Stosh and Andrew are three of the dudes who work on various parts of the screenshots and creative services team here at Bungie. During one screenshot session last week on Ghost Town, Stosh and Andrew loaded up into a Mongoose embarking on a Thelma and Louise-ian plunge into death. From that moment on, Sketch has exclusively referred to them as Carlos and the Wonder Twins. Sketch, new-old hire Shishka and I decided to take on Carlos and the Wonder Twins (possibly against their will) in this week’s all internal, all Legendary Humpday.

 

Bungie

• Shishka (Sketchg with the grenade)
• Sketch (the real Sketch)
• Soisoisoisoisoi (Luke, Sketchg with the blue thingy)

 

Carlos and the Wonder Twins

• Carnn - YES CARLOS
• Stoshy - Wonder
• Tinman - Twins

 

Game 1
Team Slayer, Blackout, as recalled by Sketch

Ahhh good old Lockout…erm, Blackout.  Once you get used to the new facade, it feels just like going back home again. Our first match was a throwback to the glory days with a straight up Team Slayer showdown on Blackout. I’m not going to lie – we had high hopes going into this match. We expected to dominate. Anything less than a blowout would be failure.

We got off to a rocky start, with the score staying uncomfortably close before I finally hit my stride and brought a world of hurt down upon the Wonder-Triplets. Our team did great but what’s really worth noting here is MY personal performance. I’m no slouch but admittedly my skills have deteriorated somewhat over the months. Maybe it was my subconscious reverting back to my Halo 2 days or maybe it was the inspiration from my teammates or maybe, just maybe, it was due to playing vastly inferior opponents… but whatever the case, I kicked more ass on that oil platform than Segal in “On Deadly Ground.” The only real difference was that I had no ulterior motive of saving the environment and I wasn’t sporting a slicked back pony-tail. I did speak in a hushed, menacing whisper though.

Despite our slow start we rallied back to take a commanding lead on the heels of my killing frenzy (thanks in no small part to some cheap Sword tactics). I led our team with 19 kills, 10 of which came from killing Tinman.

Final score:  Us 50, them 31.

Game 2
One Flag CTF, Ghost Town as remembered by Soisoisoisoisoi

This was actually the second One Flag CTF game we played. Because we were on LAN at work, folks can just pop-in and pop out of the game at will. If they popped in and had the wrong build, they'd be ejected, but if they popped in and had the right build they could run amok and when that inevitably happened we had to play a fresh game, this time with a closed party. 

Somehow I ended up with both of our Flag Captures here, which is especially curious to me, since I am the kind of player who will scoff at carrying the Flag and usually tell Frankie or Brian to pick it up and carry it, because I think their unique skillsets are better served achieving critical objectives than just running around with scoped weapons screaming OH MY GOD as I am prone to doing. I guess I ran the Flag part of the way and killed a bunch of dudes, or Brian and Shishka did all of the Flag getting and then died and I might've picked up the Flag and capped it.

In American cinema classic, Hoosiers, a line is uttered about the "sun not shining on the same dog's behind every day" (I'm sure the word is more PG-13 than that), but Carlos and the Wonder Twins, America's newest underdogs did certainly see a ray of sunlight in their final round on offense. Somehow they squirted free with the Flag and ended up getting an-ever-so-rare capture.

Confession: Sketch told us to let them capture, because he loves playing against Carlos and the Wonder Twins.

Final Score: 2-1 Us

Game 3
One Bomb, Blackout as retold by Shishka

Ah, memories. Lockout was the first Halo 2 map I had ever played. Now here I am again, back in the saddle, and who else but my old friend Lockout is there, waiting for me with open arms. There are few secrets between Lockout and I, so running through Blackout was as easy as putting on my favorite pair of pants.  The extremely organic movement through Lockout/Blackout is one of the greatest things about the map. Part of this is because a player can improvise shortcuts that involve a bit of air time. The other reason is that, when that airtime goes wrong, it does so in a generally comedic fashion. Much to our delight, Team Wonder Twins represented the latter, more fun-to-watch aspect of Blackout, and their offensive rounds consisted primarily of bomb resets and file share gold. In the end, it was total domination for Team Us Guys.  However, given the lead time they had with the map, you’d think the Wonder Twins would have put up a little resistance. Maybe they like large explosions or something.

They actually held their own pretty well at first. When they separated us from the bomb, they would control traffic around the bomb fiercely, preventing us from recovering and forcing us to wait for bomb resets to try again. However, as soon as we changed tactics; approaching by jumping down from the lift’s balcony rather than cutting through bottom-mid and taking a right at the sniper tower, Carlos just couldn’t get his boys to adapt. Our second offensive round ended pretty fast as I took the bomb to the arm location completely unhindered while Sketch and Luke kept the poor sods distracted.

Pro-tip from Tinman: Don’t try to sword-lunge up the corner of the catwalk between lift and sniper towers. The incline makes a perfect ramp and if you miss your target, you’ll fly right over the edge helplessly. Then all your coworkers will laugh at you, record film clips, take screenshots, and e-mail each other about it, discussing the hilarity of the moment far longer than you feel is necessary.

Final Score: 2-0 Team Shishka