Halo Night keeps old friends connected

About once a year, a certain home hosts an event which draws in friends from all around the Duluth area to play a game. When they play, they go by colorful pseudonyms like “JihadJoe”, “The Big L”, “Reaper”, and “Slutbear” to name a few. With four TVs, four consoles, and sixteen open controllers, the name of the game is four little letters that resonate with gamers and non-gamers alike: Halo.

Released back in 2001 for the original Xbox, Halo put the player in control of a cybernetically-enhanced space marine who battled different species of alien and symbiotic life forms in order to escape from an artificial world in the shape of a ring called Halo. But the biggest draw of the game was not its single-player campaign but the multiplayer experience. Not only could four players play against each other on the same system, but four Xbox systems could be linked together for sixteen-player mayhem. It was a way to play that is held as an annual tradition in the house of Joel Youngbloom, a web developer for the UMD office of External Affairs. But that wasn’t where the event started.

“The year was 2005 at UMD. Xbox was king and so was Halo.” Said James LaFave, an area pharmacist and one of the founding members of the event, “The beginnings started as LAN parties at the dorms and whomever had a controller or knew someone who did.”

            These floor-wide Halo parties were just the spark of an idea for James who brought it with him when he came to UMD to go to pharmacy school and moved into Torrance Hall with tech-junkie, Steven Gorghuber.

“We've played in a few different locations.” Said Youngbloom when asked about the history of the event’s location, “When I started we played in Steve's apartment in Torrence Hall. When James moved across the hall to another apartment, they somehow found a way to snake a network cable between the two apartments. A couple of times we even played in the garages behind Torrence hall. Steve had gotten up in the attic space of the garage and ran network cables between two of the stalls. It was pretty cold out and not that comfortable. After that we have played at my house. I own 7 original Xboxs and 14 controllers. Most of my Xboxs are modded.”

“In order to have a successful night, we would ideally have at least 4 veteran players. Then we try to get as many others as are willing,” said Gorghuber, “The most you can play with is 16 and we've gotten close a few times. There was a time when we played every Friday for months in a row. Now it happens much less frequently.”

The Halo franchise has spawn multiple sequels and has been online since Halo 2, yet these die-hard fans find the experience of getting together to play the original to be so much more rewarding.

            “So much of the fun of playing the way we do is that we're all there at the same house.” said Youngbloom, “Each team has two TVs in the same room. You can easily see what your team members see which helps with communication and teamwork. Switching teams means you actually get up and move to another room. I also enjoy the fact that we're keeping this over ten-year-old game alive on antiquated game consoles. It's something unique that not many people can do anymore.”

            Yet Lafave had more specific reasons to love the game.

            “The Pistol.  Love it or hate it, it was the factor that kept games competitive because of the three-shot-kills a skilled player could pull off with it.” He said. “Also, the Blood Gulch level to play capture-the-flag. Every successor to the pistol or to capture-the-flag or the original Halo engine we just didn't think were improvements or made it more fun.  Also, the frag grenades were very powerful. This made it a more even playing field.  A noob always had a chance throwing one of the two frag grenades at a wounded opponent to hope to finish him off.”

            With this year’s Halo Night already past, the three friends still plan on keeping the spirit of the game alive.

“We have all played with each other so long that we know how each other play and what pisses us off.” Said Youngbloom, “We know that Dave will always go for the rocket launcher and cloak. Ben will sit in the back of a motionless warthog firing off the turret. So I play for the jokes and have fun times with friends that I probably wouldn't otherwise get to see. It's a lot of work to organize, schedule, and set up all of the TVs, controllers, and Xboxs. But it's worth it.”

“I will always remember it positively as a great way we wasted the nights away before we all got married.” Said LaFave, “It was a symbol of our independence. We'd play for hours and hours; sometimes until 4 or 5 in the morning. Slowly, we all moved for jobs or got married or just got old and couldn't sustain late into the night anymore.”