Fanfight: X3F vs. GTR in Halo 3 -- Recap

Last night, two blogging worlds collided when X3F took on Gamertag Radio in a Halo 3 8v8 duel-de-force. The matches were frantic, the smack talk was thick and the testosterone exuded from all sixteen gamertags. You could tell that a bitter war was about to be unleashed.

X3F and GTR teams both met up in a David Dreger hosted room, each choosing a team color. GTR went with old school blue (which we now call "boring blue") and we went with something a little more lively and exciting ... pink. With color decisions behind us we were infromed that GTR was missing one of their players, so they quickly decided to pick someone up from Godfree's friends list. We weren't sure what all the hubbub was all about, but Godfree mentioned something about needing their "secret weapon" and not knowing where he was. We simply shrugged, accepted GTR's replacement and with our colors chosen, both teams agreed on a set of rules. We agreed to decide on a Fanfight winner by doing a best out of three, starting off with Valhalla, Team Slayer, first to 100. Then, the losing team would choose the second match's gametype / map and the same would go for the third. Everyone buckled in, took a deep breath and we began our Fanfight.

Team Slayer in Valhalla was extremely intense, but intense in a "wow, we're pwning" kind of way. We wiped the grassy hills with GTR's dead carcasses and never looked back. X3F easily won the first game of three, 100 to 74. We claimed major pwnage. After the Valhalla beating, GTR complained a bit about lag (of course) and demanded we give up party leader. So, after assuring David that his party leader duties would be in good hands, GTR took over and chose the second game, The Pit, Team Slayer, first to 100. But right before we started the second game there was a player change that took place. Godfree let out a squeal and announced that his secret weapon had arrived ... Nano551. Nano551 replaced the stand-in player and the countdown began. Unsure of the player swap and his "secret weapon" status, we headed into The Pit.

Now this is where our Fanfight gets a little blurry or shall we say a little laggy. Wait, we take that back. This is where the Fanfight gets unbearably laggy and chop'tastic. The Pit was nothing but a laggy mess for team X3F, we had serious connection issues and seriously muffed up communication as a result. Heck, for over five minutes I had no clue what the score was, because the frag counts weren't calculating on my screen. So, every once and a while, I had to ask my teammates if we were winning or not. Simply put, lag sucks. Anyway, we ended up losing The Pit to team GTR in a nail biter of a game ... 98 to 100. Was the lag to blame? Maybe. Were we discouraged? Not at all. We lost so we got to choose the third and final gametype / map ... and we wanted blood.

After heading back into the lobby to begin the third match, the trash talk erupted. We were a tad bitter about our performance, lag and how close our loss was in The Pit. GTR was perky, excited and happy that they had their Nano551 secret weapon. This was it, the final match and David took back his party leader crown and we all headed into Sandtrap, Team Slayer, first to 100.

The final round was definitely a wave of mixed emotions. One moment we were leading, another moment we were losing ever so slightly while other times we were down a bunch. But in the end the frag gap closed, both teams were within' the 100 kill goal and everyone was on the edge of their seats. Sadly, team X3F came up short. The final score ended up being 93 to 100 in GTR's favor. With our tails between our legs some of us started to cry (well, at least one of us did) and we claimed defeat. But we pride ourselves on being good sports, so we congratulated our GTR foes friends, because they just won the first Fanfight. Lucky devils.

Overall, we did pretty good as a team and kept it close. We have yet to reflect on last night's pwnage and as a result haven't yet pinpointed the exact reason why we couldn't defeat team GTR. Maybe we needed better communication, maybe we needed a super secret weapon or maybe it was the god awful lag in The Pit. No matter the reason, we had a blast and can nearly confirm a second Fanfight in the weeks to come (Team Fortress 2 anyone?) We'll have to see, but until then be sure to download and watch all three Fanfight matches which are downloadable via our file share. Also, we made a super cool highlights video of all the action, so you should view that too (it's the video embedded above). Thanks for the support and kind words fellow fanboys, next time we'll bring home the crown ... just for you.

Read - Amazing highlights video
Read - All three matches on Bungie.net file share