My first stumble with the Halo universe was when I was just eight years old, in 2001. I remember my mom would always go to one of her friends houses to talk for long hours about gossip, news and many other… shall I say teary subjects. My moms friend had a son, a 17 year old boy who was always really good to me. We would have a great time playing with his collectors swords and teaching me how to use the force, until one fateful day when I got there I saw him sitting on his couch with three other people I had never seen before laughing and screaming at each other. I was immediately attracted, back then I didn’t understand anything at all, all I heard was the now so familiar AR fire and all I saw were the different shades of greens yellows and browns of blood gulch. After that day I didn’t see Halo for quite a while, but I was always captivated by the amount of fun my friend had that day.
About three years later my mom had to drop me of at one of her clients places. Once again I ran headlong into a surprisingly smug 17 year old boy who invited me to his room. I sat down, he handed me the big black controller of an XBOX when I suddenly saw the blue start screen of a video game. By then I was a little more familiar with video games, my dad had bought an atari and all I did was play pitfall and Bosconian. Soon I was screaming and laughing just like my friend did all those years ago and I remembered the game he was playing, so I asked the kid next to me what was this enchanting game was called he said “Halo 2.” I still remember being pinned down by the elite rangers in cairo station trying to get to the bomb for over twenty minutes when suddenly, I had to go not to see this new and wonderful world again for quite some time.
Next I was on the move, it was December 2006 and I was going to a third world south american country, Ecuador to be exact. Me and my ecuadorian father had gone first to surprise my grandparents, who were expecting us a week later. While I was there I was completely bored out of my skull, when my older brother called me and started talking to me about this super fun “demo” he found on the internet. Immediately I thought it was the sequel to lego star wars. I had been playing it recently and I really enjoyed it. But when my brother answered he said “no it’s not lego star wars its something…. I dont know different.” For the next week I was so anxious to see what this new “different” game was. When my brother finally got there the first thing he told me was that it was called “Halo Combat Evolved.” I couldn’t believe it there was another halo, and my brother got to play it first. I maid him download the demo again on our tiger mac and let me play. While I was roaming the innards of the silent cartographer and ding hundreds of time’s from the colossal Hunters, that’s when it took me over. I didn’t know at the time what but I knew that this game was something else, it was some how my own my only game.
I played the crap out of that demo for a year, thats whenI I came up with my alias Stickyo8. At the time I thought I was the best sticker around. One time while I was walking around with my family, I saw a copy of halo and I knew that I had to get it. I Begged my mom for five dollars(dont judge me i’m in a third world country) and I knew that if I didn’t get those five dollars I would never get my hands on halo. Luckily I got the money, bought the game and when I got home there was another problem. It was for PC and I still had that apple Tiger and my dad wouldn’t let me put the disc in his laptop, because he was scared it had viruses. So I crossed the street to the neighbors house, he let me use his old Dell desktop. From then on it was bliss, I played the game over and over again, with a white master chief instead of a green one and no multiplayer, but I loved it.
One day while I was surfing the net, I found this video called halo “2 E3 reveal.” The following minutes I was amazed at how much halo had changed. Little did I remember playing Cairo station back in 04. So logically after seeing the video, I new I had to search Ebay for an xbox. When I found out that there was a xbox 360 and halo three my mind exploded. The next three years I saved my money, I watched halo wars and halo ODST role out. First I got halo wars, played it and was more enticed by the story than the game play. Then halo 1,2 and ODST arrived. I finished the campaign of halo 2 in one night(on easy) and used the forty eight hour xbox live trial that came with ODST and played halo 3 multiplayer for the first time. I remember walking into walls, getting sniped teabaging the corpses of already dead enemies. Through out the next years I bought the books Halo: the fall of reach , first strike, the flood and ghosts of onyx. I loved them all. The universe so involved it was wonderful. I bought halo reach and that is were most of my multiplayer prowess has come from. Finally I got my hands on all the Halo’s and I couldn’t be happier. I never experienced halo 2 multiplayer or lan partys. I never stood in line for halo 3 or reach, because I live in third world country were halo doesn’t even exist but the fact that I have been able to enjoy the halo universe and share this story with you shows how I feel towards halo its maker and its fans. Hey but i’m just another fan no different from the next guy so Halo you have my humble gratitude for being my only game.
-Sticky08
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