Ich kannte bis heute nur eine Sportart, die mir sympathisch ist: Völkerball.

Jetzt kenne ich noch eine: Jugger.

Was mir an Völkerball gefiel, ist die Vorstellung, diesen Grundschulsport in einem professionellen Verein zu sehen. Mit Leuten, die genau wissen, wie sie den Bällen ausweichen, und Spielern, die sich auf beiden Seiten aufstellen und auf der Jagd nach den letzten Gegnern “Tennis” mit dem Ball spielen.

Was den Sport für mich wohl von Fußball, Handball oder Baseball unterscheidet, ist der Umstand, dass mir die Regeln nicht so grässlich konstruiert vorkommen. Die Regeln von Völkerball sind irgendwie klar und instinktiv, sie sprechen wohl auf irgendein grund-verständnis an, das man als Mensch von der Idee “Krieg” hat: Erwisch die anderen, werde nicht erwischt, wer getroffen ist fliegt raus. Bei Völkerball streitet sich niemand darum, wie denn jetzt die Regeln funktionieren, weil halt alles klar ist.

Und jetzt habe ich Jugger kennen gelernt.

Es ist ziemlich stark wie “Grifbal” aus Halo 3. Jeder hat eine Polsterwaffe, wer getroffen wird, muss für 7 Sekunden aussetzen. Ein Teammitglied ist unbewaffnet und muss den Spielball, einen künstlichen Hundeschädel (Jugger) erkämpfen und in das gegnerische Tor legen.

Der Sport ist von einem genauso benannten Film inspiriert und wurde tatsächlich in Deutschland erfunden (als echter Sport jetzt, der Filmschreiber hat ihn natürlich eigentlich erfunden). Auch hier spricht mich wieder die einfachheit an: Es gibt keine irritierenden Regeln, die ein aussenstehender sofort für wirr halten würde.

Es gibt Raum für echt kreativen Einsatz der Freiheiten, die einem geboten werden. Man darf mit den Schlägern nicht stechen, nur schlagen – aber ansonsten ist alles erlaubt. Wer im Fechtunterricht parieren gelernt hat, ist sicherlich im Vorteil.

Jugger gilt, seit der Berliner Verein offiziell anerkannt wurde, als echter Sport. Bitte bitte, macht, dass er populär wird. Ich will das im Fernsehen sehen! Weg vom Geekdom damit! Bringt endlich einen Sport in das “Sportbusiness” rein, der *eine Abwechslung* ist, nicht nur die Option bietet, ob jetzt Hände oder Füße verboten sind! Oder wenigstens Völkerball!

Oh my goodness.  It has been a while peoples.  Thanks for hanging in there.  A new random coming at you right, about, now!!!!!!!!!!!!

So GI Joe came out and I saw that.  Amazingly awesome movie.  Better than Transformers 2.  Yes, I said it.  Deal with it.

Some new games came out and while I won’t talk about all of them, I will say, that I did buy Madden this year.  Surprisingly good and defiantely worth it.

Chester from Linkin Park had a new single drop for his band, Death By Sunrise.  Different while at the same time so familiar.  I need a few more listens to form a better opinion.

District 9 was a pleasent surprise.  The first 30 minutes had me, but the constant violence and action towards the end was really not needed.  It was a great film without all that shit.

Inglorious Basterds was really good.  Chapters 2, 4, and 5 of the 5 part movie were great and really well done.  Brad Pitt was perfect.

I am addicted to Defying Gravity.  It is a great show and very interesting.  The special effects are also very good for a TV show.

I broke my phone, got a Blackberry, and then returned it.  The damn thing wouldn’t get a signal in my house.  Went back to one of my old Sidekicks.  I may upgrade to the new one again.  I have played with it since and realize the shortcommings aren’t too bad not that I have 3G in my area.  We’ll see.

Shadow Complex for the XBL Arcade is awesome.  Worth every penny of the 15 bucks I paid. 

Going to Florida in September for work.  Going to add an extra day for some fun.

Why do the new PS3 systems no longer play PS2 and PSOne games?  Now I have to go to Gamestop and buy another PS3 used to play my old crap.  Wasted 300 bucks.

Still addicted to Call of Duty 4.  Love that game.  Not so much Gears of War anymore, though I still like it.  The online is horrible with lag and the extra content they pushed was a waste, except for the Nowhere map.  That is really cool.

Bought a Grifball action figure from Halo.  It is cool.

Anyway, back to work now.  I’ll try to make the updates closer together.  If not, follw me on twitter and soon, I may be making a Facebook page.  Might merge this with that.  We’ll see.

Later.

I love Halo 3… but it drives me crazy (sometimes) too.  For some reason, I have very high expectations when I play.  I expect to win or at least be very competitive.  When I don’t win or, worse yet, when I’m totally not competitive at all and end up getting demolished, I’m not a happy camper.  Why?  I’m not like that with other games that I play online.  When I’ve sucked at Call of Duty 4 or Call of Duty: World at War, I didn’t mind and still had fun.  Same can basically be said about Gears of War 2.  But Halo 3… if I suck, then I’m not having fun (usually).  However, I keep coming back to it more than Gears.  There must be reasons why.

Things I love about Halo 3:

1. Playing with friends:  I still have not found a game that has as good of a party system as Halo 3.  It’s the best for playing online with your friends.  After each game, you’re back in “your room” with just your friends.  While matchmaking searches for the next game, you’re with your friends.
2. Fun weapons:  Between the battle rifle, shotgun, sniper, needler, rocket launcher, spartan laser, missile pod, energy sword, gravity hammer, and so on… there are lots of fun ways of getting your enemy.
3. Vehicles:  Many first person shooters lack vehicles or have vehicles that are hard to control.  In Halo 3, the vehicles are easy to control and there’s a nice variety of them.
4. I don’t have to listen to idiots online:  Halo 2 was plagued by having to listen to morons on the opposing team or even worse, on your team!  In Halo 3, I can easily mute them in game, or better yet, I can choose the option of only being able to hear the people on my team and in my party.  NOTE:  With the xbox live’s new party system, the latter can be acheived in any game.
5. GRIFBALL:  Arguably the biggest surprise of Halo 3.  A gametype similar to soccer or rugby, but in Halo 3 with gravity hammers and energy swords.  Lots of fun.  Lots of laughs.  Best played with friends.

Things that annoy me about Halo 3:

1. How did I die?:  In Call of Duty 4, once you die, you get to see a replay of how you died before you respawn.  Therefore, there’s no confusion.  In Halo 3, you sometimes have no clue how you died.  Yes, you could go to theater mode after the game is done and watch the video of the whole game, but there’s two problems with this.  One, you have to fast forward to the part that you wanted to see (hopefully you remember how far into the game you want to go).  Two, going into theater mode while playing with friends in between games seems to never happen, as it would inconvenience the other members in your party.
2. That’s ridiculous!:  How are they still alive?  Too many times (due to lag?), you’ll (appear to) unload a full clip of your weapon into an enemy, only to see them survive.  Yes, this can happen in other games too, I suppose, but it seems to happen more than I want it to in Halo 3.  Perhaps my high expectations for Halo 3 distort my perception on this topic.  Maybe it happens less than I think it does… but regardless, when it happens, it’s very frustrating.  Good thing I play in my basement at night… I don’t need my family (sleeping upstairs) to hear me yelling during these moments.
3. Ranking system is “broken”:  To say the ranking system is “broken” is a bit harsh, but it drives this point home.  Every night I play, I get matched up against level 50’s (the highest one can be).  Let me clarify, they’re not level 50 in the playlist I’m playing in, but they ARE level 50 in something else (like Lone Wolves or Team Slayer playlists).  I’ve seen the argument that a Team Slayer level 50 isn’t necessarily equal to being a level 50 in an objective game, like Capture the Flag… but I hate that reasoning.  If a guy is level 50 in Team Slayer, then that means they excel at killing their enemies — which last time I checked is a HUGE component of succeeding on offense and defense in objective games!!!  So, why am I being put in games against level 50’s in Squad Battle or Team Skirmish or Social Big Team games???  Bungie, the creators of Halo, has used the earlier argument to explain it… which I hate.  This is a major annoyance and problem for someone like me that is only a level 31 (in Lone Wolves).
4. Experience rating vs. Actual Rank:  In every playlist, you have an experience rating, but also a rank (unless it’s a Social playlist, where you’ll only have an experience rating).  This is very confusing for many people.  Yes, it’s been explained by bungie here, but people still get confused by it — probably because they use the same symbols for experience rating as they do for overall rank.
5. People playing on second accounts:  Although this could be argued as not exactly “cheating”, there are people who are normally ranked in the 40’s or level 50, who say “hey, let’s make a new account so that we’ll be ranked low and get to pwn noobs!!!”  The Team Doubles playlist seems to be plagued by these type of gamers.  How do you know if you’re against someone like this?  Check out their game history — if they haven’t played much, but their overall experience is only slightly lower than their games played, then that means they’re winning almost all of their games.  This likely indicates a guy who was probably a level 50 who now is on a 2nd account to be able to totally demolish his enemy… which is YOU!  Have fun.

Halo 3: ODST comes out on September 22 of this year (2009).  It will include two discs, one with the new ODST campaign, and the other with a Halo 3 multiplayer disc that has the last 3 new maps, Longshore, Citadel, and Heretic (a remake of Halo 2’s Midship map).  It also comes with a new multiplayer mode called “Firefight”, which is similar to Gears of War 2’s “Horde” mode, where you fight with friends against waves and waves of alien enemies.  Looking forward to it…

Bungie frequently set-up Double EXP Weekend playlists in Halo 3 (Usually they run from Thursday afternoon to Monday Morning). Most of the time these playlists contain game types and maps that wouldn’t be in regular playlists. For example, game modes such as Infection and Rocket Race will pop up, and this is fine, as both are used in moderation (In my opinion, Infection isn’t used as much as it should be).

I have one gripe with Double EXP weekends, and that is: Grifball. This is used way too often, something like once a month, it’s pretty ridiculous when game modes like Fiesta and Infection can go months on end without seeing the light of day.

But it’s not only the frequency of this game type that irritates me – Bungie refuse to stop making it as frequent as it is because of it’s high population whenever it’s up, and I can see their reasoning. As a developer, they want more people to play their games.

But fuck me this game type is terrible. I have no idea why anyone wants to play this. To prove my own point, I jumped in to two games of Grifball today to gather photographic evidence (read: screenshots) of why this game type is so horrible.

First of all: Betrayals, or team killing.

Each player in this game has no sheilds, apart from the person with the Bomb. This means that a single hammer blow will kill you. You don’t even need to be near the hammer to be killed by it because of the splash damage it creates. As a result, team killing, accidental or not, is very easy to do. It’s annoying as hell when you’re about to go for the kill, and then a team mate next to you swings their hammer, thus killing you. It’s very annoying. What’s worse is that you some times get people who purposely betray (They might have been split-up from their friends and thus help their friends win the game by killing their team mates). Even worse? No option to boot.

Next up is the latency involved. The Internet isn’t perfect and in this game type, it really shows. If you’re the host of the game (Yup, no dedicated servers) then chances are that you’ll dominate just about everyone in the game. If you swung your Hammer before the enemy in front of you did, there is no guarantee that you’ll get the kill. As proven in these two screenshots below. The first one is me swinging the hammer before the guy in front of me, and the second depicts my death.

Sure this problem isn’t Bungie’s fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that it detracts from the enjoyment of the game type. In this regard, this makes Grifball something that you should only really play at LAN Parties or something.

Next up on my list are multikills, which are very, very easy to obtain in this playlist. Grifball is easily the easiest game type to earn a Killionaire in. In fact, in the first game of Grifball I played today, I got myself a Killtastrophe Medal. Here is my trip to Killtastrophe, in screenshot form:

Double Kill.

Overkill.

Killtacular. That’s 5 enemies killed within 4 seconds of each other.

Killmanjaro.

Killtastrophe. 8 Enemies dead within four seconds of each other.

Piss easy.

It undermines the value of these medals – which are supposed to be extremely difficult to get. Now, thanks to Grifball, even the biggest of Nubcakes can now earn these prestigious medals.

This brings me on rather nicely to my final point, which is spawn killing. In the above screenshots, I was spawn killing. It’s easy to do in this game type – and is also pretty much necessary if you ever want to score points. Sure, spawn killing enemies is fun, but let me tell you, getting spawn killed is the complete opposite. It’s literally just spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, over and over and over again, until you or one of your team mates gets lucky and kills the person responcible for it.

More to the point, why aren’t there more spawn points? Why not have some in the back corners or on the side or something instead of having everyone spawn in the same place, only to get slaughtered?

Oh, and later on this month we’ve got Team Melee to look forward to, which is basically Grifball in a Team Slayer form. Basically what i’m saying in this post is that Bungie need to have a larger variety with the playlists that are used for Double EXP weekends. As I said earlier, Fiesta and Infection very rarely see the light of day. How about letting us play these instead of this horribly overused piece of garbage?

Also something for you to think about, I paid £40 for Halo 3, £40 a year for an Xbox Live subscription, £230 for my Xbox 360 Elite, £25.50 (appoximatly) for three Map Packs, and we’re being dictated by some Bungie employee what we can and can’t play, but that’s a rant for another day.

This is a short and sweet reminder to those of you who have held on tight to your last Alexander Hamilton and didn’t give into the hype around Foundry and Grifball (which rocks by the way):

As of this morning, 2 a.m. Pacific, The Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack was made available for free download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. So tonight expect some thumb burning frustration when you try to explore all the new maps (Rat’s Nest, Standoff, and Foundry) with those who have had them since December gunning you down.

For a closer look at the new maps check out this Red vs. Blue video by the machinima pros over at Rooster Teeth.

Photos courtesy of Bungie.net.

(Written on 3/25/2008)

Frankie and Sketch playin Grifball

Here at NTHAT, we’re all really big fans of Grifball (my favorite part being the ‘Grif pain and suffering’) and that is why I was very pleased to see this little blurb in the Halo 3 Title Update article on BNet:

How does this affect Double EXP weekends? Could I become a General in Griffball?

Shishka: Double EXP weekends will continue to make a regular appearance in Halo 3 for the foreseeable future. Yes, it is potentially possible to become a General in a double EXP weekend playlist, and yes, it will occur in half the time it’d take to become a General in a regular playlist.

For awhile we’ve wanted some sort of ranking system for Grifball, the idea being that we’d like to see where we fall in the grand scheme of things and then try to claw our way up. It looks like Trueskill will help us out with that. Good lookin’ out, Bungie.

Note: The current ‘NTHAT Judges TU2’ scoring is Bungie1, Bungle-124…No, I’m kidding. Bungie1, Bungle 0 (We’re gonna give them a Mulligan on yesterday’s debacle because, well, they’re actually pretty damn awesome.)

Also, I yoinked this pic from bubblegun.egloos.com and I wanted to make sure I give credit where credit is due. Actually, here is a whole gallery of what I’m guessing is some of the WETA props that have been mentioned here and there. Very cool stuff.

Everytime I hear “emo” associated to the musical debacle that’s been tagged “emo” for the last half dozen years.  I’ve said it before, emo isn’t stupid.  There are were some great emo bands out there.  Take a look at anything on the Polyvinyl label for instance.  By the way, in a very sad turn of events, Jade Tree Records executives have taken second jobs and are not returning phone calls so they can soccer-hooligan overseas (allegedly).

I don’t know exactly when emo became shitty goth-punk.  I really don’t.  One day emo kids are wearing 4″ cuffed blue jeans and sweater vests and the next they look like a Tim Burton casting call.  The first time I saw an emo kid wearing arm socks I had the same reaction I did back in the day when I saw a white kid wearing a Public Enemy t-shirt.  It just doesn’t look right.  And I say that as a die-hard PE fan.  Me and Chuck D go way back.  I was even down with Professor Griff (who, dissapointedly isn’t the commissioner of Grifball).

Now, what brought this post up is a post on Geekologie about a robot with feelings.  The first thought I had was (as you’ll see in the comments) “Short, pale, emotional.  Fuck, they built an emo kid.”  This is really how my mind works.  Robot with feelings > Emo music sucks > White kids in Public Enemy T-shirts > Halo 3 mods.  I don’t understand me, either.

radiant penguin, El Pescador, JawshBot, Ninja Slothboy

radiant penguin

radiant penguin

This weekend, there is a social matchmaking hopper in Halo 3 called DoubleEXPWeekend. This hopper consists of Grifball, and only Grifball. You probably already know what Grifball is. It is a gametype that the creators of Red vs. Blue (a really popular machinima series based on Halo) made. Grifball is an assault gametype. Everybody has swords and gravity hammers, and it’s neutral assault. When you have the bomb, you have less gravity, have big overshields, and run way faster. The arming time is instant.

To win in this gametype, you have to do a couple of things. In the beginning, do not rush into the middle of the map (Foundry) where the bomb is. A lot of people will rush there and kill each other. Instead, stay back at your bomb arming point and wait until everybody kills each other in the middle. Then see where the bomb is. If the other team has it, find the bomb holder, and make sure he doesn’t touch your bomb arming point. I recommend you use the hammer a lot, because it is easy to kill with, especially in Grifball. (For Gravity Hammer strategies, check out my article on Gravity Hammers.) Use the sword only in some cases, where it might be useful, like lunges at the bomb holder.

I recommend you don’t follow the other team’s bomb holder around the map. He is way faster than you are, and can outrun you with ease. Instead, stay near your arming point, so that if the bomb holder gets near, you will be able to finish him off before he scores.

Some people just run toward the other team’s arming point when they have the bomb. DO NOT do that. If you have the bomb, run a little bit not near your enemies to get your overshield. Then start going to plant the bomb. Because the bomb holder has less gravity, run forward and jump over your enemies, then jump again, and you will be able to score. If you do this correctly, this will work most of the time. (For help, see my uStream.Tv video on this.)  

That is how to win in Grifball.

-Maximz2005

A little while back a Halo 3 game variant known as Grifball hit the scene. It’s a great showcase of what the customization of Halo 3 can offer. It’s fun as you would think, but none of that matters if you don’t know how to play. Shown above is a quick walk through by Roosterteeth’s Red vs. Blue. A feature that those of you loving Call of Duty 4 don’t have the ability to create, this should remind gamers of the depth of that current #2 Xbox Live game Halo 3.

[Via Grifball.com]

-William “thewilleffect” Bell-

Dark Spartan796

There’s a new Halo gametype sweeping teh Internets. It’s called Grifball, and boy is it fun.

This gametype comes to us straight from the Rooster Teeth guys themselves, famed for the web series, Red vs. Blue. The game’s namesake comes from one of the characters, named Grif (the orange one), who is often hated and wished dead by the red Sergeant. During a sniping session against Grif, Sarge comments that “this is the best game since Grifball!” And the gametype was born.

RULES OF GRIFBALL

Grifball is a simple game. Two teams of 3-4 players square off in a simple arena in which each team has a goal. The object is to take the ball in the middle of court and put it in the other team’s goal.

1. Scoring a goal earns one point and ends the round.
2. Each match consists of five rounds. The team with at least three points at the end of five rounds wins the match.
3. Each player has a gravity hammer and an energy sword (secondary).
4. Damage is set to 300% with player health set to 10%. One direct hit will kill a player.
5. Dead players respawn in three seconds at their own goal.
6. The ball carrier has a 3x Overshield, 150% speed and turns orange for some reason.
7. Friendly players can hurt each other. Learn to use your radar.
8. In the unlikely event that a player finds themselves thrown outside of the arena (beyond the wall), find a teleporter. It will drop you out in the middle of the arena. Play is not suspended when a player goes out of bounds. It is your duty to return to play.
9. If a ball carrier goes out of bounds, the must return to play within 30 seconds (judged by time on Save Film) or they forfeit the entire match. If they leave the ball beyond the wall, it will reset within 30 seconds. Play is not suspended while the ball or ball carrier is out of bounds.

There are already a lot of sites and such dedicated to Grifball. Links follow.

Grifball gametype and map download

Original forum post by Burnie Burns

Official Grifball Community

A totally cool Grifball wallpaper

We at Team Legit got a hold of Grifball and loved it. We’re probably thinking about making a team of our own if interest continues. Join in on the fun!