Glenn: When I picked “Halo 3” I thought I’d be a little bit fairer than just making Chris face me one-on-one so I told him he could have the rest of The Collegian’s editors to help him out. I have never and will never profess to being amazing at “Halo;” at my best I’m just decent. But I knew going into this bloodbath that Chris and his teammates had no chance of beating my totally average amount of skill.

Chris: Every experience I’ve ever had playing “Halo” has ended one of two ways: 1) I get bored after one or two games and decide to quit because I’m so terrible and show little to no signs of getting any better. 2) I accept my awfulness and decide to keep “playing,” and by “playing” I mean finding new ridiculous ways to die and trying out every vehicle that has been placed on the map, I assume for my enjoyment. Neither of those approaches have ever ended in me getting anywhere near “winning” at “Halo.”

Tyler: I haven’t played “Halo” in two years. Last time I played, I was kicked out permanently. I’m not very good at video games. I’m about as good at video games as I am at any sport that requires coordination. That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t confident, though. I wanted Chris to pull the upset on this one, because I figured, “How hard can it be?”

Melanie: I can count the amount of times I’ve played video games on one hand. Going into this brawl, I knew there would be no chance of defeating Glenn, but I figured it would make for good entertainment. I was sure that watching me fail at a game I’ve never played would probably be the highlight of everyone’s Monday, and I was okay with it.

Glenn: I expected Melanie to do about as well as most girls I know; spend half the time looking at the floor and the other half of the time running into walls. Surprisingly, she only did that for the first minute of the game; she spent the rest of the game blindly running in circles. I chose High Ground as the location for the massacre that was about to throw down. I was the Red team and everyone else was Blue.

Chris: To further hinder my abilities, my thumb is still pretty sore from football. What do you use to play video games? Thumbs. This is literally the only physical disadvantage I could possibly have. I’m starting to think that was Glenn’s plan all along. “Sure, we can play two sports in a row followed by two video games…”

Glenn: I started the game by ducking into one of the storage rooms to pick up the alien carbine. No sooner than I stepped out the door did Melanie come barrelling through the archway and then standing perfectly still. Easy-peasy.

Melanie: At this point, I’m still figuring out how to move, and am not even slightly concerned about killing Glenn. All of a sudden my controller started vibrating and I couldn’t move. “Am I getting shot?” Yes. I was Glenn’s first kill – not even a minute into the game. To put it simply: this was pretty much the rest of the game for me.

Glenn: I ran up the stairs to the big machine gun above the arch. I pulled it off its stand, spotted Chris, and unloaded a hail of bullets into him. I turned, saw Tyler, and proceeded to gun him down on the spot. As if on cue, Melanie walked right into the oncoming traffic of bullets and finally Tyler remembered that he was supposed to try and kill me. After a few missed shots, Tyler’s aim prevailed and I fell to the ground, dead.

Tyler: It wasn’t my aim that prevailed. That was pretty much luck, because I’m a terrible shot. My crosshairs were circling, and Glenn must have just managed to stay in them long enough for the kill. Regardless, I was pumped. I fist pumped. I cheered. I was sufficiently motivated.

Glenn: It was cute.

Chris: Contrary to Glenn’s beliefs, I do play video games… well, video game. I play way too much FIFA. So much FIFA that when it was time to pick up an Xbox controller and try to play a different game, my hands still thought it was FIFA. For the first three times that I respawned, I would continuously hold down the right trigger hoping to run faster, and instead spray bullets in front of me. In hindsight, this might have been a better strategy than actually trying to find Glenn and kill him.

Glenn: My next move was to grab the Spartan Laser, a one-shot-kill weapon that takes several seconds to charge. The moment I picked up the laser and turned around Melanie slammed into the rock wall in her quadrunner. Melanie’s timing was impeccable. With very little effort I aimed the laser and destroyed Melanie. I dropped down to the ground and ran right out into the open, demonstrating an Odysseus level of hubris, and waited for my victims to come to me.

Right on cue, Tyler started running straight at me, chucking grenades and spewing bullets everywhere but onto me. Tyler’s swimmer mind told him to go straight as fast as possible which just made aiming the laser at Tyler that much easier.

Tyler: I’m used to going in a straight line. I only turn around when I hit a wall. I didn’t hit a wall, but Glenn’s laser was there instead. I’m sure if that was actually me in the game, getting shot by the laser would probably be a bit more painful than just running into a wall.

Glenn: Chris adopted a similar strategy, charging down the hill with a submachine gun (which are not known for their accuracy at medium-to-long ranges). It was a triumphant sight. Until my laser cut him in half. Feeling a little more sporting I picked up the sniper rifle, zoomed in and effortlessly headshotted Tyler, who just happened to be standing near a ledge.

“Mercy, Glenn!” one of my roommates shouted.

“No mercy,” I replied coldly. “Not after golf.”

Melanie: I still have no idea what’s happening.

Chris: I finally got my first kill by meleeing Glenn in the back of the head, a.k.a my signature move, much in the way that Glenn’s signature move in golf was to pick the ball up and move it closer to the hole while I wasn’t looking. Effective? Not at all, but it’s all I’ve got.

Glenn: I walked up onto the walkway and found Chris manning the heavy machine gun, which would have been intimidating if he was facing in my direction or knew I was behind him. I chucked a sticky grenade at him and turned to leave. Somewhere in the last few years my grenade arm has lost it’s touch and my grenade sailed harmlessly over Chris’ shoulder. Frustrated, I threw another grenade and this one stuck to the back of Chris’ head. The resulting explosion was satisfying.

Melanie: I spent majority of the game hiding behind rocks and running in circles, mainly because I didn’t know how to do anything else. Then I came across a vehicle (quadrunner?) and decided this would be a better choice. So, after figuring out how to get on said vehicle, I turn around to see Glenn running toward me with a giant gun-type thing. Since I didn’t know how to drive, I jumped off the quadrunner and attempted to run. I made it a foot before collapsing, dead. So much for changing my plan – that won’t happen again.

Glenn: Seeing Melanie jump off of the Mongoose (quadrunner for those non-Halo players) when she could have easily just run me over was hilarious. It only took one shot from my shotgun (or giant gun-type thing) to kill Melanie and I was back in business.

Tyler: It had been a while since my last kill, and I was tired of running into Glenn and getting shot every time. I saw an opening, and with two sticky grenades in my arsenal, I ran at him, jumping around unnecessarily. I threw the first and missed, but while Glenn was preoccupied trying to kill either Melanie or Chris, I went again and hit him. Boom! Kill number three for the good guys.

Glenn: I spawned up at the base and took a second to pose for a photo and put my feet on the table. Suddenly, Melanie strolls past me. “I don’t know where anyone is,” Melanie said. I hit Melanie in the back of the head with my rifle, killing her instantly. I was on the homestretch now. I only needed a handful of kills. I decided to use different guns for each kill. I needled Melanie, punched Tyler to death, grenaded Chris and started laughing maniacally.

Tyler: Glenn was getting cocky. And sloppy. He went for another kill and I walked up behind him and punched him in the back. It was so gratifying. I smelled a comeback. If I was wearing a hat, it would have been turned inside out. Rally time!

Glenn: Yeah, no. At this point I only needed one more kill. I went to the bottom of the map, grabbed the Ghost (a small but quick hovercraft) and sped up the hill determined to get a splatter kill for my big finish. “Going for a splatter eh?” said one of my roommates. “What does splatter mean?” asked Melanie as I boosted the turbo on the Ghost and pinned Melanie into a tree, pancake style.

Game Over.

Score: 25-4

Tyler: Overall, I think I have to be happy with my gameplay. I had the most kills, so that’s a good thing, right? We can ignore the fact that I also had the most deaths? Actually, no. I probably didn’t help with that one. I pretty much played the odds on this one, running straight at Glenn as often as I saw him, never thinking what the best plan of attack would be. Oh look, there’s Glenn hiding up on the ledge by the beach. He looks harmless and defenseless, so I’m going to try and kill him. Oh wait, he has a sniper rifle; that’s why he is up there. That’s pretty much how it went most of the time. It’s difficult to get the kill when I never got close enough to be able to shoot at him. I couldn’t even throw my grenades that far, most of the time.

Melanie: I must admit that Tyler and Chris mainly carried this team through the game. I only attempted to kill Glenn maybe once, and as you may have guessed, that didn’t really turn out the way I had hoped. Not to mention, I’m sure my lack of skills benefitted Glenn more than our team, since going out into the open just made me a much easier target. However, if there was an award for the player who hid behind rocks and random things the best, I would totally win.

Chris: My feeling after playing “Halo” was just the same as I had remembered. That is, I felt totally numb. I only managed to kill Glenn once. Glenn killed me seven times. I spent the rest of the time running around in a virtual world having no idea where the heck I was. I really had no idea what had just happened or why I had just wasted the last half hour of my life doing something I’m terrible at. So yeah, pretty much how Glenn feels after sports, minus the soreness.

Glenn: I was proud of my staff. They did way better than I expected. I came into this game totally ready for a shut-out. Does this game make up for some of my super embarrassing sports efforts? Not really, but it’s always good to blow Chris up over and over.