I’m not going to lie, I arrived at the Halo party later than most. A cousin of mine would always tell me, “You should try Halo, it’s awesome.” Not being a fan of shooting games at the time, I brushed off the idea. “I like my sports games”, I would tell him. It wasn’t until a couple months before the release of Halo 3 that I got my first introduction to Halo 2. My cousin had finally convinced me to play and after rolling with him through a few games of SWAT online, I was hooked.

After that initial introduction to Halo 2, my cousin left the game with me for a while to play on my own. I couldn’t put it down. My obsession with Halo had begun and not long after, I made my pre-order for Halo 3.

Though Halo 2 for me was my introduction, Halo 3 is truly where it all began. After playing countless games of lone wolves, which initially was my favorite thing about Halo 3, I stumbled upon the first ever Grifball double XP weekend. I fell in love with Halo all over again.

I met and befriended others who liked grifball, I joined a league and each time double XP weekend rolled around, I lived and breathed Grifball nearly non-stop for three days. When the next month came, I did it all over again.

Grifball had consumed me. Being a lover of sports games, this simple, brutal sport played via custom games inside Halo with giant hammers, swords and one precious round bomb was a perfect match for me.

It wasn’t long after that I founded GrifballHub.com. I never expected it to become what is today. I never thought we’d be the architects of a Grifball playlist in Halo: Reach. I never imagined that I’d be providing regular content for Halo Waypoint and I certainly never thought that community managers of the site I created would be sharing a PAX panel with Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth and Bs Angel of 343 Industries.

Most importantly I never expected the friendships I would forge because of Halo and Grifball. I’ve met some truly amazing people that I would be honored to know as friends well after Halo one day finally reaches its end.

Here’s hoping that end doesn’t come for quite some time though.

-H2O Camper (aka puptastrophe)

(H2O Camper is the Founder and Site Admin of GrifballHub.com, THE stop to make for Grifballers everywhere)