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Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)
Posted By: Kermit <kermi7@mac.com>	Date: 3/15/12 10:28 p.m.
It was a dark and stormy night ... Since this recap has been in LIMBO for months, I thought I'd do something special for the header screen. Actually, I didn't do much at all. The art work is by one Toby Lewin, who creates some amazing stuff. You may recall that way back in 2011, just before the holidays, we wrapped up the ODST version of co-op night. Then I went into hiding, claiming to be writing a book or some such nonsense. Well, I've been feeling guilty about not finishing either the book or the recap, but I figured if I can get one done, then who knows? Maybe I can finish the other. One thing's for sure: a recap (even a monster like this one) is way easier! So here we are. As I was saying, back in December we were going for the Deja Vu achievement, and by all accounts everyone had a great time. You can find stats of the games here, here, here, here, and here. You may also recall there was this little contest I called the Deja Vu Invitational. I'll get to the winner of that in a bit, but first, here are some highlights of the night: Freew1ll (Miguel), Deadlysnipe12, padraig, and bluerunner were the most cooperative team. Their highest and lowest scores were only 11,841 points apart. And look at this: That's some synchronized Halo playing right there. On co-op night I always preach the value of assists, so I'm proud to say that I, Kermit, led assists with a whooping 90, but that just means I drove a killer named Gwath Gil (Levi) around the whole time. Figroliun was next in line with 62 assists. I called him a killer and indeed he was. Gwath Gil had the most kills with 99. Snipe 316 was in second place with 87. After sitting through one of the few depictions of lovers in the entire Halo series (featuring a full spectrum of behavior in 60 seconds: hitting, kissing, and bickering), we were certainly ready to take on Covies. iMonkey took the high ground very quickly. Plasma from above! General Vagueness tried the same strategy, but a brute-shot-wielding brute got the best of him. Should've gone for the needler. For the most part we made short work of the covies in that first area between elevator rides, and after sitting through more bickering, we hit the highway, found our mongooses and magic rockets, and headed out of the underpass only for most of us to die at the hands of a fuel-rod grunt. Figroliun was the exceptionÑhe very expertly splattered the evil little guy right out of the gate. Get outta my grill, Unggoy! Unfortunately, Lawnmower172 shoots the car directly in front of them a second later. Oh, well. Back to the old checkpoint. One of the pleasures of watching the films of this level is seeing epic scenes like this with movement. L to R: Me, Levi, Loftus, and Ibeechu. Freew1ll and son (Deadlysnipe12) navigate a median. Don't look to your left. It'll just scare you. Here the same two attempt to clean up some of the debris out of the road with rockets. Backsplash is a beeyatch. Paddy manages to get his mongoose stuck under a crashed phantom. Um, guys. Need a hand here. Canecutter and stabbim catch some air. Whee! Bluerunner and padraig catch some massive air. We can see the dig site from here. Stabbim slows down for no brute. Maybe he should change his name to Splatterim. Scalemaster117 has an unfortunate splatter of his own. Loftus claimed it was accidental. Hmmm. Bluerunner and padraig were quite adept at dropping Banshees out of the sky. Free falling. Here blue gets a shave. I so wish I could jack you. Often we were caught by surprise when Banshees came through the tunnels after us. Lawnmower saw to it that this wasn't an issue. Oh no you don't! Levi did his own share of Banshee killin'. See THIS rocket's red glare, Mr. Brute. And Wraith killin'. Don't get too close, Kerm. Not without a price, though. Levi & Kermit: Brothers until the end. Even though Deja Vu is all about the mongooses, the best strategy, counterintuitively, seemed to be to abandon them most of the time. Here Bones shows how it's done on foot. He ain't afraid of no ghost. Figroliun does what needs to be done. Vagueness says Owww. In this footage, Canecutter demonstrates the pros and the cons of hoofing it. Hint: killing at a distance is key. Buck attempted to give the General a high five at the very moment Vagueness noticed a pattern in the pavement. Interesting... The team that seemed to make the most of the on-foot strategy was Snipe, Canecutter, iMonkey, and Stabbim. Snipe's marching orders. Here they lure a Wraith into their trap. Durr, durr, wonder what's down here? They'd often zoom ahead past Dare to the next door, and kill the enemies there, waiting for the garbage truck to catch up. C'mon, Dare, we got a contest to win! My team's story was a sad one, contest-wise. We never were doing great on speed, to be honest, and after about an hour I lagged out. The game lets you resume a co-op match, but when we resumed our extra mongoose and super rockets were gone! We decided to forge ahead and, in the spirit of Deja Vu, not touch Hogs or Scorpions. We played the next short section for nearly 25 minutes before getting through. I think another few tries and there may have been talk of giving up good old Earth and calling it a night. We were already past Loftus' bedtime. Yeah, yeah, Buck, we heard you the first 20 times--the dig site is on the other side of the city! As happens, we got into a routine: Loftus would rush with our single mongoose and try to steal the nearest ghost. We would all try to get ghosts as soon as we could. After losing Dare a few times, we realized that a big problem was the second turret. The following clips demonstrate what I love about co-op. We wouldn't have made it without Loftus' ghost stealing, my mongoose rush, Ibeechu's plasma charging, or Levi's brute killing. (And let be said that Buck managed to stay in the thick of the battle!) We actually get the checkpoint about a minute and 20 seconds in, but Bungie.net doesn't let me clip the last 40 seconds. So you get to see us die a few more times. But hey, a checkpoint's a checkpoint. Loftus cam Kermit cam Ibeechu cam Levi cam Comparatively, the Last Exit area was easy peasy, especially for those of us who still had rockets. Here padraig and his teammates unleash some fury on a phantom. We've got over 3,000 more where that came from! Lawnmower gets all fearless like. Objects may be closer than they appear. General Vagueness does the heavy lifting, though, making the kill. Cue the triumphant music interspersed with a plaintive sax solo. I think every team but mine got the Deja Vu achievement, and I know my team had a great time, and that's what it's all about. Now, about the contest. Snipe, Canecutter, iMonkey, and stabbim had the shortest time on the highway, making it from cutscene to the Last Exit barrier in 17 minutes, 18 seconds. Nobody else was close. I made the calculations easy on myself this time, only looking the the records of the members of the winning team. Here are the bonus times taken off for individuals: -7 seconds for each night of co-op night campaign played. -14 seconds for the highest average assists between all campaign nights. (I didn't count the last night since that really depended on who drove the mongoose.) -21 seconds if you had perfect attendance for all campaign nights. Here's how it shook out:   Nights Played Average Assists Perfect Attendance Total Bonuses SNIPE 316 8 x -7 = -56 (5,4,3,7,7,8,14) 6.86 Yes -91 Canecutter 2 x -7 = -14 3 No -14 iMonkey777 5 x -7 = -35 (4,3,10,8) 6.25 No -35 stabbim 3 x -7 = -21 (9,3) 6.00 No -21 If iMonkey777 had been able to attend a few more co-op nights, he could have won, but obviously Snipe is the winner, which makes him winner of both of the co-op night contests so far. Congratulations, Snipe! You get your very own McFarlene Dare figure to which you can attach ladyfinger firecrackers and blow up. I'd like to thank padraig for the notes, timestamps, and screenshots from his game, and others who supplied the same for other nights. Thanks also to Hedge for his hedgifying talents. I want to give a special shout-out to Bones for his help with pre-season strategizing, and his unflagging encouragement and good humor throughout this season of Co-op Night. Most of all, thanks to all who played during the second season of Co-op Night. I fully recognize that you don't have to do it. <3 Kermit P.S. Louis, I pray to God you don't have to look at this HTML.

Message Index

Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)	Kermit	3/15/12 10:28 p.m.
Nice write-up!	NsU Soldier	3/15/12 10:45 p.m.
Re: Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)	bluerunner	3/15/12 11:01 p.m.
Glorious!	padraig08	3/16/12 1:09 a.m.
Re: Glorious!	Kermit	3/16/12 1:40 a.m.
Re: Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)	CaneCutter	3/16/12 8:22 a.m.
Re: Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)	stabbim	3/16/12 11:33 a.m.
Re: Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)	Lawnmower172	3/16/12 12:01 p.m.
Re: Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)	Joe Duplessie (SNIPE 316)	3/16/12 2:26 p.m.
Re: Co-op Recap: Deja Vu (Long)	Kermit	3/16/12 3:11 p.m.
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.	Leviathan	3/17/12 1:56 a.m.