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MLG Downpour Write-Up and Video | mrsmiley { August 25, 2004 }

Before I begin with this write-up of MLGPro's Downpour event, I need to say one thing to those who did not attend.

You missed out.

This tourney was by far one of the coolest Halo events I have been to, and I had an absolute blast while I was there!

The trip did not start out that way, however. My plan was to bring a bunch of exclusive Halo Babies t-shirts to sell/giveaway at the event. These shirts were scheduled to arrive at my house before 10am on Friday morning. They did not show up until 3:30pm. Oh well, I suppose late is better than not showing up at all! I left with my friend, Jordan Davis, who tagged along for the "perks" of the event. =) It tooks us about 12 hours of uneventful driving, but we finally arrived at Lowell's (Gruntsbane's friend) house at around 5am Saturday morning. Gruntsbane came out to greet us, and we chatted a bit before hitting the hay.

But let's stop there, because I need to share something that absolutely freaked me out! After receiving our destination address from Gruntsbane online, I used MapQuest to plot out our trip from my house to his. Wanna know how many miles the trip was gonna take?

777.

Don't believe me? Take a big fat look at this. (If you still don't believe me, you can talk to Gruntsbane, who saw the actual page!) Anyways, this odd coincidence could only mean one thing: I need to get out more.

Back to the story. We arrived at the tourney at about 11 the following morning (after a quick donut run). Of course, it took about 30 minutes of wandering before we actually got there. This thing took place in the "Seattle Center." Now I don't know about you, but when I think of a "center", I think of one building with several convention rooms inside. Well, this "center" consisted of about 10 buildings, each with several convention rooms inside! Needless to say, we made it, and I'm glad we did!

We showed up amid the FFA tourney, and got to check out some of that action until the Sketch and Frankie showed up from Bungie. These guys brought joy to every fan who attended the event by allowing MLG to hold the first Halo 2 tourny ever! It is pretty crazy to think about a game being in a tournament 3 months before it was released, but we sure as hell didn't care! The Halo 2 madness went for about 3 hours, and ended with a great "staff" game; featuring yours truly, my friend, Jordan, Gruntsbane, the MLG crew, Miguel, and Randall Glass. It was a great match. I mean "great" by the fact that we stomped on MLG! =P The featured video of me playing this game can be found here.

After we packed up for the day, Miguel, Randall, Jordan, Lowell, Joel, and I decided to head to the nearby Bucca de Beppo's for some Italian eats. We had a great time discussing different aspects of Halo 2, as well as our experiences with some of Bungie's original games. All this to say, we left behind a little momento for future customers of that restaurant. (Here's a closer picture.)

After an awesome dinner with some good friends, Joel, Jordan, Lowell and I headed back to Lowell's house for some nice and relaxing 3v3 Halo action (they invited some WAY TOO 1337 neighbor kids). We got pwned. Despite that, it was a good end to a good day.

We got up the next morning and headed back to MLG for a final day of festivities. What I experienced and saw that day was probably the highlight of my trip. Don't get me wrong, I loved Halo 2 - it kicked total ass! That in mind, I saw a new game that blew me away instantly! I can't say anything, as the game hasn't even been announced yet, but let's just say that this new game kicks major ass, and will most likely become an instant favorite with Halo fans. Getting to play this game absolutely rocked, and as Jynx would say, it was totally "moist." I will post info about it as soon as I can!

MLG's Downpour in Seattle definitly showed me an awesome time, and I hope that you guys will be able to attend one of the next events that are coming up. It was great being able to play other Halo teams, and get completely pwned by them. (Damn you TNA!) There is just something about Halo that brings complete and total strangers together in harmony. It was this phenomenon that made the Downpour such a success in my mind.

That, and Halo 2. =)

Last night, I threw together about an 8-minute video of this event for your enjoyment. There is a lot of shaky-cam Halo 2 footage... w00t! I also got quite a bit of footage that I could not fit into this video, so expect some new sponsor content coming soon!

This video will be back online from this site in 2 weeks when our bandwidth resets, or if someone mirrors it for us. Sorry for the inconvenience!

• Mirror at Mythica (Thanks Louis Wu!)
  Video: Halo Babies at the MLG Downpour | WMV (zipped) | Right click and 'Save as' to download, or click link to stream.

• If anyone can make a Quicktime version of this for me, or if anyone would like to mirror this, please let me know! Thanks!