For me a good chunk of my past weekend has been devoted to one of my favorite sports, Grifball. The sport where you brandish destructive melee weapons and plant bombs in goals, then watch them explode as they take out the opposing team with them.
No I am not some crazy masochist, this is a glorious sport that has been created for Halo 3, and today I am gonnafill you in on what this sport is and tell you what I love about it. Maybe stick some top tips in as well to help you on the sports/battle field.
Grifball Rules And How To Play.
As this sport is pretty much filled with carnage and no holds barred game play, there isn’t much in the way of rules, but as for game play, the idea is you have two teams of four players. You also have one bomb which is placed in the middle of the arena, on member from your team pics up the bomb (doesnt matter who) and places it in the opposing teams goal to score. The first team to five goals wins.
Utter mayhem and flying bodies take place in this game, while you try yo score, every player is armed with energy swords and gravity hammers, making for some pretty epic deaths. The bomb carrier can easily be identified as he/she changes into a nice gold colour when holding the bomb and gets a oversheild too, but they don’t usually last long around gravity hammers.
The History Of Grifball
So how did this sport come about? Well according to the Officail Grifball Site it all started with the ever popular Halo Video series Red Vs Blue. The creators were doing a one off special episode to introduce the Heroic map pack and what it could do.
As you can see the video was done pretty well, but they didn’t use all the footage. There is a deleted scene where Grif has made his own game, where he would take a flag from the flag spot and only move it about 2 meters in front of him, thus him winning his game. That wasn’t very funny so didn’t make the final cut, but the Red Vs Blue guys had the game variant made for the sketch, so while the DIY video was uploading they tweaked a few things, they changed things like turning the game into an assault varient as apposed to the original single capture the flag and went through various weapon types etc, and before you know it they had created Grifball.
The game has now become so popular that Red Vs Blue run their own Grifball league, where hopeful teams of four from all over the world join in for some carnage and fun. But I could imagine Playing Grifball on that type of playing field is a whole lot different from the amateur double XP weekends I am used to.
Garvaos’ Top Tips
As I say I am no pro to this game, but I love playing it, so maybe these tips will help you out if you are new to the game, or just have a nasty habit of running around like a headless chicken and dying every five seconds, don’t worry it happens to the best of us.
- At the start of each round everybody runs to the center of the arena to grab the bomb. Now be very wary here as gravity hammers are going to be slamming down on the ground like no ones business. So my top tips here are A) Hang back near the goal and play goaly for a bit, or B) Run for the bomb but back pedal just before you get there so in effect you are doing a dummy run, this will then provoke the opposing team members to attack with their gravity hammers, if all goes well and they miss, slam them with an attack of your own, and the bomb is yours.
- Even though Gravity hammers look nice and shiny and do a lot of damage across a large area, I tend to go for the Energy sword as my weapon of choice, Why? Well because it has a good range of up to about 10 meters-ish and if you unfortunately miss your first attack with the trigger, you can quickly hit B for a second quick melee attack.
- Now its easy for people, once they have possession of the bomb to go running straight for the goal, sometimes it pays off, but other times it doesn’t. Judge your surroundings and strafe and back pedal, it’s always a good idea to have your team mates around you and look for gaps to run through. Rather than just running willy nilly and probably ending up with a gravity hammer or energy sword to the face.
- And finally, this tip is good if you have great timing, me I’m not so hot at it, but give it a go if you have the opportunity. When you carry the bomb you have a melee attack that can take an opposing team member down in one hit, has hardly any range, so timing in essential. But if used well can make you into a Grifball weilding machine
So thats about it for My in site into Grifball. I am personally not much of a sports fan but his game is absolutely genius. All you Halo 3 players out there, next time you see Grifball on a Double XP weekend be sure to play a few games, you won’t regret it.
Garv
