A Look Back At Bitmob's First Game Night

Editor's note: I posted a few pictures from BCGN (it totally deserves an acronym), but Brian did such a great job recapping the evening that I thought it would be fun to highlight the action again. - Aaron


Bitmob's first Game Night came and went faster than a blackout after a drinking binge, so I thought I'd report on the event to let y'all know if it was a success. It was one of the best multiplayer moments I've had in a long time. I had a blast hooking up with the Bitmob crew for a night of chaotic Halo matches.

The fun began at 5:30pm PST, and before we knew it, it was 8:30 when the few remaining members of the Bitmob staff had to leave. We spent most of our time playing instead of chatting, but what little conversation occurred was of the friendly variety. Of course a few people had to get their teabags in (I know I performed a couple), but things were generally pretty tame.

Unfortunately, I only knew who the Bitmob staff members were, but still, it was nice to hear them talk outside of a podcast. Since we were all strangers, I'm sure that some of us were a bit nervous about talking, but people even threw in a few Michael Donahoe wrestling jokes, so clearly everyone was able to mess around.

As for the actual matches, it was a lot of fun to play modes such as Land Grab, Lowball, Single-Flag CTF, and several Team Slayer variants. I wish we could've played a few more CTF and Assault objective games, but still, I had a great time.

We often split into four teams, and Shoe's team usually came out on top. Either he was orchestrating things behind the scenes, or he's a damn good Halo player (I'm thinking it's the latter). Sadly, Michael Donahoe's team didn't have as much success on Team Crazy King, but I think that was due to the team's lack of coordination -- not because they stunk.

Instead of reading about each individual's performance, you can observe the collection of screenshots below. I tried to get at least one of each player, but it's possible that I missed someone, so don't feel bad if you were left out. On to the show!


Michael Donahoe says: "It's Moors you idiot!"



Demian Linn mercilessly slaughters a yellow Spartan


Clearly the Lowball holder is employee of the month


Brian Shirk survives a deadly explosion and carries the flag to victory!


Will a crouching LIGHT0 evade this deadly Brute Chopper?


Brian Petro-Roy empties a clip of needles into a hoe crouching behind a rock


Dan Hsu drops out of the sky to pwn one of his lazy employees


Evan Campbell wolfs down a burrito while running over Brian Shirk


CD Master Chief nails a leaping opponent with his Battle Rifle


CJBadude captures a territory


Joshua McCluskey may have been dropped as a youngster, but he sure knows how to aim rockets


Gordon Mark is clearly no stranger to destruction derbies


Almostreall shoots a helpless imaginary opponent


AmigoSniped clearly won't have friends for long


Brett Bates proves that he is a god


Aaron Thomas gives us a nice view of his beetle pants


Rich McGrath takes a break from racing his Mongoose

Comments (21)

AWESOME!!!!!! I have never felt so left out....

Lance Darnell , October 28, 2009
Fantastic pics, Brian!

And for the record, everyone: I'm not dying in the second pic from the top. I'm, uh, breakdancing. Yeah, that's it.
Brett Bates , October 28, 2009
Disappointed I missed out. I got online later than I expected -- it would have been fun for sure.
Keith Schloemer , October 28, 2009
Who was the Employee 117 with the Recon armor?

Seems really fun. I need to update my Live subscription sometime. :/
Kevin Zhang-xing , October 28, 2009
Need to do another night. I would so love to play against you guys
Mark T. Whitney , October 28, 2009
Wow, you managed to find a picture of me alive? You must have spent hours combing through footage for that one! Great write-up, Brian.
Aaron Thomas , October 28, 2009
This looks like a lot of fun. We'll make our next Game Night announcement Monday.
Jason Wilson , October 28, 2009
Dudes, so sad I missed it. Can't wait for the next one!
Travis McReynolds , October 28, 2009
Hey sometimes.. it's hard driving that warthog with only one hand. Do you think they will take my license away this time?
Evan Campbell , October 28, 2009
Wow, this seemed like a lot of fun. If another one is done in the near future I'll join in. Wasn't the Fat Princess the first Bitmob related game night though?
David Matos , October 28, 2009
@Brett- Thanks. Glad you liked the pics. That death animation was crazy! The body first slumped against the wall, then nearly fell off the edge, and somehow stood upright again a moment later.

@Kevin- I was trying to find Employee 117's name, but I guess he didn't post his gamertag on Bitmob. Maybe he was a friend of a friend, or is simply choosing to remain anonymous.
Brian Shirk , October 28, 2009
Thanks, Aaron. Finding decent screenshots took longer than I expected, but I was actually pretty impressed with how they turned out. They looked kind of grainy on the TV screen, but fortunately most visual blemishes disappeared once the screens were uploaded to Bungie.net

@Evan- I don't think your warthog license should be revoked, but someone should definitely take away your passenger's turret privileges for never taking his finger off the trigger.
Brian Shirk , October 28, 2009
Brian, i think you capture the night perfectly. Great article, love the pic headers. The only sad part of the night was that nobody sent me a friend request.
Joshua McCluskey , October 28, 2009
@Joshua- Thanks. Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that, because I forgot to add people after we were done. I'm pretty sure most of us just messaged Shoe, but I'll have to send friend requests to everyone who played next time I'm on.
Brian Shirk , October 28, 2009
I was shooting at a helpless imaginary opponent?... He had camo on I swear!
Joshua Garcia , October 28, 2009
I am a bad ass. I jumped of the mongoose and fired a rocket
Rich McGrath , October 28, 2009
@Kevin I'm Employees 117. Man what a night that was!I know halo is gettin a bit long in the tooth and there are constantly newer games getin released, but you can't deny the fun we all had. I had a ton of questions to ask but I didn't wanna feel like all I wanted to do was get in and play with y'all just to ask questions about the industry and yadda yadda yadda. But I will admit that I did bite my toung moreso then I wanted to. To many burning questions, but I guess they will have to wait untill another time. Once again , everyone, it was quite the night that I won't forget anytime soon. Thank-you all for the fun times.
Chris , October 29, 2009
p.s. Shoe, next time your driving next rocketrace! Maybe next time we wont be the pinball in Mongoose pinball.
Chris , October 29, 2009
@Chris *Insert obligatory "CAN I HAZ RECON OMG"*
Kevin Zhang-xing , October 29, 2009
@Kevin " You can not haz my reconz. It Be to hard to take off for one and two you can not haz my reconz." I earned it the hard vidmaster way. I spend many a hour looking at the freakin' death screen and loading up checkpoints. Grrr. But as you can tell I haz reconz.
Chris , October 29, 2009
Nice screens, Brian! It must have been hard to find one where I was actually killing someone and not vice versa.
Demian Linn , October 29, 2009

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