Games are awesome.  You’re either agreeing or extremely lost because, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re on a site that rents online game servers (aka “Palaces of Pyro-explosive Joy!”).  But some go above and beyond the simple call of fragging, helping their FPS fantasies escape into the real world WITHOUT - and this is important - going insane and killing us.  Here we salute these brave server-servers and their incredible efforts.

1.  The Sentry Gun PC

The single coolest thing to happen to Team Fortress 2 servers since the game itself, “TiTON“’s Sentry Gun PC is the most beautiful sight outside of a burning Spy.  As well as being an excellent reproduction of the ultimate in BLU team point defense, the tripod-mounted heavy-calibre (fake) machine gun is a decent desktop as well, featuring a GeForce 9600 and a Core 2 Duo processor.

This means you can set up sentries on Team Fortress 2 while playing on a sentry from TF2; so you’re so many levels into an imagination, you have to start setting yourself on fire to make sure you’re not a spy.

2.  Real Life Warthog

Halo servers don’t actually need any promotion, what with the game being connected to approximately every college student dorm in any country, so this real-life Warthog is nothing but luxury.  Awesome, awesome luxury.

It’s even the original Bungie team who get to ride in the recreation of their creation, creating a “Cycle of Awesome” which could be used to drive all coolness on Earth -  except they’re a little too aware of how this is a one-of-a-kind result of weeks of work.  So they drive carefully, apparently unaware that driving carefully in a Warthog is like fasting on the set of Iron Chef.  Luckily there are real Halo servers where you can skid that thing’s beautiful inverse kineamatics right through an opposing soldier’s face.

3.  Real Life Crates!

You’ll see crates on almost every FPS server, with “Time Until You See A Crate” acting as respected review system, but you pay far more attention to the crates on Counter-Strike servers.  Because you normally pay more attention to things that can hide terrorists with machine guns, or if you don’t you need to radically re-evaluate your priorities.  All of which make these real life crates a thousand times more awesome than wooden boxes have any right to be.

Part of the best-named art exhibit ever made, the “de_dust installation,” pixelated packing was placed all over the city, popping up in streets and stations and generally making people try to reload while walking down the street.

4.  CERN Crowbar

The above escaped server-stuff is slick, but none of it ever protected Earth from interdimensional invasion (though we can see that Warthog being significantly awesome in an urban combat environment).  Luckily some cyber-citizens saw that CERN’s screwing around with the stuff of spacetime could lead to a resonance cascade (and a little alliteration) and organized probably the best nerdy thing ever to happen.

They sent CERN a crowbar, a headcrab for practise, and a strategy guide detailing what to do in the event of alien invasion (specifically, a Half-Life strategy guide).  And because some scientists are awesome, the actual factual Gordon Freeman (codename: Sandro Bonacini) came out to demonstrate his readiness.  Even cooler, as if that was even possible, Sandro’s work is in radiation-resistant logic components - so he really couldn’t sound more like a videogame scientist if he was wearing body armor and could run top speed while carrying ten thousand rounds of ammunition.

Video games have come a long way in forty years - the average controller has more buttons than the first computers, and the internet connects you to so many people Nintendo are terrified to let you do anything but press “A”.  But what does the future hold for those of us who live in online game servers?  What do we want from future technology?

1.  A wargame where jumping like a tazed rabbit doesn’t confer a tactical advantage

The Call of Duty series creates an incredibly realistic environment, equips you with authentic weapons, has graphics so advanced that ghillie suits work, and then prances all over that with players leaping like turbo-boosted kangaroos.  The only way a marine could jump that high in full kit is by standing on a claymore, and in real life, a terrorist whose panic reaction to an MP5 is jumping?  He’ll be that soldier’s “funniest confirmed kill I ever had”.

On CoD4 servers you can be killed by expert players who bounce and crouch like fast-forwarded gymnasts.  An amphetamined-Mario couldn’t keep up with them.  You’re pouring machine gun fire right into them, and when they land behind your corpse after a triple inversion somersault you expect them to score 6.0 for Grace, 5.9 Agility, and 0.0 in Realities of War.  Halo servers technically suffer this problem even worse, with ten-tonne armored space marines leaping like they have trampoline-simulators in their futuristic space boots, but the great thing about cyborg soldiers fighting a race of space-mushrooms is that it never claimed to be realistic.

2.  Mice which administer electrical shocks to people who miss five times in a row but still play Sniper

The last eight years have been pretty funny for FPS players - at least, those with the sense to play on PC servers. Aka “a proper gaming system”. Platformers just feel wrong on keyboards, and vertical shooters are all about the joysticks, but since 2001 consoles have truly believed that they’re where first person shooters are at - with their hulking space marines and their other, slightly hulkier space marines.

This near-decade of delusion was triggered by one thing: Halo. Or to give it its full name, Halo: Combat Evolved (which may as well be Halo: Nobody Uses The Subtitle). Halo smashed sales records and converted the XBoxfrom an oversized punchline into the critical success of the console generation - which is odd, because compared to PC Halo Servers it was utterly amateur hour. It couldn’t have been more inept if Master Chief had tripped over Guilty Spark and shot himself in the crotch plating. We’re going to say a phrase and see if you laugh: an FPS without official multiplayer support. Also: Carlos Mencia getting punched in the face.

Halo 2 and 3 rectified that on the cute little consoles they insist on using, but there’s no way they can ever compare to a real game server. They can add online multiplayer, energy shields, Forge custom creation modes and as many vehicles as they like, a Halo Server can offer one thing they never will:

A mouse.

Explaining this advantage to a player with cramped claws clutched around a sweaty pad is like explaining the color red to a violin. Some games even support controlling the PC with XBox-alike USB pads, which is like supporting using the Mona Lisa as a lunch tray. Master Chief may be a one-man tank, but using a joypad to control him simulates that a little too well - it takes ages to turn and you get a real sense of satisfaction just from getting him pointing the right way.

Log into a Halo server and you’ll get a level of control the console cowboys can only dream of, or perhaps nightmare: they’re not used to things like twitch-aim, and most console close-up battles degenerate into spastic slapfights with players flailing at each other like angry cheerleaders still protecting their makeup. There are a few problems with grafting a game from one system to another: even before you log on to a Halo server, you’ll find the controls more sensitive than a skinless ACLU rep. The merest twitch of your mouse sends the cursor careening across the screen like a drunken drag racer, giving you a terrifying insight into the lead-padded slow-motion controls it’s used to.

But when do adjust the sensitivity and get your space-armored self online you’ll see why people play. It’s not the revelation it was for XBoxers, as PC gamers have decades of Counter-Strike servers under their belts, but it brought the field well forward. The widespread end of the health bar (replaced by regeneration if you hide for a few seconds) is now the standard in many games (including Call of Duty servers). Halo servers also offer:

Oh you naughty thing, don’t tempt me.

1. The Warthog, aka the most beautiful thing on four wheels since Milla Jovovich tried skateboarding. This sexy inverse-kinematic (translation: why they way it moves looks so cool) Jeep Of Death was THE sex object for fans, and there are still twenty-year marriages with less love than many feel for this wonderful, skidding, infinite-ammoed beauty.

Good Idea: Being in a Warthog. Bad Idea: Not doing that.

2. Plasma grenades. Grenades which not only blow people up, but stick to them shining brightly as if to say “Haha you’ve already lost!” Halo was the first mainstream game to realise “Hey, maybe if players didn’t have to cycle through five weapons to get to grenades they’d actually be USEFUL!”

Just look at all those targets players!

There are still hundreds of Halo servers in action every day, and as an older game it’s practically free these days. Online support, voice comms, customized servers (you know - all the things the XBoxers had to wait years and buy new games for) are yours from the get go, and there’s just something about climbing into space armour and shooting people with rocket launchers that will always be good.
Which is probably why so many games use the exact same plot - but for many, this was the first.

Exhausted, seven fellow geeks and I sit around a dimly lit coffee table at three in the morning. The others munch on chips and gurgle Dr. Pepper like there’s about to be a shortage at the bottling plant.

We’re taking a break before diving back into the game. Someone finishes a drink, stands, stretches and says “You’re all going down.” Collectively, we groan. The rule is that once a challenge is issued, the game must begin again – no matter what. We split into different rooms and, stepping carefully over crisscrossing Ethernet cables and router hubs, we begin another round of Halo’s spectacular multiplayer on our Halo Server.

What? You were expecting 20-sided dice?

Halo: Combat Evolved, the original that was to spawn a phenomenon and a franchise that dropped cash like a Grand Theft Auto hooker, was a video game pioneer. Halo changed the way that first person shooters were made and set a new bar for multiplayer combat through Halo servers. In a genre peppered with little else but Counter-Strike and clones thereof, years later, Halo continues to be a popular alternative to newer multiplayer FPS games.

It is with a bout of nostalgia, then, that we take a look at one of the most irritatingly effective enemies ever produced for an FPS title: The Flood. We pose a simple question: which is a more dastardly enemy – the Flood or Venereal Disease? Both are gross and funny when they happen to your ex, sure, but which is more terrifying?

Flood vs. VD: Grotesque Appearance

To begin, both the Flood and venereal diseases cause disgusting growths and deformations in the infected tissues. To illustrate, here is a picture of a UNSC soldier after complete infection by the Flood:

And, just below this, a picture of a disease-ridden appendage has been (thoughtfully) replaced with a silly kitten.

You’re welcome for that.

Most Hideous: VD

Flood vs. VD: Dogged Persistence

This one is a little easier to call. Some VD can never be cured, or cured only after years of painful treatment. Other types of VD can be erased with a simple shot or an antibiotic regimen (or so I hear), making VD contraction a mixed bag as far as persistence goes.

The flood, however, never stop coming. They swarm together so that - once you’ve fired every bullet you’ve ever owned - you get to start using your pistol like a hammer to finish off the leftovers. The Flood have been known to come back to life just for the pleasure of stabbing you in the back.

To illustrate, here’s a video of a headless, armless Flood following a player around. That’s right – this Flood can no longer fight, bite, or infect Master Chief, so its fall-back position is just to follow him around like a lost puppy. A lost, hideous, stinking puppy.

Tell you what, the next time we have to nuke Los Angeles to get rid of Herpes, we’ll call this one a draw.

Most Persistent: Flood

Flood vs. VD: Sneakiness

The ability to transmit itself relatively undetected is a great asset to an communicable disease. Crippling its victims and turning them into bed-ridden germ factories is exactly how the Black Death managed to approach a filthy, hygiene-challenged populace and only managed to kill 30% of them. You want a

sneaky virus? This is not a sneaky virus:

Massive, spore-spreading explosions? Very subtle.
Most Sneaky: VD

Flood vs. VD: Effects on Health

The worst of all VD will result in certain death after sucking the life out of you over a period of several years. For the flood, the above prognosis is often replicated from beginning to end on Tuesday before lunch. Also, there is no such thing as a “minor” bout of the flood.

Most Detrimental: Flood

It is a close call at two points each, but the final verdict must go to the Flood. The horrors of either infection are numerous. With the Flood, however, all the really crappy stuff is no less horrible just because it happens to you after you’re already dead. But for that small act of mercy, the Flood deserves a sincere thank you. Congratulations, Flood.

But seriously, no hugs. We don’t know where you’ve been.