Category: Gamage

Picture a night of Halo 2 mayhem. Sweat dripping down each brow, eyes glued to the television, constant bantering between players. The end of a round has come. Everyone pauses to communicate. Somebody says, “Wait for me, I’ve got to use the restroom.” Unfortunately in order to speak, you have to be connected to your headset, which is connected to the controller, which is then connected to the Xbox, meaning you have to be in the same room as your battle station. Those days are over my friend. Go get yourself the Logitech wireless xbox headset.

After the round, I walk across my apartment slowly with no intention to rush due to my wireless freedom. I can still hear the action in the kitchen while I crack open a Zywiec (polish beer). It’s a constant portal into the virtual world at all times. As I guzzle my beverage an idea comes upon me.

The next morning I fired up the Xbox and created a party in Halo 2. Then I put on my headset, turned off the television, but kept the Xbox on, and walked around the house doing my morning chores. About an hour or so later, while I was brushing my teeth, I hear Chizzler on the other end. We were able to have a conversation without calling each other, or better yet, knowing when it was about to start.

I suspect in the future, everyone will be wearing headsets and communicating this way. There won’t be phone calls anymore, anytime you want to speak to somebody, you just say “Where you at?” Personally, I can’t wait for the future. You too can join in on the fun. I’m never going back to wired communication.

With Bailes about to join the ranks of our Halo 2 platoon I thought I would offer him some advice on the most difficult decision he’ll ever have to make in life: Selecting a Gamertag. This is not something to gloss over. The Gamertag is your unique identifier to other players, and it cannot be changed or altered once it is submitted. That’s right, you get one chance at this… so don’t blow it.

Of course, it is common knowledge that my Gamertag is “McSex.” Aside from the occasional illiterates that call me “Emcee Sex,” this moniker has been well received in the Xbox Live cyberspace.

So how did I come up with “McSex?” To tell the story properly, we must go back a few years… As an awkward pre-teen, struggling to feel like a man, I tried to identify the main shortcoming preventing me from assuming alpha-male status amongst my peers. Conveniently, I settled on the least obvious one: my name. Surely, I thought, if I had a more masculine name, it would mask the girlish physique, acne and falsetto voice.

Turning on the TV, I saw a constant barrage of studly men with names like “Thomas Magnum” and “Indiana Jones.” At the time, the only difference I saw between a lady’s man private investigator and myself was the blandness of my name. It suddenly dawned on me; none of my GI Joe’s or Transformers had pedestrian names either. Why couldn’t I have been named “Stormshadow” or “Snake Eyes” or “Optimus Prime?” The name “Matt Ring” just lacked certain panache. In naming me, clearly my parents weren’t the least bit concerned with wanting their son to sound like a badass.

So, I began brainstorming names I would one day assume in the event I grew up to be a secret agent, assassin or plays-by-his-own-rules police detective. Naturally, I needed a name so over-the-top that it would leave no doubt as to whom was running the show. Thomas Manchild came to mind. Jack Stallion had a nice ring to it. Ultimately, I settled on Jack McSex.

I’ve always liked the first name “Jack.” It is a classic, simple, masculine name with a hint of rugged toughness. The name “Jack” represented a can-do attitude… the kind of guy that would climb a beanstalk or go up a hill with Jill to fetch a pail of water. The McSex part came later. I wanted a last name that completely lacked subtlety and somewhat spoofed the action-hero genre. Ultimately, I think I crafted a name that commands both respect and a chuckle. To this day, I can’t help but smile with pride when I say the name, Jack McSex.

Of course, it became more than just a name… Jack McSex is my charming and daring alter ego. And naturally, Jack McSex even talks differently than Matt Ring…

When answering the phone:
Matt Ring: “Hello?”
Jack McSex: “McSex here.”

When introducing himself:
Matt Ring: “Hi, I’m Matt Ring.”
Jack McSex: “The name’s Jack McSex, and the pleasure is all mine.”

And so forth. In short, Jack McSex makes James Bond look like Screech Powers. And when it came time to choose a worthy Gamertag for my Xbox Live persona, there was no hesitation on my part.

Now that I’ve revealed the origin of my Gamertag, here are some simple pointers in selecting yours:

1. Avoid a name that rhymes with anything derogatory or sexual in nature. For obvious reasons. Believe me, your opponents will seize upon this instantly. The only time this naming convention works is when you select a name like “Mulva” or “Bovary” as it has a humorous double entendre to it…

2. Avoid this formula: Stringing together a sexual innuendo and the number “420” to form a Gamertag. This does not make you a badass. Sadly, there are at least ten million dudes on Xbox Live that think they are being cool by combining their fantasies of kinky sex and habitual pot smoking into a name like “Filthy Sanchez 420.” Also, unfailingly, each of these dudes is 14 years old.

3. Avoid a name that reads like a vanity license plate. This is my pet peeve. I hate having to solve a magic-eye puzzle in order to alert “GR8est 1Der of N8ure” to cover me during the middle of a firefight. Yeah, this guy is a sweet teammate. Of course, after my inevitable death I’ll have the requisite time to translate and appreciate the cleverness “Greatest Wonder of Nature” used in selecting his Gamertag. Standard.

On a side note, can you imagine being friends with this person, and having him call you to key in his Gamertag into your friends list? “Alright dude, it’s capital ‘G-R,’ then the number 8, then lowercase ‘e-s-t’…” I would seriously hang-up on him halfway through this conversation.

4. Give yourself an esoteric name from an 80’s franchise that only the coolest people on earth would understand the reference to. For instance, I thought about using the name “Kreese,” (after the evil sensei of the Cobra Kai dojo from the Karate Kid movies.) After every kill I could taunt my opponents with a line like “Fear does not exist in this dojo.” Along those same lines, I always thought “Lord Helmet” (Spaceballs) would be a fantastic name. You could use quotes like “Evil will always triumph because good is dumb” or, “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine” during any confrontation. If these examples don’t appeal to you, try “Niedick” (Saved by the Bell) or “Cooter P. Davenport” (Dukes of Hazzard) or “H.M. Murdock” (The A-Team.)

5. Integrating hip-hop lingo into your name will not change the fact you are a suburban white kid. Don’t bother putting extraneous z’s and x’s into the spelling of ordinary words… that won’t help either.

6. Names that have real-life tie-ins with death are popular. For instance, I toyed with being The Coroner for a while. You get the idea, after each kill I could declare the cause of death to be my battle rifle or my superior skills. Along those same lines, you could be The Embalmer, The Mortician, The Chalk Outline Guy, The Pallbearer, or The Guy that Pokes the Dead Body with a Stick… lots of possibilities here.

7. Whatever you do, don’t use your actual name. Seriously, don’t do it. This isn’t an email account. You will actually be ridiculed more by your fellow teammates than your opponents if you can’t concoct a clever name.

So there it is. And fellow Zillionaires, please share the origin of your Gamertags and/or potential names for future members of our platoon.

A good friend who has a connection at Bungie.net just sent me these audio files. Apparently during the making of Halo 2 they had to scale back on how much audio they could include in the multiplayer game because of bandwidth constraits. Zillionaire got them and we’re gonna leak them on the Internet. No one has ever heard these before.

1. When you’d get a kill, chop up the body and put it in your freezer, you were supposed to have heard:
   
2. When you’re twenty years older than all your opponents and you’d get a kill, you’d hear this:
   
3. When you would throw a sticky grenade on someone’s throat, this should have played:
   
4. For when you crouch-walk around Midship with a sword getting cheap kills, you’d hear:
   
5. The rare grand slam in Halo 2–getting four cold-cocks in a row, taking down an entire enemy team, you’d hear this during the melee:
   

It’s a shame these didn’t make it into the game. We encourage you to use them online now in either training mode or ranked combat.

Have you heard of any other leaked sayings for Halo 2? If so, leave them in the comments.

Consider this an arranged marriage…

Fellow Zillionaires, tonight I give you the opportunity to cast your eyes on your future soulmate.

Tune in to MTV this evening for the unveiling of the next generation of the Xbox, the temptress that each of us will be exchanging vows with this holiday season…