Boot Squad Forever: My Tribute to Halo 3
“BOOOOOOOOOOOM! WHAT A WAY TO START OFF A BALL GAME, BABY!”
Had you known me between the pivotal teenage years of 13–17, you would’ve heard me shout this hundreds… no, thousands of times. I’m sitting in Daniel’s basement. The gang’s all there, and we’re playing Halo 3 on Xbox 360. For some reason, I found it beyond hilarious to start each game of Team Slayer with an instant grenade to the feet, damaging the health or even killing all of my teammates. And then came the shouting.
Maybe it was the mystery of it all. Would it be enough damage to take out a fellow teammate, and would they be so enraged in their own basements that they’d kick us out of the game? If so, I could call us the Boot Squad like I famously did. If not, we may have a friendly fire battle brewing for the rest of the game. And if neither, we’d let Evan dominate the game and the rest of us play second through fourth fiddle. It was a well of possibilities, and I did it nearly every game. I just couldn’t help myself.
Side note- the “boot” element of Halo 3 will be a forever cherished game setting. The power it provided was intoxicating. We loved nothing more than egging on unknown teammates to betray us, only to boot them out of the gang and finish the game with just us. Just the gang.
Between games we make food runs. Although, again, if you knew me back then- you’d know I had already eaten dinner at home before coming. We would blast Angel by a band I cannot remember (and Google isn’t helping me) or Handlebars by Flobots while riding dangerously crammed in Daniel’s immaculately clean Toyota Paseo. Play angel! Play angel! I would dramatically request without fail as I sat shotgun, always. My friends knew better than to test my car sickness. We would make big plans to sneak out and toilet-paper a classmate’s house that night, or watch Billy Madison for the 500th time, or episodes of The Office, or just keep gaming until the wee hours.
As of today, Halo 3 on Xbox 360 has officially been taken off the Xbox servers. Tributes are pouring in, and if I don’t add mine to the list then I suspect nobody else should. The thousands of hours we logged, man. When I think of some of my favorite childhood memories, Halo 3 is the heartbeat underneath many of them.
Of course, it wasn’t just the game. We were all active and involved kids, but Daniel’s basement was our haven. After soccer games or baseball practices or lacrosse tournaments or shifts at part time jobs, that’s where the gang decompressed. Halo 3 was what we did when we made our plans for the evening. It was played where we sat as we grew up and learned lessons together and eventually became adults. Right behind us was the ping-pong table where many epic battles were fought. To our left, the other TV where Tom played Zelda on Nintendo 64. If a worldwide Zelda tournament ever breaks out, you’re all done for if Tom participates.
It’s also where inside jokes were born that we still laugh about to tears to this day. Like how terrible Matt was. He may have been a solid class president and QB1 of the football team, but man, he just couldn’t pull his weight in a game of Halo. Aww, good job Matt, you’d hear us say if he EVER contributed to the team’s success. You have to baby Matt in Halo, something you’ll still hear us all say today.
Then there was the time we got caught TP-ing at 3am. The jury’s still out whether it was my fault or not. And, sure, I kicked the ceiling like a madman on the way out and dragged gallons of mud onto the basement carpet when we returned, but Cathy didn’t name me as the prime suspect when we returned even though my cronies still do all these years later.
All these years later, and the game made a not-so surprising comeback for a few of us during the early months of the pandemic. It made too much sense. Daniel, Evan and I found used copies for somewhere between $3–7 and it was on. There were rumblings of Jordan rebooting his Xbox 360 as well. We played a handful of games, like a beautiful reunion during an otherwise difficult time. A few hours here and there to reconnect with something so familiar during such a daunting and unsettling time. Then, like all good things eventually do, it fizzled out. The pandemic got better (until it didn’t), and our Xbox live subscriptions expired. We bought houses and had kids and continued weathering the pandemic. At one point, we played our last game ever and we didn’t know it.
And, today, Halo 3 is forever a thing of the past. Here I am, more than half my life later, texting with my friends about memories of the game. Of being together. I’m realizing, a lot of my best friends are still my best friends now; anything that reminds me of that is worthy of a tribute. Here’s to you, Halo 3. To the Boot Squad. Forever.
