GrifBall

June 17, 2008 6:16 AM

GrifBall! Red Vs. Blue's Sarge and Caboose introduce the rules. A sample match: Bungie Vs. RvB. Context: Since the release of online multiplayer first-person shooter Halo 3, Bungie have allowed players to customise maps with the placement of objects, weapons, spawn points etc. using the Forge feature. Combined with customisable rule sets, unusually innovative custom games are possible.

With the release of the downloadable Legendry Map Pack, Bungie offered a map called the Foundry, which is essentially a blank canvas for players to customise. Although it featured an array of barricades, ramps, and vantage points in its default layout, this could be recreated from scratch using the Forge, demonstrating the flexibility now available to players. It didn't take long for the folks at Rooster Teeth (the guys behind seminal machinima comedy Red Vs Blue) to combine the powers of the Forge, the customisable rules and use the open space available in Foundry to invent GrifBall, a lethal and frenetic virtual future-sport (itself a heavily adapted mod of the Assault game type) which has since been a regular feature of Bungie's double-XP weekends and has associated tournaments.

posted by nthdegx (4 comments total)

Last week I picked up my dusty old Halo 3 controller for the first time in months, and heard about griffball on the bungie site. Haven't played it yet, but looks like fun.
posted by sambosambo at 8:05 AM on June 17, 2008

Griffball is about the only thing that gets me to step outside the relative safety of Ranked Play into the Madmaxian nightmare that is the world of "Social Play."

The high-pitched screaming and sexual trash talk is less annoying when you can repeadedly beat the little fuckers with a Gravity Hammer while your mate runs in a touchdown.

Rocket Race (and other homebrew variants) are brilliant fun as well, but you really need to get a party of eight mates together to enjoy them rather than rely on the random spasmokid population of the Social zone.

I put Halo 3 down about a month after i'd started to play it online, but thankfully a couple of my mates persuaded me to pick it back up again a couple of months ago and i normally play a good couple of hours each week now.

The trick to enjoyable Halo is definitely to ensure that you're playing on the same team as people you like as much as possible. Keeps the potential for retardary to a minimum.

Same goes for anything online really when you think about it.
posted by garius at 9:05 AM on June 17, 2008

Where's my urban dictionary...?
posted by gottabefunky at 11:02 AM on June 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I love RvB. More than I like Halo, really.

Thank you for reminding me to check for new episodes! Woo! Finally! The return of Sarge! Caboose! And Church!

Caboose should not amuse me 1/10th as much as he does. But I just can't stop giggling.

Grif had better show up eventually.
posted by flaterik at 7:00 PM on June 17, 2008