On Friday, February 25, 2011, we had our first ever fully Reach night. We've included it in several recent nights, but this is the first time we didn't fire up Halo 3 at all for the duration of the night. This was also the first night we would give out the prestigious O'Brien award (named after its mascot, Miles O'Brien). The award would go to the highest ranking adult in the final match...

The first match was a simple slayer match, but with a previously unseen map. Found earlier that day by stinklikeonion, The Venetian offers an elegant set of paths atop a body of water (decidedly the most deadly thing to a Spartan: water over three feet deep). It was a good, even playing ground to give everyone another opportunity to get accustomed to the new control schemes.

As the night progressed, we continued to try out new maps, but we also tried out some of Halo Reach's equivalents to Halo 3 classic game types and maps. For example, we played some Grifball on GGL Coliseum, shotty snipers on the Spire and a custom-forged attempt at replicating Halo 3's Guardian map. We threw in some Mayhem (with the appropriate Halo Reach-specific twists), and a round of Infection.

It wasn't all classic and/or nostalgic stuff. We played a few rounds of Juggernaut, which was a Halo Night first and produced mushashi's first ever win. We also played some other custom maps that proved to be particularly interesting, including the particularly trippy Narrow Extent, as well as other Forgeworld-based maps. We even tried a round of Headhunter, which proved to be an interesting match for sure. Combining the aggressive posture of Slayer with the strategic positioning of King of the Hill, Headhunter offered an interesting blend of gaming requirements.

At the end of the night, mushashi won the final match (or at least got second under WhiteNoise486), which earned him the O'Brien trophy.