Throughout my history with gaming, I have always thought power weapons were completely useless, and easily substituted by the ranged, and accurate weapons, such as rifles and such. I have always thought it to be a great disadvantage that you have to walk by their spawning points, and perhaps camp there (remain in that location) in order to be able to successfully receive the weapon once it spawns, (otherwise someone else will,) or even deal with campers already armed with that rocket you are trying to steal, or that are perhaps hiding in the bushes, and such. They would also run out of ammo rather quickly, and it was far too easy to miss when attempting to actually hit an enemy player, especially from a distance. Not only this, yet they were rather difficult to use in general. Oh boy, what a mistake it was to think that!

My first real experience with power weapons was during the pre-historic times of Halo Reach. I first logged on to XBOX LIVE, and then used the matchmaking service to join a game, and fight, kind of like I do in real life – fight, - except online, only slightly less awesome. I used the service, and eventually got into Invasion – a game-type in which there are two opposing teams, the Spartans, and the Elites. The Elites are tasked with breaking through deeper, and deeper into enemy territory, by capturing several control points, and eventually taking the enemy core back to their base. The Spartans had to stop the Elites.

I was placed in the Spartans team, which I thought would be much easier to win. Immediately at the spawn, I chose the class with the long range rifle, spawned, and then quickly moved to meet the opposing team. It was easy at first, since no one had any power weapons, and we had to fight at close range. Eventually, however, the enemy was allowed to cloak for brief periods, and were later able to cloak, and use swords simultaneously. They would also head for the explosive weaponry before any of my retarded allies had a grasp on the situation. To cut the story a bit, we have gotten destroyed – it was not pretty at all.

Oh well, I thought, they simply had skilled players, while I, as well as my team, were all noobs. I then moved on to find another match, once again in Invasion, and once again, I was chosen to be in the defending team. I decided I would give the ranged weapons another try, as I am a crack-shot. This time, the match was much more close, as we have been able to stall the enemy from breaking through for almost the whole of the time required by the timers to win the match, yet ultimately, we failed. Again, I went back into the lobby to join another match, this time, I was playing as the attackers, the Elites. I thought I would easily steamroll through the enemy with my allies, as it was certainly easier to capture and zerg-rush a point than to defend it. I hopped into the game, and immediately started heading to the control points, yet to my surprise, the Spartans were putting up VERY stiff resistance. Eventually, however, despite such resistance, my team has broken through the second set of enemy control points, and we had a clear shot at their core. At this moment, however, power-weapons were allowed to be used by the players in the loadout screen. The Spartans equipped themselves with shotguns, as my team has, except for me of course; I have continued to use my mid to long range rifle, and have been repeatedly torn to shreds by the enemy as I attempted to break through to their base. Whenever I would attempt to break through their main doors with my allies, I would be run over by an enemy vehicle, such as a tank; whenever I would try to head in through the side doors, the enemy would always have their rockets primed at me, and blow me to pieces; and whenever I would attempt to head in through the ventilation, as I would be falling into the room to grab their core, there would always be that one bastard which was so good with the sniper rifle, he would catch you mid-air, and blow your brains out. Again, we lost.

I eventually began to rage, as my friend, and others had said the enemy would, except it was me doing it. I was wondering how to defeat, and then bathe in the blood of my enemies, yet to no avail, for no idea would come, except of course, to give them a taste of their own medicine – to use the power weapons.

I joined another invasion match, and immediately when I was able to, I ran towards the rocket spawn, grabbed the rocket, and headed up to confront the opposing team. At first, I noticed they had a vehicle with a mounted chaingun, and some smaller single rider vehicles. I took aim at the first, and fired. I missed. I fired again – miss, and again – miss. Eventually, I was left with only one round in my rocket, and decided to quickly run back to base. I knew I had to defend the core, and therefore took up a position by the side entrance with the rocket on me. I was aware of the amount of ammunition in reserve, and therefore simply waited. In time, the enemy broke through, and started heading right for us. A group of around 5 men approached me and another teammate, and immediately shot him down. I then leaped backwards, and fired my rocket, killing half their group. They eventually killed me, however, and we lost the match, yet I realized just how kick-ass power-weapons really are.

I then hopped into a fourth lobby, and pursued my same strategy as in the last game, except this time I waited for the enemy by the base, and in time, racked up a massive score, and finally, won my first Invasion match as the defending team. Then, time passed, and I kept rocket and sniper spamming, camping, both at the weapon spawns, and at the enemy base, and then realized how wrong I truly was, and then learned the true most effective strategy: spam power-weapons.