Did You Win Halo Wars?

22 responses to “Did You Win Halo Wars?”

1. 

   James O’Connor

   March 25, 2009 at 5:34 pm

   This is awesome. Thanks David!

   Reply
2. 

   Mr Explody

   March 25, 2009 at 5:35 pm

   Congratulations Guys!

   I do see a few too many syllables there though…hmm…

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3. 

   bw

   March 25, 2009 at 5:36 pm

   Umm, I don’t mean to be an ass, but Trent’s first line has 6 syllables…

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4. 

   Daniel Green

   March 25, 2009 at 6:04 pm

   oh im devastated, i really thought i had a chance of winning for once.

   congrats to winners tho

   Reply
5. 

   LiAm

   March 25, 2009 at 6:18 pm

   Perhaps you should check the definition of a Haiku and then re-think awarding Trent with 3rd place. “Am I really a noob?” – looks like 6 syllables to me.

   Reply
6. 

   David Wildgoose

   March 25, 2009 at 7:05 pm

   Damn it. Trent did manage to sneak an extra syllable in there. What can I say? I’m a writer, not a mathematician…

   Still, he made me chuckle, and he did supply the best “teabagging” gag.

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7. 

   Jordan

   March 25, 2009 at 7:11 pm

   bah, technicalities, I thought Trent’s was the best 🙂 (the others are great too)

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8. 

   Trent

   March 25, 2009 at 7:18 pm

   Woo! I mean… Woo? I was quite critical about my own counting of syllables when creating the Haiku, I think though I typed one of the first revisions without editing it… oh well.

   Thanks David =D

   Oh, well done to most of those who entered also, quite a few made me chuckle also =)

   Reply
9. 

   Cam

   March 25, 2009 at 7:31 pm

   I dont mind the extra syllables. Well done guys. It was fun to try writing one 🙂

   Reply
10. 

    Techa

    March 25, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    congrats winrars!

    anyone get a chuckle from mine?

    it was the one about, master chief being in ur base, capturing ur flag.

    Reply
11. 

    Nerje

    March 25, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    I spent all morning and part of the afternoon crafting a masterpiece that was poetic, relevant, humorous, and CORRECT ACCORDING TO HAIKU STRUCTURE, but hey whatever.

    Am I bitter? Yes.
    Bitter enough to cry? Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnyes

    James O’Connor, why didn’t you buy a copy yourself? I know how much they pay per page for an article in Hyper. 😛

    JUST JOKES GUYS congratulations to the winners!

    Now I have to save up for a new XBox because Halo Wars doesn’t run on my launch XBox. *sob*

    Reply
12. 

    Jay

    March 26, 2009 at 12:13 am

    Congratulations
    You are all worthy winners
    Except O’Connor

    Reply
13. 

    Anthony N

    March 26, 2009 at 1:03 am

    no need to cry, just delete ‘a’ from trent’s first line..

    Reply
14. 

    James

    March 26, 2009 at 1:34 am

    Nerje: Although by night I freelance for Hyper, by day I’m a poor Uni student who wanted to play Halo Wars but couldn’t justify the expense.

    Also, this is totally going on my resume. “Once came runner-up in a nationwide haiku poetry contest”.

    Reply
15. 

    Nerje

    March 26, 2009 at 2:11 am

    This is going to come across really bad, please don’t take this the wrong way when I say this, but somebody has to keep you guys on your toes.

    I feel that this set a pretty bad precedent for future Kotaku contests. I know that the winners are entirely up to you, David, but hear me out:

    This is an excerpt from the ‘conditions of entry’ for this contest.

    “Now, what with the real-time strategy of Halo Wars being a more thoughtful take on the Halo universe, what better way to hold a comp than to get you thinking. To enter, we want you to write a Halo haiku.

    And that means three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables each.

    The most lyrical, poetic, downright funny or whichever takes our fancy will win. Just make sure it’s all about Halo.”

    Now let’s look at the winners:

    James C wrote an amusing haiku for sure. Managed to make a normally cheap urine reference witty. Worthy.

    However, James O’Connor’s wasn’t even about Halo and it was pretty specifically stated that it should be. It was about buying games from Asia. It really could apply to any game. I still think it’s a great haiku, very clever, but it’s a bit unfair to everyone who actually themed their haikus according to the guidelines of the competition. I would think that there were a lot of entries looked over because they were all “I really want to win this competititon!” instead of tackling the subject matter, but this one wasn’t.

    Trent’s entry wasn’t even a haiku. It’s a bit like someone playing Pictionary and then putting a random word in a speech bubble. It might be highly amusing to all involved but is it fair to grant them victory? Especially when everyone else put a lot of effort into drawing a picture of a blender. It’s just not Pictionary otherwise.

    To build on that, you actually linked to the wikipedia definition of haiku but didn’t take it into account in the judging process.

    You also mentioned that you would be looking at haikus that were lyrical, poetic and/or amusing. All three winners fell under the amusing category.

    What’s done is done, it would be very bad form to turn around to the winners and say “sorry but I take it back because I judged incorrectly” but the fact remains, you judged incorrectly. I know you said “whichever takes our fancy” but you can’t really lay out some guidelines and then decide that “whichever takes our fancy” actually ignores those guidelines. It’s a tad hypocritical.

    Once again, congratulations to the winners, they were certainly amusing. But please try and maintain some integrity when judging future competitions. I will be interested to see the winning entries for the I Heart Street Fighter comp.

    Reply
16. 

    cs

    March 26, 2009 at 8:44 am

    @nerje
    Very well said it is very unfair to set guidelines and then not to stick with them.

    Reply
17. 

    Nerje

    March 26, 2009 at 8:52 am

    Hey James O, don’t sweat it, I know. I was making a crack because I know how little they actually pay – if I was freelancing for Hyper for some cash, I would be begging for games too. 😀

    Reply
18. 

    James C

    March 26, 2009 at 9:16 am

    Holy crap!
    Thanks so much!

    oh god I gotta sit down…

    Reply
19. 

    Qliphoth/Daemons

    March 26, 2009 at 10:09 am

    CURRENTLY DEVASTATED

    Reply
20. 

    DerangedStoat

    March 26, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    Congratulations!
    I just wanted the Xbox,
    Did not want halo.

    Reply
21. 

    James O’Connor

    March 26, 2009 at 6:50 pm

    Nerje: my haiku was actually about the Korean copy of Halo 3 I bought off of Play-Asia.com. I only paid $20AU for it, and all the menus are in English, but because all the dialogue was spoken in Korean, I didn’t understand the plot at all. I didn’t have enough syllables to go into more detail, you understand. :p

    Reply
22. 

    jimmy

    March 26, 2009 at 9:20 pm

    @Nerje

    I totally agree.

    Also, next time it would help to have the time that the comp closes in the actual post. Mine probably wouldn’t of been good enough anyway, but I realised I submitted it too late when it was… uh… too late. Just assumed that “Friday, March 20” was still Friday, March 20 even after 5pm.

    Reply