Trying to find out where the bananas went.
Iggyhopper conducted this interview from a half finished house. In the face of extreme and dangerous conditions, he toiled so that you might be entertained. Are you not entertained? Probably not, but that's because you haven't read the interview yet.
Q. Who are you and what do you do?
A. My name is Greg, although the other options were Alexander, or Mike, but my dad chose Greg just because it was cool. I am way awesome because I have two different colored eyes (one blue and one brown), something called “Heterochromia.” I was born, and still live in the glorious city of Modesto, California. I’m 18-years-old and still look 21 because I have this god-awful beard growing on my face (maybe it’s time to shave). I’m an ex-skateboarder, a mediocre guitar and piano player, and one super awesome programmer. I am currently a part-time student in my third semester, taking every class that can do with computers (synthesizers are quite spectacular, by the way), and kicking some butt over Xbox LIVE.
When I’m not being awesome by playing Halo or Worms, my family and I work on the house. My parents have completely torn apart and rebuilt our last house, now we’ve moved and are doing the same to this one. It feels so great to complete something so big, but it’s pretty much like indoor camping if you’re living in the house you’re renovating. As a matter of fact, as I’m writing this, my computer chair is on the bare concrete floor, right now. I could basically build a house from scratch, with all this stuff I’ve been doing over the years.
Q. How did you end up camping on your gamertag?
A. There is this game, called “Iggy’s Wrecking Balls.” It’s basically a racing game that takes place on broken up, vertical levels. You could grapple onto higher platforms, and even throw your friends off too. I had great fun with that game, so I decided Iggy would be the first part of my gamertag. The second half had to feel right, it had to roll off the tongue, it also, more importantly, had to be original. This is when I came up with “hopper” as the second half. The name was born, and can easily be shortened to just Iggy. That isn’t my first gamertag though, the first one I ever had was “Realm32”, but that got lost with the new Xbox 360 experience, so now I hop “iggies”, as I’m told.
Q. I have no idea what that means. Cool story, though. Tell me what forums you haunt when you're not renovating your pad?
A. Oh, I’ll haunt the Halo 3 forum, maybe scare some people over in the Halo 3: ODST forum. You can find me most of the time in the Community forums, and I will visit The Flood from time to time. There’s just so many creepy castles to choose from, I can’t haunt all of them, you know. Sometimes I’ll even send completely random messages to people to spark some kind of interesting conversation. I’ll get a good reply back (from cool people), and maybe a laugh.
Q. Oh man, I see what you did there with the play on words and whatnot. What compels you to play games?
A. My game is always on with my little brother, who I introduced into Halo: Combat Evolved when he was five. He’s an adorable little brat who loves playing games and being cool, what can I say. He’s just so gullible for scams though because, well, he’s a kid. That’s why I’m here to keep him in check. I was playing my first games on the TurboGrafX-16 and the Super Nintendo. I’d see my dad always playing Galaga ’90, and I’d always play Bonk or Donkey Kong Country. It’s now 2009, so he isn’t really good with Halo 3, he just wants the sniper so he can shoot people. He can’t ever manage to move and shoot at the same time, though. My mom will always be a Pac-man and Frogger fan, no Halo for her.
What compels me to game is a good question. I think this comes from me wanting to always make games, no matter what. Sometimes when I was younger, I’d try to make my own board games out of paper and a few pieces of tape. Another factor is probably getting the best high score, or getting 100% completion (okay 99%, I’m lazy). I’m always interested in the soundtracks of the games, and the story. What happened to DK? His bananas got stolen, so I wanted to play the game to find out where his bananas went!
Q. What was the first Bungie title you played?
A. The first game I ever played was Halo: Combat Evolved, and that was when I was 9 or 10. It was a Christmas present with seven other games, and an Xbox. While a kid, I had known nothing about the story, but when I look at it now, I can see why it was so great. I don’t think any other game had deep game-play like Halo: CE did. I didn’t play multiplayer except to bash hogs with my brother, but the campaign was fun! The Halo series can be compared to a black hole, you are safe as long as you’re far away. The closer you get to it, the harder it is to get away. Once you get sucked in, you just keep learning about it, you can’t escape, but it’s fun to spin around in circles all the time, right?
Q. Are you surprised by how far you've been sucked into the community?
A. Definitely. I am really surprised, because normally I’ll join a community because I just want to know more, ask quick questions, all the same stuff. With Bungie, I would actually want to make good topics and threads, and then get to have responses by the actual employees (sometimes). It’s so fun to read when people discover new things. I also write user-scripts for greasemonkey to make Bungie.net extra awesome. If you want to learn more, you can visit the Script Central thread in the Community forums.
Q. Do you get involved with any other communities?
A. I am a part of the starcraft.org network, and the Team 17 forums for my beloved Worms. When I’m not playing Halo 3, I’m playing Worms, you can bet on it. I’m usually mapping and modding Starcraft as well.
Q. Anything you wanna add? Wanna make some shout-outs?
A. Do A Barrel Roll!
I’d like to make a shout out to Mr WhatsItToYa, my brother. I’d also like to shout out to these people I know in no particular order: Sarsion, Cortana 5, TheScriptKeeper, CAVX, Duardo, and Lord Snakie.
Here’s some people I saw on the forums, and thought they were pretty awesome: Energy Sword, L00, and Old Papa Rich. Shout out to them because they’re cool.
Last but not least, I shout at you, Urk.
Hmm, it doesn’t feel like I’m shouting. Let me get a feel for it... I’M SHOUTING!!!... Okay.
Okay. Thanks for the interview, Greg. Good luck with the renovations and thanks for helping us keep the community in great shape. We'll set up a discussion thread so people can pop in and shout back.