Well, I got you all worked up about Call of Duty XP — it only seems fair to follow through and get you in the door! I am thrilled to have four pairs of tickets to give away for the big event in September, but you’re going to have to earn them.
In case you haven’t checked out the official website, Call of Duty XP is a two-day fan-focused event taking place in Los Angeles this September, full of everything from paintball matches to huge tournaments to live entertainment. This will be the first time Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer info is shared with the world, and the first time a lot of gamers will get to meet the creators and developers behind the series face to face. It’s going to be quite a memorable weekend if you’re a fan of Call of Duty.
So here’s how it works. I love haiku — the simple Japanese poetry you probably learned about in 8th grade. These poems are usually little observations about the seasons or nature and the emotions they evoke, but they always follow the same form: 17 syllables total, broken into three lines: five syllables in the first, seven in the second, five in the last. Here in the West, haiku has been written about a range of geeky topics, from PC error messages to sci-fi to, inevitably, zombies. So why not Call of Duty? Here, I just made this one up:
With my dying breath
I fire my pistol — headshot!
Thanks, Second Chance Pro
And this one:
Galil or Famas?
Skill with either earns respect
Unlike the noob tube
I suspect you can do better, so this is your challenge: Write a really, really good haiku about Call of Duty. I am picking the winners based on creativity and cleverness. Hint: I’m a sucker for puns, but I also respect anybody who at least attempts to respect the Zen-like nature of real haiku. Can you say something about the natural world around you and still name-check your favorite assault rifle? This one’s for you. And yes, you can enter multiple poems, but you can only win one pair of tickets.
I will pick four winners after the August 10th deadline passes; each of those winners will receive codes to redeem at callofduty.com/xp for tickets in their name (and a friend, of course). All the Call of Duty XP rules still apply — you have to be 18 to get in the door, and you have to get yourself here and find a place to sleep (the venue and my apartment are not valid options). But once you get here, I can get you and your friend in for the big dance. Check my contest FAQ for more info, but yes, this is open to international winners, with the same caveats listed above.
So, in other words:
Haiku of Duty
Creativity will win
Deadline: August 10th
UPDATE 8/11/11:
I was happy to see so many people rise to the creative challenge on this one — thank you for spending the time and creative energy to enter! Several entries shared common elements. For instance, poems devoted to both bragging and begging were fairly common. I also saw a lot of people try to rhyme, which made it feel like bad rap music, and a fair amount of vulgarity, which also made it feel like bad rap music. And more than one person tried to pass this classic off as their own, but you ain’t foolin’ me. This was about your creativity, not someone else’s. Then there were the people who didn’t get the whole 5-7-5 thing…
Basically, I favored entries that tried to say something about the communal Call of Duty experience — something any COD player would see and go “oh yeah, I know what you mean.” That’s sort of the goal of haiku anyway, to comment on something larger than yourself but that has universal resonance. And some people really tried for phrasing that made it sound a little more ethereal, which sometimes made them stand out. Other people went funny or punny, and those were welcome too.
So, the winners, from about 200 entries:
Silent is the Ghost
Rooted behind a shadow
The wind dares not move
Omer Aru, Herndon, VA
Tale of Gun Game woe
One more kill…but stabbed by noob
Humiliation
Danny Audsley, Flint, Flintshire, UK
Busy neighborhood
Neighbors are a little stiff
Welcome to Nuketown
John Maceo, Annapolis, MD
Gunship soars above
Raining fire from heaven
To suppress the foes
Janice Galang, Silver Spring, MD
Those four people each get a pair of tickets to Call of Duty XP — I’ll contact you privately via email with the details of how to register for your tickets. But book your flight and hotel accommodations now!
There were plenty more good entries, and of course, it’s subjective — so maybe you will like some of these excellent runners-up more. They were all in consideration:
From behind cover
A lone soldier’s head peeks up
Hold, deep breath — headshot
Matt Trojan, Phoenix, AZ
KDR matters?
Can’t win Demo just from kills
Plant the bomb, dammit!
Tien Le, San Diego, CA
My cat has Pro perks
She sneaks into the kitchen
With Ghost and Ninja
Esteban Arellano, Visalia, CA
I can’t believe it
A crossbow stuck to my foot
My heart de-feet-ed
Allen Lau, Redmond, WA
Racist little kid
Please just let me play my game
I press X to mute
Ryan Helsley, Corona, CA
CoD is fun
Though I never earn a streak
I make someone’s day
Cy Ng, Palo Alto, CA
Hanging in the sky
There is a double rainbow
Then your ass gets nuked
Matthew Netzley, Chatsworth, CA
Did you just hear that?
Enemy Huey inbound
Get those Strelas out!
Evan Esposito, Webster, NY
Search and Destroy, go!
Noob tube from across the map?
Now I have to wait
John Mozingo, Sapulpa, OK
Code Red Mountain Dew
Call of Duty with my friends
What?! It’s 4AM?!
Lindsey Minor, Redding, CA
Rain on your parade
The source of your frustration
My chopper gunner
Fredy Orozco, Moreno Valley, CA
Vahn likes hardcore modes
4RUM got them to be changed
Rage on, kiddo, rage on
Chris Townsend, Belton, MO
My son throws his toys
Because I throw controllers
Damn Javelin glitch
Tracy Townsend, Milwaukee, WI
This guy gets special recognition for a violent thought that matches his violent name:
Rushers always cry
Campers are overrated
Let’s go kill them all
Justin Slaughter, Bakersfield, CA
And the one that really made me groan:
Majestic salmon…
Large tuna…but my favorite
Just has to be COD
Sam Bristow, Ipswitch, Suffolk, UK
Thanks again for the support — I’m sorry I can’t send more people, but it’d still be great to see you there if you can make it.
UPDATE 2:
Twotoetimmy’s entry had too many syllables in the last line (it was “even the wind dares not move…”). Neither he nor I nor anybody here at Activision to whom I showed the finalists’ entries caught that. However, he had another verse in the mix that I almost posted in the runners-up (“Sudden silence comes / AC-130 spotted / Rains death from above”) that was a little too close to Cypher125′s, so I went with his other one for the proverbial win. He earned the ticket in my book, so I changed “even” to “the” in the winning entry. Timmy says he was planning to go to the event solo anyway, so he has offered his other ticket to a runner-up, which I let him pick. He chose Matt Trojan’s entry above. Congrats the hard way, Matt!
Sorry for the screw-up — total human error and an honest mistake on everybody’s part — but this at least feels fair.
