Extinction Awakening: the restraint of waiting for Graybush

I mean restraint in a totally Herd of Cats way...

Previously on this space it was discussed how Graybush dealt with Blackwalt's vacation. How he held himself back from playing Extinction and finishing Point of Contact. I was impressed by Graybush's strength of character and his willpower. We were all impressed how after not being online for two weeks he appeared each and every night Blackwalt was gone, how he played with complete strangers to learn their methods, how he honed his Extinction skills as he prepared for Blackwalt's return. AND HOW HE FINISHED THE DAMN LEVEL THE DAY BEFORE BLACKWALT GOT BACK. Some of us remember this more than others.

I have been thinking on how to reward his restraint and self control. A reward he richly deserves.

On to Extinction: Awakening with SeanMCR and Coxxorz last night. Kind of related...

Last night I was in the process of quitting out and going to bed when I noticed Coxxorz had sneaked online. Well, it wasn't that late. Maybe I will invite him to Call of Duty Extinction Mode and play a round. We had all been repeatedly attempting the new Awakening map. And I should invite SeanMCR as well. He was online in Netflix and we had been mutually ignoring each other until then.

So Coxxorz joined quickly and seconds before we clicked Start Match SeanMCR joined in. We waited for a tense, long, single second hoping Graybush would appear but it was not to be.

Our one quick round lasted two and a half hours. That is two and a half hours after Coxxorz had signed on. Needless to say, not much sleep was had last night. By me anyway. It was the norm for Coxxorz and we all know that SeanMCR lives countless time zones away.

By the way Graybush, we totally did not finish Awakening without you and we totally did not earn a 30G achievement called "Escaped Awakening."

Totally did not.

But if such a hypothetically possibility may have occurred here is what we would have done to get there.

Blackwalt gave up on boosting ammo. He put everything into character and turret upgrades.
SeanMCR did turret upgrades and armor.
Coxxorz did Ammo and something else (we never really know)

It seems like getting through the first area is the difficult part of Awakening. Before your group has much in the way of upgrades.

By the time the three of us got to the second area we had two sets of fully upgraded turrets and all had fully upgraded characters. One person had full armor and one person had full ammo.

Getting through the third area allowed SeanMCR and Blackwalt to have Pistols upgraded to the point of allowing two primary weapons. Seems odd but that is where the upgrade is placed.

The fourth area got exciting. SeanMCR and Blackwalt were placing turrets constantly, emptying both LMGs constantly and sucking ammo like water from the ammo sugar daddy that was Coxxorz.

Escaping back through the levels was hard. Dealing with the force fields for the third time was annoying, yes. Dealing with all the Cryptids was annoying, yes. But the biggest difficulty for our survival was dealing with SeanMCR's constant complaining. He took the pleasure of retrieving the Cortex and carrying it back to our extraction point. It was our most difficult gaming memory in recent Herd of Cats history:

SeanMCR: "I can't do anything while I am carrying this!"
SeanMCR: "Keep them off me!"
SeanMCR: "I can't shoot while I am carrying the cortex!"
SeanMCR: "Cover me!"

Other two players: "Would you like one of us to carry it?"

SeanMCR: "No I'm okay."

To be fair to SeanMCR the above conversation may have been paraphrased and possibly exaggerated a small amount. Very small.

So Graybush, despite what you may have heard or read, we (the three of us) are patiently awaiting your return to Xbox Live so that you can lead us through the new Awakening map. We look forward to finishing it... with you.