Gilbert Arenas Loves Halo

Not only is Gilbert tearing it up this year on the court with his 30.2 ppg average, he also sponsors a professional Halo team. Heres the article from Xbox.com.

NBA star Gilbert Arenas is one of the biggest gamers in the league. Not only does he play Xbox 360™ games all year long, he's invested his own money to sponsor the top professional Halo® team in the world, Final Boss.



Gilbert Arenas sports a custom adidas 5IVE uniform in NBA Live 07.

Arenas is also in Electronic Arts' new NBA Live 07, not only in his standard Wizards uniform, but gamers can get special codes from adidas to unlock a custom All-Star team featuring Arenas, Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett, and Chauncey Billups, all in special adidas 5IVE uniforms. These players can take on any other five NBA players in an original adidas stadium. On top of that, adidas has partnered with EA to offer 100 unlockable items in the game that will increase a player's abilities on the hardwood.

"I found out this summer how to hook up my Xbox 360 in the hotel and get past security. It took me a while to figure out, but I got it now."
"Man, it is so cool that you can see how technology is changing," said Arenas. "If you go back and play those old games now. Like in my mind Super Mario Bros. is the best game, but if you look at it now it's like, 'Oh my God, that's terrible graphics.' Xbox 360 makes it so real now. In a couple of years it's going to be real people in these videogames. They have the tattoos down. The technology is moving so fast without anyone realizing it."

He's in the Game.
Arenas logs a lot of hours playing videogames, especially on Xbox Live. He said he's getting used to seeing himself in the basketball games.



Players can unlock this exclusive adidas arena in NBA Live 07.

"It was weird when I first came in, especially in college videogames," said Arenas. "In college, the games just had my number 0 and it didn't even have my name. I'd start playing and think, 'Hey, I can dunk better than this.' And you start critiquing it. You get into the league and you're playing these games. The first couple of years you just want to shoot the ball as yourself the whole game. Now, it's like, 'I'm going to be in these games for a long time."

Unlike the NFL pros, who have been known to complain about their Madden in-game ratings, Arenas said pro basketball players don't pay so much attention to that.

"I've never heard of players doing that before," said Arenas. "If I'm an 85 or a 98, no matter what, I'm still going to shoot the ball 100 times. My whole goal when I play the game is I don't care about the wins or losses if I'm playing against my friends. I just like it if you can just stop me from scoring 100 as myself. Then you've won."

Halo Fanatic
Arenas said he spends 98 percent of his time on Xbox Live® playing Halo. He's a self-described Halo fanatic. "First it was just a lot of team play, then I got into sniping," said Arenas. "Now I'm into modding. I want to mod. I've been modded against so many times it's messing up my ranking. As soon as I'm about to get up to a higher ranking, I get modded three times in a row. I'm getting my mod box."



EA Sports brings next generation hoops to Xbox 360.

Arenas goes straight to the pros for help in Halo. He sponsors Final Boss, the top pro Halo team in the world. He thinks professional videogame tournaments are great for the gaming industry.

"Athletes are all into their own things, and since I'm a gamer, that's what I want to get into," said Arenas. "I want to see if I'm that guy that can turn the professional gaming leagues into the X-Games or something."

Arenas also said pro gamers have an eye for the virtual competition. "You don't realize that you have to be talented to play video games, but you do," said Arenas. "You have to have great hand-eye coordination. One of my players, Saiyan (Ryan Danford) played soccer in high school, so he's athletic as well."

Games Do the Body Good
Arenas is one of the rare athletes that admits that playing video games has helped him in his career. "It's hard for somebody to say that, but yes, video games helped me in real sports," said Arenas. "You need to have hand-eye coordination for anything athletic, so if you play video games, and you're good at it, you're going to be good with hand-eye coordination stuff."

Arenas doesn't believe games like Halo are bad for gamers. "It's entertainment," said Arenas. "You play in groups and it's cool how kids are communicating now. They're using video games so they don't have to pay for cell phone bills anymore. I have a lot of friends who don't have cell phones and they say they'll meet me online at 7 p.m. on Xbox Live and that's my chitchat hours."

Article by John Gaudiosi