1) Cheaters: You're playing a good game, have gotten your fair share of kills, and suddenly your screen goes blue. Maybe someone quit the game, but maybe your game has been visited by that not-rare-enough online competitor, the cheater. They may be playing on a modded box or they may know the art of Standby. Whatever the case, they've just ruined one of your online experiences. If you're lucky, that'll be the only one they ruin tonight.

2) Poor starting weapon choice: Know how sick we got of the Battle Rifle as the default starting weapon in Halo 2? Sick enough to cause Bungie to bring back the Assault Rifle as the starting weapon for the Halo 3 Beta test in May.

3) Griefers: They whine, they cry, they want what they want and they want to make you suffer while they get it. They're the last people you'll meet who'll give you the respect of (at least) a "Good game" comment in the post-game lobby.

4) Rehashed Halo: C.E. maps: Halo 1's maps were unique in many ways because they were the first ground many of us broke with our Mjolnir-armor boots. Was there really any point to remake several of them for Halo 2? Nostalgia is one thing, innovation quite another.

5) Weapon whores: You may not be the best player in the online arena, but you know how to use the weapons and don't just carry them around like a trophy. You're running for your gun of choice when a teammate is suddenly in front of you (if he hasn't killed you outright already), crying into his mic "I call sniper! I call sniper!" And once he's got it, he either never uses it, or uses it so poorly it wouldn't matter if he'd picked up a shotgun instead.

6) The Matchmaking Lobby, a.k.a. Pull up a chair and get some coffee, you'll be here a while: It feels like we spent more hours staring at those "helpful tips" while the system searched for prospective players than we did killing those players in the game on any given night. Here's hoping there's a whole game walkthrough in the "tips" section of the screen if the player searches are going to be that long in Halo 3...

7) Team Killers: They're the teammates who'll melee you from behind because: you've dropped the flag on the way out of the enemy's base; because you failed to protect your flag the last round; because you "accidentally" shot them after they systematically killed your whole team.

If they're still around for the post-game lobby, they will provide detailed instructions from about what you'd be better suited doing (other than Halo 2)--most often it involves your mom and procreation.

None of the above is going to keep me from getting the Halo 3 Legendary Edition come September 25th. It's just a good thing I have a very full friends list...