Clan Review: Bound By Honour

What makes entering a tournament worthwhile? The after-party of course. And this is all according to Bound By Honour — a team that bases their will-to-kill on friendship and not die-hard competitiveness.

Back in 2008 a league of extra-ordinary gentlemen gathered round to form something different, something more adulterate. And I use adulterate loosely, not only to denote that these guys don’t kid around, but to also emphasis they don’t play for keeps.

After being involved in the Battlefield scene for a number of years, BBH is pretty much a team which broke away from Big Fat B*stards — a squad we recently spoke about. Regardless of this, their respect for one another, and other teams, is somewhat uplifting and strange at the same time.

For example, they love to beat team Grrr which are, apparently, whiny little girls. But at the same time, Grrr is like a sister clan — only because they’ve known them for ages. There’s a rare bond.

According to one of the founding members Vinko ‘ChaosADPumpkinHead’ Soldo, Grrr provided for one of his best gaming memories where “they capped all our flags and killed everyone except for Bounty. He climbed up on the roof of a building and it took their whole team forever to kill him. It was epic sitting there watching as it all unfolded. After the game we had a huge laugh about it. That’s Grrr, a great bunch!”

Now we’ve featured a few serious teams in the past, but BBH, they are something different. I mean, between Greek Sizzlers–don’t ask–and alcohol-related bonding, these guys do mean business. They are currently battling through the DoGaming First Division where they’ve won one, lost one and drawn one.

It’s not often that we come across teams who, and I’m guessing here, judge tournaments and events on a scale of fun, instead of the competition. I was told that although rAge 2009 was a bit poor for BBH, the “party was EPIC!”

Regardless of all the above–if you didn’t catch the hints before–Bound By Honour is a slightly older team. They were friends before they were gamers, and they hope to keep it this way. And I guess that’s where Bound By Honour comes in.

The name is an interesting concept, and unfortunately we cannot give them all the credit as they got it from a movie which released in America known as ‘Bound By Honour’. It released in South Africa as “Blood In Blood Out”, but if they used this as their name they might have been portrayed very female-like. If you understand what I mean.

The Members:

• Almar “Spr1gg4n” Schutte
• Francois “Rambino” Kolbe
• Paolo “Death” Giannini
• William “Bounty” Ermen
• Jason “Toofy” Hutton
• Damien “XennoX” Hawes
• Rob “KRYGORIAN” Foden
• Vinko “ChaosADPumpkinHead” Soldo
• Sean “Dingbat” Macdonald
• Herman “HellBilly_deluxe” Erasmus
• Walters “WAJKiller2″ Muller
• Bruno “StuKKenD” Edelinski
• Erwin “DirkieUys” Erasmus
• Brendon “Sgt Nugget” Viljoen
• Shane “BeoTeK” Van Eck

Management:

• Vinko “ChaosADPumpkinHead” Soldo
• Herman “HellBilly_deluxe” Erasmus

Bound By Honour aren’t only a fun bunch of guys who game, but they are also activists in the community. They do have gaming’s best interest at heart, and they’ll probably be a great advocate for anyone willing to get on board by sponsoring. It seems like these guys know how to go out there and promote gaming as much as possible.

While there are no serious plans for the the future, BBH would like to keep playing some sort of Battlefield–can’t get away from those army days–and also ‘get Bounty a wheelchair with a fridge to keep his rum cold.’ Yeah, it sure is a different approach to gaming alright.

Apart from playing the odd tournament and participating in DoGaming Cups, Bound By Honour have aimed to ensure that everyone’s having fun, and to maintain positive relationships with other players and clans.

According to Vinko, South African gaming is long-past that whole ‘anti-social’ tag, as it has come to the point where large companies are getting involved to help the growth of eSports. There’s still a far way to go, but every bit helps and who knows what the future will hold — apart from a wheelchair with a fridge for rum.

Without touching too much on improvement for local gaming, Vinko tackled an even better subject: the publishers themselves. He said, and I agree, that companies are moving away from competitive play to support a more lucrative endeavour — casual gaming. While casual gaming is good and all, it’s eliminating a great past-time which many enjoyed. Some people don’t like casual gaming, some are just born to compete and unfortunately greed is starting to limit this tremendously. Gone are the days of Counter-Strike 1.6 — one of the most famous competitive-team games, ever.

Following this, the decision to remove fundamental multiplayer support for various games has shown that publishers seem be killing off a good market for money. With regards to console gaming; it’s a great market, however you cannot neglect the basics. Computer games started the trend, and it’s a basic you’ll need to keep around.

After a lengthy chat about upcoming games (Medal of Honor, a new CoD: Black Ops), Vinko feels that publishers should stop and think about what they are doing. And I too feel that publishers should step back and create something competitive. Then leave it be — go on with your money-making schemes and just offer a few updates here and there for those that want to play for keeps.

Now we know that Bound By Honour isn’t ultra-competitive, however their attitude shows they are serious about what they do. They have good morals, they respect gamers and they offer a brighter side to what can be called a dull community — only because of organisations which try to control the market for the wrong reasons.

eGamer Overview:

How do you even decide what kind of team Bound By Honour is? Their attitude to gaming is light-hearted but serious at the same time. They have strong morals to what the big players are doing to gaming world-wide. They believe that respect and honour is important, but more importantly they are activists for fun-gaming and friendship.

Without labelling them as fun-only gamers, BBH seems to have a slightly competitive side as well. While it’s not on-par with top-teams who put their heart and soul into gaming, they still have something to offer anyone interested in entering the gaming market.

Naturally you need to play tournaments to strengthen your bond; scream at each other for missing a vital shot; and also keep pushing your ability to play and learn. BBH are doing just this.

So, why don’t you put your drink where your mouth is and challenge these guys to a good night out, and maybe a game of Battlefield Bad Company 2.. If you can handle the battlefield, that is.

Oh, and they have a sick logo.

Contact Bound By Honour here.