Halo 3 is a No Go

Posted by gigatrix @ 1:27 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

New Girlfriends and Video Games

So in anticipation of all the new games coming out this Fall and Winter I've been thinking about what free time I do have outside of work and continuing my education, to play these games is encroached upon by the time I want to spend with my girlfriend. In a perfect world I would love to be with a girl who is well versed in the language of gaming. A girl who "gets" gaming.. who has played, and beat a first person shooter, a girl who is a hardcore gamer. My current girlfriend is probably the closest I have found to this outside of Korea.

She grew up playing Nintendo games, typical Duck Hunt and Mario brothers, which is fun banter when we're bored or watching TV. The nerdiest thing (and I adored it, shows how geek I am) she has ever said to me was when I was driving up to Clingman's Dome in East Tennessee with her. It was in July, the sun was beaming through the trees and being in the higher altitude it was around 75 or so, it was great weather. I listen to a lot of different music, and I had a Meditation tracklist playing on my car stereo. It was fitting with the serene surroundings and the looming mountains slowly sinking to reveal the sprawling hills. As we're driving, Becky says out of nowhere "this reminds me of Final Fantasy X" I just looked at her, thinking Becky must have fell out of the car awhile back and was replaced by someone else.

I've never played any of the Final Fantasy's beyond VII so I didn't understand the reference. I just smirked and questioned her. She said "I dunno.. it's the music, and the mountains and everything.. nevermind" I laughed a little and told her "no, no.. it's funny. I do the same thing when I'm going someplace or sitting somewhere and my mind wanders. Game references come to mind.. I like it, it's cute." She continued to explain why she was reminded, and what she was talking about it it made me feel good knowing she was as geek as I was about games, at least in the sense that she does in fact play games.

I have a Wii and an Xbox 360, and one night I brought the Wii to her house and we played it for awhile. She seemed to like it, and I loved the fact that we could play games together.. peanut butter and chocolate.. it couldn't get much better. I'm trying to think of a way to introduce her to more hardcore games like Gears of War, or Halo 3 when it comes out. She's obviously invested time into a few of the titles in the Final Fantasy series, so I know she can tolerate games, and anyone who can invest that much time obviously has more than a passing interest. But the difference is that Final Fantasy is slower paced and more story driven. Whereas games like Gears or Halo are much more twitch, action oriented games. I for the most part just dismiss girls from those genres of games. Not as an insult to any females reading this who enjoy these games, but let's face it.. you're a minority. I'm glad you're there and I think it's refreshing to have the diversity of a female player in an online game.. but growing up my sister never went beyond playing easy to grasp Nintendo games and now the Wii. She plays some Guitar Hero II (she actually got me in to it, but only because her boyfriend got her into it.. so it doesn't count!) on occasion, but there again.. nothing brutal. It's not that she can't handle the games if she tried (or any woman for that matter) it's just that she didn't seem to have any interest in it.

Personally I love playing games period.. if it looks fun or interesting, let me have a go and see if I like it. My experience with women is, they either think it's "something he does when he's relaxing" or "he plays these games regularly, and I play this (singular) game from time to time". I'm just curious to those of you who have played the hardcore shooters or more "boy" games.. how did you get into them? What turned you on by them initially and if it was a man in your life that got you hooked, how did he do it? For the guys, if you have a little lady that can get a headshot like a pro, how did she get that way?

My plan of attack is to just bring over my 360 some night and see what goes.. show her how to play, how the controls work, and ease her in. I just don't want to seem like I'm forcing this complicated violent game on her, and have her turned off, and have me frustrated or feeling like this video game jerk.

Anyways, I changed my Xbox 360 gamertag to: Art Spark
it's not the coolest name ever, but it's a step up I think, easy to remember and says a little something about me.

Posted by gigatrix @ 8:04 pm EDT | Permalink | 6 Comments

Old Girlfriends and Suicides

So I used to frequent internet dating sites quite often and found a girl I really liked. The only problem, and the usual problem with internet dating is distance. Not only was this girl (Lynda) not in my area code, she was in Ontario. I was planning on going to Vietnam for a vacation last year (another story all together) and her and her family were planning a similar trip earlier in the year. What a coincidence she says..

anyways we continue to talk and eventually, out of the blue, she decides to fly down and visit me. We made these plans about a month in advance so I wasn't too concerned until the day she flew in. I went to the airport an hour early and hung out in the terminal. I played it cool until she called and said her plane just landed, then I became an anxious, nervous wreck. I see her come around a corner looking around wide eyed and unsure of where she was while she was talking to her sister on the phone for reassurance as she met some random guy from the internet. She saw me, smiled, and hung up the phone. I was expected an awkward hello, or maybe an informal handshake, but she didn't hesitate to put her arm around my neck and hug me.

We spent that weekend together until that Monday when she had to fly back. I took her early in the morning and she cried, while I tried to man up and hold it in. I still remember leaving the airport and seeing her walk away. I was fighting tears the entire morning at work until I had to teach a class. When I got home from work we talked on the webcam and she cried again, and I told her how much I missed her.

Two months later I went to see her in Canada and met her entire family, her parents, grand parents, sister and brothers. We did mundane things like shopping and riding around.. but this was the first time I had been out of the states and I was happy to do anything with her. We went to Niagra Falls, and to the CN tower among other places. It's strange being in a place that is nearly indistinguishable from the U.S. aside from the European usage of words like "colour" and "flavour" and the little maple flag rippling in the cold April air. When she took me back to the airport I was a little relieved to go home, yet I was going to miss her a lot. It was like when she was going home. When she walked me to the terminal she had this odd sense of "welp, see ya k thx" and walked off as I went into the baggage claim. Like "done with this guy, got things to do, people to see".. I was a little hurt but sometimes she was hard to read. I also didn't expect her to be all teary eyed every time we parted ways, but it seemed a little curt. When I got back home she was always too busy to talk for very long, or became defensive.
Things went downhill from there. We had made plans for her to come back here in May for our music fest (anyone who lives in Memphis or the area know how much of a deal that is). Well she talked her way out of that, and was vague about making plans to come see me anytime soon. I even offered to pay for her ticket and it was a no go. She eventually just threw out too many signals that she wasn't interested anymore and I called it quits. I texted her like I always do in the mornings and told her I needed to call her. She insisted I got online instead and I told her there (so anyone who thinks I was going to text-break up or do it over the internet.. it was her decision!) so I told her and she was kind of "okay, well it was fun.. cya" and I was sitting there questioning if it was the right decision in the long run. I know distance makes things incredibly hard.. especially when you don't already have a bond to work with in the first place.

We haven't talked much since then. I saw her back on that same internet dating site (it's more of a social networking site that dating, but most people are there to hook up, I'm not going to lie). She had a new handle, new glamorous pics.. everything. I'm dating a girl now so I wasn't too upset about it and just hoped she was happy.

well today I get a text message with a link to a Canadian news site. I had since deleted her number, but I don't know anyone in Canada, it had to be her. Following the link I came across this:






Posted by gigatrix @ 5:08 pm EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

Changing my Gamertag

giga = One billion
trix= -trix suffix of L. fem. agent-nouns corr. to m. -TOR, as adjūtrix, imperātrīx, venātrīx, fems. of adjūtor helper, imperātor commander, venātor hunter; such sbs. were adopted from XV from L. of various periods, as administratrix, executrix, testatrix; (geom.) applied to certain straight lines or curves, as directrix. (aka I thought the matrix was awesome in 1999)

I've been using this handle for 8 years off and on, and I think it's time to retire it. Firstly it doesn't actually mean anything. Secondly, it sound femanine (dominatrix) as trix is actually a femanine suffix. I used to like the ambiguity it carries as people don't judge you for being male or female. That's the way it used to be anyways, before people began communicating via headsets and posting pics of themselves everywhere (myspace comes to mind). So I think it's time for a new name. A name that will suit me and last a good while. A name that's also completely original that it doesn't have the possibility of being used. I always thought it was boring to go with something simple like your name and birth year. Where's the creativity? *no offense to anyone with that as their handle*

So I'm sitting here plugging in names into this checker I found on while searching for a new name. Choices choices...

The only downside is that it costs 800 Microsoft Points, and people will see my name on their friend list and won't have a clue who the hell I am. The plus side is that of course you don't have to create a new gamertag, lose your achievement points or your reputation.

I found a few name generators I'm using for inspiration, but I also want something people can remember. No numbers, and something quirky is always a plus. Nothing like having a name like "SuperAwesome" and you get your ass handed to you when you go online.

So does anyone have any suggestions? I'm open to anything except anime references and anything overtly offensive, like DateRape or Cooter-the-Pedophile.


Posted by gigatrix @ 1:28 pm EDT | Permalink | 8 Comments

so I lied..

Last week I preordered Halo 3 soon after saying "nah, I'm not giving into the hype." Why did I do such a thing, when I went on about how I would not? Why buy when Halo 3 won't be bringing anything remarkably new to the table? A few reasons, that 2old2play has had a hand in as well.

The first reason is to, of course, "finish the fight." I do like the Halo universe and story, and I'm honestly curious as to how the game will end. If you've been playing the games and following the story (if not go here). I simply want to find out what happens and conclude the series. I've played both the first and second game's campaign/story mode a few times each and the story and universe is truly interesting.

Secondly there are plenty of games that don't having anything new to offer and they're still fun to play despite that. I can become engrossed in a game that's flawed just as much as I can in one that's well conceived. Call of Juarez for instance is a game that most people would agree is total crap, but I'm playing it now and enjoying it for the most part. I shouldn't let a game that is essentially Quake (let's not kid ourselves Halo gameplay is very generic, aside from the art direction and story, is very much like a run of the mill first person shooter) stop me from playing it. Halo just feels like another Unreal, Quake, or Doom to me as far as game mechanics go. It might be a refined version of that formula, but it's the same stale taste. Honestly, who cares? It isn't the next big thing in realism, or control innovation but does it have to be to be fun? hardly..

Third, and probably most importantly why I didn't want to get the game is because of the community. I would venture a guess and say that the majority of a-hole children on Xbox Live are diehard Halo fans. I played Halo 2 multiplayer all of 2 times before shrugging and going on to another game. If you check out my blog entry on Timmy's, this is the type of person I have little to no tolerance for and refuse to play with.



 Regardless if I was the best player on a server (I'm horrible, so this is speculation) and could beat them every game.. I still don't want to play with and encourage the rudeness of people who can't conduct themselves properly, online or off. The reason why this isn't really an issue the more I thought about it is because of this community. No one is forcing me to play online, or in public games anyway. Even so, there is going to be a mute feature so that's a moot point as well.

I think I would be missing out on a lot of what the 2old2play community is going to be playing and discussing if I was to pass up Halo 3, and the pros really do outweigh the cons on this. Hopefully in a week or two I will be seeing a lot of you online.



Posted by gigatrix @ 12:36 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments