Halo can suck it.

Halo has become a staple of online gaming. If you have an Xbox, there’s a very good chance you have Halo 3, ODST, and now (or soon)Reach. Now I could get into a whole “when gaming becomes mainstream, the hardcore gamers die” and I think it is a safe bet to call Reach Mainstream. But that’s not my issue. I find myself wanting more from my games, ok, you have a good story, you have popular multiplayer, you have a dedicated community. But what you don’t have is a game I can lose myself in.

 

I am at a point in my gaming lifecycle where I play to forget all the shit that happened to me throughout the day. I can do that in Halo for 8-10 hours. For many that’s a week’s worth of gaming. For us, that’s almost enough to get is through one night (just one), after that, the story is finished, the ability to lose myself is gone. I may go back to get the achievements I missed, get into a game or two of multiplayer with the clans, but that’s about it.

 

Now give me a game like Fallout, a game where the story has 30-60hrs of mind numbing enjoyment, a game where I can become someone else, give them a personality, become the character and play the story a hundred different ways and get a hundred different endings I have over 500 hrs in Fallout 3, I plan to give New Vegas the same kind of attention, then Fable 3 releases, and I will have another outlet for a few weeks. But then Black Ops releases, another story that may last 3-5 hours. a few more multiplayer games with the clans, and again, I will feel like I did with Halo, buying 2 copies of a game, $120 (or almost $200 with collectors editions) for a few hours across a few nights. Granted it’s still cheaper for longer than a half decent hooker. But I live in Central PA and there are no half decent hookers only the disgusting ones down on Second Street. Even our Governor has to drive to DC to get a good one.

 

After finally upgrading my account (my wife’s will be upgraded when the laptop is fixed). I walked up to the bank to start pulling items to auction when all of a sudden we started hearing, noises….chuga chuga chuga chuga….WOOOOWOOOOOO!!!! in that pansy little voice of the gnomes. My wife and I looked at each other and burst out laughing, then it got worse, chuga chuga chuga chuga….WOOOOWOOOOOO!!!! BOOOM BOOM!!! Then all overlaid with rhythmic tinking noises. Out of the bank we went to find a large group of people standing around a tiny toy train set making emotes, setting off bombs, and making items to create this bizarre music that everyone was dancing to…..um….wow, I still don’t know what to think, we just sat there laughing, confused, entertained, and utterly disturbed.

 

After we regained a slight semblance of sanity I went for a run around Stormwind, when I saw a local defense channel light up with calls to arms….I may only be lvl 16 but I’ll answer the call, at least I can hide and see what’s going on….so in to the tower I go, and the scene was horrific (at least it would have been if I wasn’t just slaying dark wizards by the hundreds and totally numb to the plights of respawning NPCs.) guards lay dead everywhere, bodies piled on top of each other as only non-clipping death animations can. And there in the center of the tower was a GIGANTIC panther! Facing away from my but rapidly turning to face me, into the corner I dove, behind a chair hidden with my newly upgraded sneaking abilities. The gigantic panther quickly turned into a just as giagantic blood elf…..”oh, sweet lord Ba’al save me!”….but wait, I’m hidden, he can’t find me……then I heard it……Grrr….gurrorrow. I look down to see my useless little summoned pet playing with a bone in the middle of the floor…..and he walks straight over to me. and I can see the blood elf following him….over he walks, right next to me and my log displays this.

 

Drungow laughs at pet.

Drungow points at Toddspango

Drungow waves at Toddspango.

And off he went. I know it’s not a PvP server, and I’m not sure why I hid, but still it was one of those moments that had me embarrassed, laughing about as hard as I could, and still wondering where I was going to unload all the useless crap that was hogging my inventory since the druid blood elf killed all the venders in the area.

 

Later I did see something that I’m still scratching my head over. In a tavern in Stormwind I came across a group of players sitting in a circle, playing a pen and paper role playing game called Bars and MILFs about a group of modern day account executives trying to pick up women in a bar.

 

So, people sit in their basement, playing an MMORPG in which they sit in a bar and play a pen and paper RPG where they actually leave their basements and try to have a life.

 

Is it sad that I actually thought the game sounded pretty entertaining?