“There is no love lost between Alma and I that is for sure.”

Everyone needs a good entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, television, music and movies all fight tooth and nail for my attention, especially music and movies, but nothing beats the feeling of tearing open the shrink wrap of a newly purchased video game and slipping the DVD or CD’s into your system and loading up. Ironically since I stare at computer screens all day in my line of work you would think the last thing I would want to do is to look at another monitor.

Yes you would think. My choice of games varies greatly and up until recently a great MMO named Vanguard had dominated the landscape. I say up until recently because my main gaming machine went up in smoke. I mean the thing was putting out heat like a furnace so I should have seen it coming. Still it is painful to see a fallen comrade who served so well and I have been struck with a Kid Rock like urge to pour a forty of malt liquor out on the curb for my fallen hommie. Oh Dual Core AMD you were too good for this world. Actually I didn’t have the heart to tell my main gaming box that Quad Core was coming out and I was getting ready to break the news. “Listen we have had some good times me and you, but I think it is time for us to part.” Perhaps my machine’s passing was for the better.

Vanguard aside, one game that really caught my attention in the last year or so is F.E.A.R. In essence it is a great first person shooter/horror film that I stupidly decided to play the first time with headphones on and the lights out. Fortunately I had a fresh pair of shorts close at hand because that little girl Alma is creepy as hell and scared the freaking bejesus out of me. Last time a game did that was when I was deeply immersed in Aliens versus Predator years back (again with the lights out, you would think I would learn, but no) and I have to say walking through an abandoned research station as a Colonial Marine, with flickering lights, hissing steam, and hearing aliens creeping around turned me into Hudson faster than you can say “game over man!” That game really gets you revved up and I don’t know about you but I found myself actually in that weird bezerker mode like Charlie Sheen’s character in Platoon… “oh you want some of this, oh you to huh!! It’s (bleeping) beautiful man!!” Plus the older version of that game was funky because there was no save mid level so you either made it through the whole level or not. So when you made it through Tyrargo in Director’s Cut you knew you accomplished something. Forget the college degree mom, I got an A+ in M41-A Pulse Rifle usage and that is money in the bank!

Seeing as how we are on the subject of lethal enemies no list would be complete without Max, the psychotic little rabbit from Sam and Max that Lucas Arts embedded as an Easter egg in the original Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 with Kyle Katarn. Anyone who was lucky or unlucky enough to find Max knows the drill. First off, he is for the most part indestructible, but I of course had to find out for myself.

“Game over man, game over.”

So I waited on the bridge for the woman who sure enough walked over, opened the door and led me into a room where Max was sitting. He looks like a cute little fuzzy energizer bunny up until you realize he is holding a pistol. Basically you touch Max and he is supposed to follow you into town and eradicate all your enemies for you, but whatever you don’t shoot him. Of course I walked into the room, pulled out the rail gun and “boom.” For a little cuddly bunny he can really shoot and I was DOA in minutes. Since that day I have always been nervous when I buy a Lucas Arts game that I am going to walk into the wrong door and Max will be sitting there saying “Oh look who’s back for more.”

The truth is I have been addicted since day one when I first discovered Atari’s Pong. I mean, let’s be realistic, video games can lift your spirits, pick you up when your down, and let you escape to another place and time. Truthfully, where else can you be a King in Medieval Europe, fly a fighter into an asteroid field, storm the beaches of Normandy, be Kobe Bryant in the playoffs, command the armies of Rome, have dogfights over France, or the thousands of other fantasies, characters, and worlds that await you on the other side of the screen. I mean I don’t care if it is Barbie’s Fashion show, load it in, get on the catwalk and start trash talking about the other models. I mean you will be saying that @#$%@ can’t accessorize as if we were born to be a super model. And that my friend is the awesome power of video games.

Reposted from an older blog written in May of 2007

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