The Shooter That Changed My Mind: Half Life 2.

As I promised in my last posts, it's time to actually get some writing done. It's been far too long since I've done any sort of 'real' writing, and so combining my two favorite things: writing and video games should make for a wonderful amalgamation.

That being said, I've set a few goals for myself:

1. To not reach some sort of a video game saturation point, not all of the following posts will be about video games. Expect updates about personal life and supposedly humorous anecdotes as par usual.

2. Despite how much I enjoy satire, and sarcasm and have an undeniable aptitude for such, I'm going to try to keep my essays/anecdotes/ideas positive. There might be a few subtle sarcastic barbs in each piece, but they aren't going to be profanity-laden, or filled with pseudo-anger. This are the cheap tricks to embracing a level of low-culture humor. Anybody can swear. Anybody can get mad. Especially Bruce Banner (that's the guy that turns into the Hulk, for those of you that don't live in your parent's basement). Humor can still be injected into the topic of video games without becoming a low-brow cuss-fest. Expect things to be more upbeat, about the amazing things I've encountered in video games instead. Though, often this awesomeness will be a result of being compared to something that is...well...not so awesome.

3. As a personal challenge, I'm going to try to learn how to "tinker around" with this blog. I've never had any problem with the writing, but I've never done much in the way of posting screenshots, videos, tweaking layout and format. As my current "dime a dozen" format indicates, creativity in such an arena is not my forte. I'm going to try to work on improving such. My implementation of a screenshot at the beginning of this article is my first step.

Well, that's about it...onto this first article:

Back during Christmas break during my sophomore year of college, I was having to face the fact that everyone was slowly starting to make the move to next-gen. Microsoft had opted to have one of the quickest console turn-around times, a mere four years between the original XBOX and it's concave, pale next-gen counterpart's arrival in 2005. Both the Wii and Playstation 3 had hit the market only a little more than a month before, and thankfully only the sale of the latter resulted in a 'friendly' exchange of firearms in the queue lines. At this point, I was a loyal Nintendoite, having spent the last four years scrounging to every 1st-party exclusive. While this meant that I got to show off gems like Resident Evil 4 and Eternal Darkness, I was also burdened with explaining exactly how I thought a puffy pink anthropomorphic cotton ball was "badass."

"See, look at that, you just aim him at the enemy, and he sucks them in, just swallows them whole, their sword and all."

"That actually sounds kinda gay."

"Huh...I never thought Kirby could be viewed with a homoerotic lens, but...so be it."

That being said, with the XBOX360 bundles dropping to pull sales away from the other two looking to capitalize on holiday sales, I resolved to give the proclaimed "shooterbox" a chance. After all, acquiring a Wii was being declared an official miracle by the Catholic Church at this point, and people had already been shot for PS3s, so, perhaps in retrospect, by default, I began an extensive research project, on a scale unlike anything I'd done before. I scoured "game forecast" charts, graphical comparisons, exclusivity claims by 3rd party developers, etc...In the end, I was hooked by the recent commercials for Lost Planet...and the claims of Mass Effect somewhere down the line.

But I couldn't shake the idea that I'd "jumped ship" on a developer of cherished characters and their respective, though frequently milked to the bone, franchises, in exchange for a non stop adrenaline junkie's wet dream, where I'd never see anything more of my protagonist than the barrel of the gun he's holding, and never embrace a story-line deeper than the fact that certain men wanted to kill me in *insert location* and I had to kill them first. I'd once put on my friend's xbox live headset in a HALO lobby, and I couldn't help but think back to the angry apes during the intro to 2001: A Space Odyssey, guttural shouting, chest-beating and all.

Was this a universe I was ready to endorse with the labors of my hard-earned dollar? I mean, as cheesily melodramatic as this sounds, I'm not one to dabble with multiple consoles. It just makes things even more costly than before. And I'm the sort to keep my allegiances. I bought Lost Planet: billion snowflakes, hokey voice-acting, flashy explosions, and all.
From there I got Fable, KOTOR 1 &2, all the original XBOX games I felt I had been deprived of because of my monogamous relationship with my Gamecube. But I would not buy a shooter. I was not anxious to make a headset a permanent accessory to my wardrobe, and l33t speak my second language. Yet, the local Blockbuster was attempting to purge their local outlet of 'last-gen' games. And this included a factory-sealed four-dollar copy of Half Life 2. My friend Adam fended off the possible purchase, with the quite reasonable excuse that "You have too many other games to play as it stands." That phrase pretty much works regardless of the occasion. I had stood on the proverbial fence of first person shooters, and Adam had coaxed me down. That, and he was my ride home, it was dreadfully cold outside, and I didn't want to be attacked by Kalamazoo's natural export: bums.

Two weeks later, I unwrapped that very copy of Half-Life 2 along with a rare Xbox edition of Sid Meier's PIRATES! and, under the unrelenting eyes of my friends, was forced to face my fear of trigger-fingers and LAN parties. And yet, as the game began, and the credits were scrolling, in a truly cinematic fashion, I merely navigated my oddly silent protagonist on a subway car. I didn't have a weapon, and there was no sign that I was about to be thrust into something of a war-like nature. Needless to say, I was horribly confused...

(more to come in a bit...sleep beckons.)