Q
Shared on Mon, 10/09/2006 - 15:38Well friends, the time is finally drawing near. The time of change that I knew would be here eventually. The time when I would finally have to move on. No I'm not leaving the site and no I'm not abandoning my blog (so stop hoping) but rather preparing for the departing journey from what has become my gaming cornerstone, Halo 2. It's been a great run and I don't regret a single game but I also don't feel sad about moving on, because I see it more as moving forward.
There is no doubt that Halo 2 had a profound effect on my life as a gamer. It was an incredible experience that I never tired of and one of the few games in history that, IMO at least, lived up to the hype. Sure I had critical assessments on some of it's design choices (especially the neutered pistol and overpowered sword) but I was nothing but impressed about the game as a whole. It had an engaging and entertaining story (which I fully expected to have a cliffhanger ending for the third installment), beautiful graphics, smooth gameplay, great AI, and was just a hell of a lot of fun to play. But it wasn't the great single player experience that really hooked me on this game and kept me coming back day after day for two years. No, it was the one thing that set it apart from the other great shooters before it...the online play.
Now when I say that the online play hooked me I have to make an immediate distinction. I'm not referring to matchmaking or a specific game type but rather the one thing it delivered that I didn't expect, the social aspect. I had never played many games online and didn't have broadband until shortly before the Halo 2 release (I got it installed a few weeks before so I could be ready) so I really didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be fun because playing in LAN games in Quake and SoF had been great in the past and that was all I had to compare it too. In my mind it would be kind of like a giant LAN session but without all the heavy lifting and cable connecting. Instead it turned out to be exactly like that. One of the things I loved about the LAN sessions was the fact that there were a bunch of your gaming friends right there in the room with you and you could laugh, joke, and talk shit. That made it more than just a game. It made it a social experience and I never thought that could happen in an online game for me. Little did I know how wrong I was.
Not long after the game's release I found the geezer gamer website and realized that there was a giant community of adult gamers just like me. I started filling my friends list with good people and having a great time playing online. What was great wasn't just the game playing but the socializing that went with it. You could sit in the lobby and just shoot the shit with the other people in the room and have a good time. It was just like a LAN but now I could sit around in my underwear (something that I was banned from years before) and not have to lug equipment around. And just when I though things couldn't get better they did. I found a group of guys that had formed a clan and were kind enough to invite me into their circle. They were the Senior Citizens Clan and they turned out to be the best reason I had to keep playing the game. Night after night we would get together to laugh, talk, and play and it never got old. Sure there were nights that I got frustrated with the game but I always came back. I formed a real friendhip with all of my clan mates that transcended the game. It was a friendship that I never thought $50 would buy me (hell I couldn't even get a hooker to pretend she liked me for $50).
Earlier I said that Halo 2 had a profound effect on my life as a gamer, but as I sit back and reflect on the past two years I realize that it's effect didn't stop with gaming. It brought me into a community of likeminded, funloving adult gamers who I could call friends. Even more than that it gave me a kind of second family. One that helped support me through my father's terminal cancer and let me know that you don't have to grow up with someone to form a real bond.
So why am I moving on? Because that's life and there are more games to be played. Besides I'm not moving away from my friends or my Clan and that's why I'm not sad about the whole thing. The coming months finally has a group of games that are going to be too much for Halo 2 to stand up against. There's Gears of War, Call of Duty 3, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Lost Planet just to name some of them. They are all going to be good games (some great) with engaging gameplay and a strong online presence. I may still play Halo 2 once in a while but it definitely won't be the one I leave in my 360's DVD tray at night (I love the boot to dashboard feature). I also know that the community is going to start shifting too. 360s are going to be bought and we are all going to move forward into the next-gen of online gaming together.
So over the next few weeks I'm going to try and get some more Halo 2 in before the November rush hits. Like a nice long goodbye session to a game that has effected me more than I ever thought a game could. But don't doubt that I'll still be getting ready for that journey towards the light, because the future definitely looks like it's going to be bright. Hopefully you all won't be too far behind and we can be curb stomping some locusts and drinking some beer soon. Oh ya, and I promise I won't tell you I'm in my underwear...naked is my new thing anyway.
There is no doubt that Halo 2 had a profound effect on my life as a gamer. It was an incredible experience that I never tired of and one of the few games in history that, IMO at least, lived up to the hype. Sure I had critical assessments on some of it's design choices (especially the neutered pistol and overpowered sword) but I was nothing but impressed about the game as a whole. It had an engaging and entertaining story (which I fully expected to have a cliffhanger ending for the third installment), beautiful graphics, smooth gameplay, great AI, and was just a hell of a lot of fun to play. But it wasn't the great single player experience that really hooked me on this game and kept me coming back day after day for two years. No, it was the one thing that set it apart from the other great shooters before it...the online play.
Now when I say that the online play hooked me I have to make an immediate distinction. I'm not referring to matchmaking or a specific game type but rather the one thing it delivered that I didn't expect, the social aspect. I had never played many games online and didn't have broadband until shortly before the Halo 2 release (I got it installed a few weeks before so I could be ready) so I really didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be fun because playing in LAN games in Quake and SoF had been great in the past and that was all I had to compare it too. In my mind it would be kind of like a giant LAN session but without all the heavy lifting and cable connecting. Instead it turned out to be exactly like that. One of the things I loved about the LAN sessions was the fact that there were a bunch of your gaming friends right there in the room with you and you could laugh, joke, and talk shit. That made it more than just a game. It made it a social experience and I never thought that could happen in an online game for me. Little did I know how wrong I was.
Not long after the game's release I found the geezer gamer website and realized that there was a giant community of adult gamers just like me. I started filling my friends list with good people and having a great time playing online. What was great wasn't just the game playing but the socializing that went with it. You could sit in the lobby and just shoot the shit with the other people in the room and have a good time. It was just like a LAN but now I could sit around in my underwear (something that I was banned from years before) and not have to lug equipment around. And just when I though things couldn't get better they did. I found a group of guys that had formed a clan and were kind enough to invite me into their circle. They were the Senior Citizens Clan and they turned out to be the best reason I had to keep playing the game. Night after night we would get together to laugh, talk, and play and it never got old. Sure there were nights that I got frustrated with the game but I always came back. I formed a real friendhip with all of my clan mates that transcended the game. It was a friendship that I never thought $50 would buy me (hell I couldn't even get a hooker to pretend she liked me for $50).
Earlier I said that Halo 2 had a profound effect on my life as a gamer, but as I sit back and reflect on the past two years I realize that it's effect didn't stop with gaming. It brought me into a community of likeminded, funloving adult gamers who I could call friends. Even more than that it gave me a kind of second family. One that helped support me through my father's terminal cancer and let me know that you don't have to grow up with someone to form a real bond.
So why am I moving on? Because that's life and there are more games to be played. Besides I'm not moving away from my friends or my Clan and that's why I'm not sad about the whole thing. The coming months finally has a group of games that are going to be too much for Halo 2 to stand up against. There's Gears of War, Call of Duty 3, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Lost Planet just to name some of them. They are all going to be good games (some great) with engaging gameplay and a strong online presence. I may still play Halo 2 once in a while but it definitely won't be the one I leave in my 360's DVD tray at night (I love the boot to dashboard feature). I also know that the community is going to start shifting too. 360s are going to be bought and we are all going to move forward into the next-gen of online gaming together.
So over the next few weeks I'm going to try and get some more Halo 2 in before the November rush hits. Like a nice long goodbye session to a game that has effected me more than I ever thought a game could. But don't doubt that I'll still be getting ready for that journey towards the light, because the future definitely looks like it's going to be bright. Hopefully you all won't be too far behind and we can be curb stomping some locusts and drinking some beer soon. Oh ya, and I promise I won't tell you I'm in my underwear...naked is my new thing anyway.
Comments
Submitted by OldManRiver48 on Mon, 10/09/2006 - 20:11
Submitted by doodirock on Mon, 10/09/2006 - 16:05