National Halo Day

Productivity around the nation no doubt sank mightily today as Halo 3 went live. And scores of gamers either took the day off or dragged their bleary-eyed selves to work after a night of camping out and devouring the single player game. I, of course, am on a break. From this blog. That I am posting at right now (Okay, it doesn't make sense but just go with me.). But it's not to be running people down and spraying hot electric death all day. Honest. Because when it comes to Halo I....don't get it. Completely don't see the fascination with Halo entirely. I mean, okay, it's got a halfway decent plot. But it's still a video game. I don't play video games for the plotlines. So, okay, it's got tight controls and decent balance. So do half a dozen other FPS I've played. And that, I think, is the reason why the Halo phenomenon leaves me scratching my head. I've played plenty of other shooters from way back when. I remember Doom and Quake and Unreal and more so I'm ot blown away by the idea of multiplayer deathmatches anymore. Halo's a nice game, don't get me wrong, love to throw down whenever there's a LAN or a family reunion, but I think it was just a game that was in the right place at the right time. The first FPS shooter on a powerful enough system to run it right with a built-in multi-player system. It captured millions of fans who'd never seen anything like it before. Fans who've made it into a system seller, hyped it into the biggest release ever. But, for me, it's just another game.