On Being Mediocre at Halo

Well I just noticed that it has been almost a month to the day since I wrote my last post. I knew it had been a while, and as I have checked my blog page from time to time I have slowly grown tired of the male enhancement thing being the post that comes up. It's actually amazing that I haven't written anything this month, because SO much has happened and there is SO much to comment on. Andy is resigning, Steph is moving away, the Roberts are looking for a church, I'm about to move away to a new place, and WDJC is just as awful as ever. It's almost a situational overload, but I haven't found my way to the keyboard to type my thoughts. Maybe it's because it's all complicated, hard to encompass how I really feel. I'm sure it's a lot of things, but I can say one thing for sure, and that is that Halo 3 has played a big part in it.

You see, I play video games a lot. I always have since I was about 3 or 4 years old. And there are some good games out there, but I have gotten to the point to where I don't really get consumed with them anymore. When Perfect Dark was a new game and I was a middle schooler, I would pop that cartridge in my Nintendo 64 and literally play for hours and hours. This is a good thing now because I have a job and school to deal with, and I sometimes have a bad time prioritizing. But every now and then a game comes along that is fun and has so much replayability that I have a hard time pulling myself away from it. For a few months, World of Warcraft had my soul. Now, the game is Halo 3.

Don't get me wrong, Halo is not near as bad as WOW was. I can take Halo in spurts, but after a while it gets a little old and I get motion sickness from all the camera movement. It's a heck of a game, and a whole lot of fun to play. I've gotten to the point where I only play it when my friends are online, because I take it too seriously when I play alone. My buddies help keep me grounded, and they have been perhaps the most enjoyable part of the game. I get to keep up with Kevin and Aimee down in Tuscaloosa on an almost nightly basis because we can play and chat over X-box live. We always catch up for the first few minutes until the first match starts, and then we have to stop talking because we can't chat and kill folk simultaneously.

I have also been able to rekindle friendships with the Neelys over X-box live and Halo playing. Since we left Hopewell, I have only seen Sam at Best Buy where he works and haven't seen Daniel at all. Some nights the four of us play for several hours, and this is where the nerdy part comes in. Halo 3 has a feature where you can go back and watch all the recent matches you have played, make video clips, and take pictures of the action. And so after everyone goes off to bed or to do something else, I head to the theatre and watch all the matches over again looking for highlights and good photo ops. Yeah, it's incredibly dorky, but I enjoy it.

In Halo, I don't know if anybody can ever be good enough to be truly satisfied. Somebody who is better than you is always out there ready to no scope you or hit you with a sticky grenade from all the way across the map or kill you 20 times with only a pistol. It happens, and it sucks when it does. I used to get mad, to want to really get good at the game so that I would be the one dealing out all the punishment instead of the one constantly respawning. I've gotten pretty decent, I would say, but I've learned that I'm nowhere near being able to play with a lot of the serious Halo players out there.

For instance, last night Sam and I were playing a 2 vs. 2 match where you could only use pistols and sniper rifles. We are pretty casual players, but unfortunately we were paired up with some professional Halo snipers who were ready to no scope and head shot their way to an unquestionable victory.

But we gave it a go. The game started and we moved out cautiously, trying to keep our eyes out for our opponents, hoping to see them before they spotted us. We made our way down a corridor and one of the guys on the other team headed our way from the other side. Shots rang out, and I got hit but not in the head, so I didn't die. Everybody headed for cover. I moved back around the corner to get a shot and the red team (we were the blue team) was waiting for me. A shot rangs out, and I was dead. 1 to nothing, and as I respawned I heard another shot ring out and Sam went down as well. 2 to nothing.

So I started to move again, ever alert for my red foes. I moved into an opening and spotted red armor, one of them standing there aiming at something and not moving at all. I raised the scope to my eye and positioned the reticle right on his head and BANG, I was dead. Before I could take my shot my target's teammate took me out. This was basically how the match went. I would be walking, searching for someone to kill, and a shot would ring out and I would be dead. I would have no idea where it came from, no idea how. Sam and I had a little success. I got a few head shots on the red team and Sam gots at least one kill. But by the end of the game, the score was 25-7.

It hurts to get beat like that, and most proud men are competitive. That's hard to take, even if it is a meaningless game. And I could give you example after example of times when stuff like that happens. Games where I have never been close to winning. But I have to settle for that and when the emotion and the anger subsides, and my competitive spirit simmers down, I realize that I am perfectly fine being as mediocre as I am at that game. Because some people are too good at things that are that trivial. People have made fun of me before because I can't whistle or blow a bubble gum bubble, and I just respond with, "Why would I want to do that?" Halo is a game, it's meant for fun and entertainment, and I want to make sure I keep it that way. It's not cool to be THAT good at that game. Because, what do you give up to put so much into a video game? Sunlight, a social life, etc. Video games are great, and the most fun video games are even better. But they all have their place.

That said, does anybody want to play some Halo now? My gamertag is mathius100.