The Weekend Wrapup (October 26th-28th)

Good morning!  Hope your weekend was relaxing.  Friday’s Halo 3 party started out on a disappointing note, as my other four from a neighboring town backed out, and one of our foursome didn’t show.  However, my cousin from Philly came online, as did a few other friends, and in the end, we had about eight people hanging out on live and partying together in game.  I broke myself in to the full multiplayer experience over four hours.  Chris had never played before in his life, a situation that offered up many funny moments, but he said that he had fun playing. 

One of the most annoying and yet funny encounters of the night was when my cousin invited in some random kid that he had played with once before named Goblue something.  He told us he was fourteen and proceeded to mouth off in every game.  We started giving him a bit of a hard time because he was being so cocky, but it was nothing compared to the pasting he received in one prematch lobby. 

The other team heard his voice (which was high and young sounding) and really started to let him have it.  He just lost it and started cussing the other team out with words I can’t repeat here.  In the string of obscenities, I caught the phrase, “I’m going to kill you and jump on your organs!!!”.  Hearing this from someone whose voice made them sound like they were in fifth grade wasn’t scary, it was hilarious.  I couldn’t help but crack up.  From then on, every time he talked any smack on anyone, my response was “or what? you’ll jump on my organs? oh no!”.  When he eventually left we were glad to have some peace and quiet. 

That’s part of the problem with running into people online–there are mature, polite individuals, and then there are cocky, obscenity spewing (sometimes racist) teenagers.   You get the whole swath of humanity, and you have to deal with it.  But I had a lot of fun hanging out with friends, and I hope to do it again soon.  I’ll let you guys know so that we can maybe get a full 16 playing online together. 

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Throughout the weekend, Aaron and I got some time to play the Halo 3 campaign co-op together.  We’re working through it on Heroic difficulty, and we’re just past the second Scarab battle, which is as far as I’ve been.  He’s also found me my first two skulls, which is nice of him.   Hopefully I’ll be able to finish the campaign sometime this week or this weekend.

I also discovered the game Peggle this weekend, on the word of my good friend Chris.  Peggle is a casual puzzle game that bears some likeness to Snood, and some to Breakout, in which you shoot a ball and try to knock out as many other balls as you can.  It’s addictive and you’ll pick it up very quickly.  I had heard about it before through Zero Punctuation, but probably wouldn’t have picked it up if it hadn’t come with a free Half-Life themed demo when I purchased the Orange Box.  Try it out if you want something incredibly fun during downtime at work. 

Finally, I was shocked last night when my friend Danielle (who likes the Wii, but doesn’t play a whole lot of video games) told me over im that she was ready to try Portal.  Imagine my excitement at an open invitation to show someone one of the top five games of the year!  She said she would give me ten minutes, but it turned into an hour and ten minutes.  I believe she had fun, but I don’t think she cared for the first person perspective, which I totally understand.  It takes time to get used to only seeing your gun arm. 

She did alright with WASD, eventually mastering the basic movements, but got hung up on puzzle 12 or 13, in which you’re asked to portal fling yourself.  To jump off a high ledge and then aim yourself using quick taps of the WASD keys in order to enter the portal was a bit frustrating, and after several attempts, we decided to call it a night, as we had been playing a good while. 

I think another thing that Danielle struggled with is that she has an excellent sense of foreshadowing.  She didn’t like the robotic voice or the sterile environment at all–she kept saying “I’m going to die, right? Something’s trying to kill me.  I’m terrified to go around every corner”.  I think she thought she was in Doom or Quake, not Portal.   And while I assured her that there were no enemies to fight, it took a lot not to laugh at the prescience of her feeling.   The Aperture Science Laboratory isn’t exactly a “friendly” place, is it?  If you’ve played Portal through, you’ll know what I mean. 

So that was my gaming weekend.  Quite a bit this week!  How about you?  What did you actually get to play this weekend?  Did you get to play what you said you would? 

–WG

the cake is a lie, the cake is a lie, the cake is a lie….