I remember fall of 2001 as if it was yesterday. I was fresh out of high school, in my first semester of college, and had not a single cent to my name. In short, life was great. I had never had to get a job (unless you count 3 days at Papa Murphy's) I hadn't picked a major yet (something I would later regret) and I spent more time playing video games then anything else. For graduation I had gotten a little over $1,000 from various relatives and like the dumb 19 year old I was I spent all that money on a play station 2 and other crap that I didn't need. I spent a hundred hours or more a months playing videogames, and for the most part, I was happy about my choice to buy a PS2, as I already had a Dreamcast and could not care less about the game cube.
The one thing that resembled anything like regret concerning my purchase was the mysterious Xbox. Microsoft had just released a new operating system, but like most people, I did not want to shell out $400 to pay for it, and I figured that the Xbox was just another marketing ploy for Microsoft. The only thing that made me start to doubt this was this game called Halo.
Halo is a First Person Shooter game, which at the time their where few to no good FPS games for console systems, and when I found out that the game was originally developed for the Mac I didn't pay much attention to it. The closer it got to the game's release date, the more I started to hear about it. When the game came out, it got great reviews, in fact I cannot remember reading anything bad about it, the critics loved it, and the message boards went crazy with buzz about it.
A few months after the release of the game, I was at Blockbuster with a friend of mine, and we thought it would be cool to rent an Xbox and try out a few games, Halo being one of them. Well for the next few days, I did nothing but play this great game. My friend and I had beaten it by the end of that night, and because blockbuster had given us four controllers, so through those days we had invited just about everyone in our circle of friends to play the game with us. The only time I think we ever stopped playing Halo was to try out the other games, only to find out how boring they where. To tell the truth I think I played a little too much, because when I returned it I want sad to see it go, in fact I hardly thought much more about the game as plenty of PS2 titles kept me busy for the next few years.
Three years after the release of the first Halo game, Halo 2 was on its way. At the time, I still had not bought an Xbox but many of my friends had. Xbox live was becoming popular and the price of the Xbox had dropped quite a bit. I had started working at the same place that I still do, but I still could not see myself buying one, so I did what any self-respecting American man would do – get my mom to get it for me for Christmas. Since that was the only thing I asked for, I got it, and the next day I got the Glorious sequel to a game that I still love to play.
I spent the next week playing, and in fact, I forgot all about new-years and missed the party I was supposed to go to because I was at home playing online, which was so much more fun then just playing with my friends. I played and played and when the map pack came out, I was inline to get it the first day. I played that game so much that I forgot that there were any other games for Xbox (and to this day I have only owned 3 other Xbox games) and I hardly touched my PS2.
Right now, I am trying to make a decision as to weather or not to buy an Xbox 360 just for this one game. I have loved them in the past, but what can they do that is all that new? I cannot say for sure, but to me it looks like the only place the series has to go is down. Halo Wars looks to be a good game, but I think it would be more fun on the PC, using a platform that would allow the player to play online with anyone at any time. On top of all this, I'm going into my last year of college, I'm running a website, working +40 hours a week, and have a girlfriend that takes up just about all the free time I have.
So does anyone have any suggestions? I'm a gamer at heart, but to be real I'm not sure if I should spend that kind of money for one game that I might not have that much time to play. I need some help, some suggestions, or somebody to just tell me what to do.
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