I was a deprived child – though I suppose not really. I had Pong. I really did… about two years after it came out. And sure, I had the Atari 2600 – everyone had it, but I only had a handful of games for the first several years until they came down in price and started showing up in the bargain rack of KayBee Toy Stores… Then came the Atari 5200 (wow, imaginative name!) and Colecovision. I didn’t get either… Didn’t get Nintendo 64, or the NES… or the Playstation… or the Sega Dreamcast… or the Playstation 2… or the Nintendo Game Cube… nope. The first post-2600 console I have ever owned is the Xbox 360*.

And I love the Xbox 360. You can pry it from my cold dead hands. I wants it… my precious.

So I have been very familiar with particular PC games (Unreal Tournament 1/2, Quake 2, Doom3) – so I’m not a total noob, but I have to say I had never been able to get into console gaming – until now. I finally got the knack of using the controller in lieu of a mouse. It’s very different, but I’m finding my groove. (Shut up, Tom – I can too snipe – I just had a bad night!)

I have also discovered online co-op (cooperative) play. That’s where you and a buddy (say, oh, Tom Andry) play together to fulfill a mission against AI (artificial intelligence) bots to complete the storyline. We just completed Gears of War. It was so fun that we simply started it up again – but on the hardest setting. To be honest we’re either getting better or the hardest level isn’t much different… we seem to be making good progress.

With the Xbox 360 and co-op you can talk in real time to your friend while playing the game. This is not only cool – it’s super cool. Now Tom doesn’t have to drive down to my house once in a blue moon to play a video game with me – we both simply log into the Xbox Live system and we’re playing together.

I also found out that I really like 3rd person shooter games. At first I was only into 1st person shooters – but I actually like the concept of having more controls, hiding out and being able to play the game at a slower pace. Games like Halo 2 are still very cool, but after a while you start to feel like all the skill revolves around how well you can aim the gun at high speed while tossing a grenade and flying through the air – come to think of it, that is pretty cool.

Still, games like Gears of War and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter offer a bit more complexity – not to mention a different perspective – and I’m starting to like that.

I guess what I’m trying to say is.. um… “Good job, Microsoft.” Gosh, now I have to take a shower.

*(OK, that’s a lie – I actually owned the original Xbox but I played it about 5 times and never had the Live service)

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