Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Annoyance of Sucking.

So today, I felt what it was like to truly, and completely SUCK at something. Namely, Halo 3. My friends and I got together to play Halo 3 on Xbox Live tonight, while the women of our lives were else-where. Namely, Celeste was in SLC (well, supposed to be anyway, traffic had it's own thing to say about that), and his wife was in Hawaii. (For work, don't you wish that was you? I do.) Any who, we got together, and as previously mentioned played some wicked rounds of social slayer. But tonight was a first to me. I truly and completely sucked.

We were playing 5-on-5 first team to 50 takes all. If any of you have played Halo with me, you know I LOVE it, and that if you put me in front of Halo 1, I'll school you. Halo 2, and we'll have an even match. (I don't know the boards, but I know the weapons.) However, as tonight was evidenced, put me in front of Halo 3, and if your worth anything, you'll school me.

It wasn't a completely pointless exercise, however. There were a few bright sides that I feel are worth mentioning. First, it was fun. It was nice to hang out with the fella's again, and to get to play a favorite game of mine. Second, it allowed me to relate to my beautiful bride (who has refused to play Halo with me for a while now.) In that, when every 30 seconds someone is killing you (and you have no-clue how) it gets incredibly frustrating. I was SOOOOOOOOO Annoyed. It seemed like the game was stacked against me. I could come up behind someone, drill them in the head, and it would do nothing. They would turn around, and seemingly touch me with the finger of death, and that was it for me. I didn't get it, and I still don't. But alas, thankfully it was just a game, and I am quite sure that with some practice I could become equally adept with the 3rd installment in the Halo quest as I am at the first.

So to all other people who also suck at something ... well ... do as I did. Find something else to do, and maybe you won't suck quite as bad at it. But you never know, maybe with a little perseverance, you will no-longer suck, and will instead be the one to school me. But until that moment, let's stick to the original Halo.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

YES! Man this one hits home Josh. I'm gonna ramble a bit on this one cause I think you'll appreciate it.

I can totally relate to having a bad night of Halo that leaves you more than just frustrated. Its completely enraging. Some nights you're on and owning the world and other nights it feels like the whole world knows about some 'kill me with one button' cheat code and forgot to tell you about it. And once you've had one or two bad games its all downhill from there. A frustrated Halo player doesn't make for a good Halo player. You end up just running into death pits or making bad decisions that you would normally avoid. Its a bad cycle.

I can also TOTALLY relate to being able to own anyone in Halo CE, which makes getting destroyed in H3 all the less enjoyable. I have two theories on why this phenomina has occured.

A. We play a great deal LESS Halo (or any other video game for that matter) than we used to back in the glory days of bachelorship and no responcibility (though I think you'd agree that married life is a pretty decent trade-off ;). We were good at H1 cause we lanned the living crap out of Blood Gulch and Hang em High. Less practice equals less butt-kicking. Especially when you're playing against high school kids who play 8 hrs a day whose parents pay for a T3 line. Which brings me to my next point.

B. The HUGE pool of players online versus our 16 buddies. Its much easier to be better than a limited amount of players than it is to be the best player in the world. I think if Halo CE were online we'd probably have the same frustration. But since we only had our buddies and the ocasional LAN-up with poor unsuspecting noobies, it seemed like we WERE the best players in the whole world.

My conclusion? WE NEED TO HOOK UP SOME HALO SON! Which would be much easier if we lived closer. Hmmmm. You don't have live do you? Maybe we'll just have to find a time to LAN.

CaptainCode said...

Ben -- I completely agree with you. The whole no-time to play, vs. playing against some high-school kid with nothing better to-do, and parent's who could care less. But we definitly need to get together and get some halo goin! I wish I had a 360 and Live, then we could just get online, but alas, all I have is a regular Xbox, and Halo CE. But we should definitly try to find some time to LAN it up. Once school is over I'll be more flexible, but I know you have a crazy schedule too.

Lori said...

okay, wow. you need to have this conversation with my husband. maybe he'll finally understand how retarded i feel playing halo 3. or halo 2. or halo. :)

celeste and i should create a club. wives-of-halo-players .. we could get jackets... and pins... and a theme song.

CaptainCode said...

I think Celeste would definitely be down with creating a "wives of halo players" club. She used to play with me, but hasn't in a long time. I think that's why they invented Xbox live. For all of the husband's whose wives won't play with them, and the computer is too easy to beat. Even on legendary.