Killing time

Sometimes I'm just killing time on my Xbox 360. No, that's not a new game that I've got. But wouldn't it be funny if it was. I can just picture little clock characters running around the screen screaming as I blow them up with my shotgun. There would be some of those old fashion pocket watches, wrist watches and mantle clocks. Boss battles would consist of a hard fought battle with a Grandfather clock. And when you get to the end of the game and beat the last clock it resets time and your back at the beginning again. Wouldn't that be great? But I digress.

When I say I'm killing time on my Xbox 360 it usually means I'm playing an Arcade game. I play them when I know my friends are about to get online and I don't want to get too involved in a big game like Mass Effect or Fallout 3. I want something simple and easy that I can jump out of in the middle of a game and not feel bad about finishing it. Quick little Arcade games are perfect for that. And chopping wood or forging swords in Fable II is just the same as an Arcade game.

I also kill time and use Arcade games to wind down after some intense online multiplayer action. Whether we end up having a great night or a terrible one, some times I'm too pumped up to quietly lay down and go to sleep right away. A couple games of Hardwood Hearts lowers my blood pressure and ten to fifteen minutes later I can now start getting ready for bed.

Sometimes when I'm killing time with Arcade games is because I don't have the brain power or attention span to focus on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. When you play an online multiplayer shooter in that frame of mind you're going to get killed . . . a lot. Sometimes these "brain farts" last awhile and sometimes only a few minutes. Either way, I prefer to play one of the Fable Pub games or Gin Rummy, or Backgammon instead of having my head blown off every few seconds. Maybe that's just me.

So if you ever see me online and I'm playing an Arcade game I'm usually just waiting for friends to come online, winding down after an intense gaming session or I just don't have the brain power to play anything too intense. Just because I'm playing one of those games doesn't mean I wouldn't be happy to accept a game invite from a friend to play something else (even an Arcade game). On the rare occasion when an Arcade game catches my fancy and I want to play it as much as I want to play a disk game, I'll let you know. Maybe I'll change my status to "Busy" or I'll go into hiding.

So if you see me online and I'm playing Hearts or Spades or whatnot hit me up with a game invite if you want me to join. Who knows, maybe someday we can kill time together. Watch out for those "3 o'clock" monsters though. They're down right mean.

Focused on gaming

I tried a bunch of Arcade games this weekend and picked up a few achievements. Some of them seemed so easy (especially the "East 'A'" one in Boom Boom Rocket) that I wonder why I didn't pick them up sooner. I was only a level away from getting the RooGoo and Marble Blast achievement and just a half a level away from getting the Undertow achievement. Why I quit before when I was that close I'll never know. Or course I might not have known I was that close to getting another achievement when I was playing it the last time.

Getting the Boom Boom Rocket achievement was easy and although I didn't get another achievement I did manage to improve my score on several songs. All because of my headset. I have issues with noise and my upstairs and side neighbors. I bought a headset that has big ear pieces for both ears. It's kind of like wearing earmuffs. You plug it into your TV and your controller. And what you hear through the headset is in stereo so it's really easy to hear someone creeping up on you in Gears of War as long as you have the music volume setting turned way down. Using that headset helps to drown out the noise coming from my neighbors. Unfortunately it also drowns ou the sound of my phone ringing too. Oh well.

Because of the stereo sound and the quality of sounds, minus all the distractions, it's helped me focus more on my gaming. I think my friends in Gears of War have noticed a difference. At least now I'm not turning my head every time my chandelier shakes wondering if it's going to come crashing to the ground. Or cringing every time I can hear my neighbors speak from their apartment or when they slam their front door making my walls rattle every time they come and go (and they do that a lot). I have a little piece and quiet for my gaming and I'm making the most of it as my achievements show.

The only downside to the head set is that there's no mute feature for the microphone. If I had to cough and sneeze I've got to unplug the mic from the controller and then plug it back in when I want to speak again. For a slow paced game like Texas Hold 'Em or Hearts it's not bad but in a fast paced game, like Gears of War or Unreal Tournament 3, when even the slightest twitch can mean the difference between life and death while your fingers are still on the controllers, it's not very convenient to "mute" yourself. But the benefits outweigh the negatives so I'll live with the occasional mute/unmute distractions and hope that my friends can live with the occasional cough and sneeze from over my mic.

I may still have issues with how I see the game, but my mind is focused on gaming when I wear that headset. If you haven't looked into getting one for yourself and you think you might need one I highly recommend it. Coming from someone who'd rather play against you while you're distracted, maybe you should only use something like this while I'm on your team.

What do you play when you're not in the mood?

I had a very strange day yesterday. I wanted to play video games . . . but I wasn't in the mood for anything.

I tried a racing game (Burnout Revenge). Nothing. I tried some arcade games (Pac Man CE, Texas Hold 'Em, Hearts, Catan) but I wasn't really in the mood for any of them. (Although I did finally come in first place in a $4,000 buy in tournament after being short stacked for awhile. I always finish in the money but I've never come in first.)

I got a couple of invites to play Rainbow 6: Vegas and although I wasn't in the mood I thought it wouldn't hurt. Boy was I wrong. I sucked. The other team was creeping up behind me and taping me on the shoulder before blowing my head off. If I thought I was in a good snipping position I'd find a guy right next to me . . . but on the other team. I died. I died again. And then . . . I died some more. Even when I somehow made it to their spawn point I couldn't kill them when they spawned before they'd get a single shot to blow my brains out.

I've had bad days in games before. It's usually been 'cause I wasn't in the mood to play that particular type of game. Or my eyes were just to tired to focus and concentration on the screen. But a whole night were there was nothing I wanted to play?

I even switched systems. I pulled out the PS2 and loaded a few games trying to find what matched my mood. Metal Gear Solid? Nope. Abe's Exoddus? Not tonight. Half-Life? Not quite right. Gradius? No. God of War. Now that one was a little closer to what I had in mind. Unfortunately by then I was too tired and just shut everything down. A game like that deserves my undivided attention and right then that wasn't going to happen.

I flipped channels on the TV for awhile. Read a book for a while as well. But nothing seemed to satisfy the mood I was in. Hopefully this mood will pass cause I can't imagine what I'd do if I didn't want to play video games.