I've been gone for a while now but found myself wandering back to see how the good 'ol MGU was doing. I noticed that Ms Cortana had mysteriously gone away much like I did. Gone, as in totally gone. Gamespot, XBox Live, even that 360 achievement tracking thing. A surprise indeed considering how much she loved her gaming. Not so much a surprise to me, however. I can understand simply having to drop something you loved to do and people you loved doing it with over one or two things that change everything. I truly hope Angela's reasons were not more serious than my own rather petty ones looking back in retrospect. She has alot on her plate as we all know and I always thought gaming was her refuge. I would like to say in this, my final words on Gamespot, a belated goodbye and thank you to all the fine folks at Mature Gamers Unite. Taomaster, Amo, Kratos, Cycle, X, Walking P, Rabies, Cave, Cortana, and any that I neglected to mention. Gaming with you all was great fun and I miss it dearly. As I am sure Ms Cortana does. Good health and good times to you all.

Just a quick rant here. I see yet another patch for Team Fortress 2 is coming for the PC to fix issues involving all of the additional content happy PC users of the game received. This got me thinking, how ironic, probably a quarter of TF2 PC players pirated the game yet Valve (via Steam) still gives them 5 star support. While if your an XBox 360 user you still have squat. None of the goodies Steam members enjoy, although you paid perfectly good money for The Orange Box. Many blame Microsoft for blocking the way but I don't buy it. Valve can't fall on the "We don't want to charge for content" sword because I'm sure the soon to come Left 4 Dead DLC will be a nice round 800-1200 Micro$oft points. Criterion was permitted to offer free content for Burnout Paradise so I can't imagine Valve would have been blocked for doing the same. It's a shame because TF2 is a lot of fun and deserves to be played as much as other more popular online games but lobbies in the game are like ghost towns. It seems to me Valve is not as virtuous as thier reputation seems to indicate. More than likely it was a simple matter of not being able to agree on thier cut that has kept Team Fortress 2 a tired, old game.

I've had an epiphany recently. It's clear that I don't enjoy online multiplayer gaming. This has been pointed out to me as I was playing Call of Duty: World at War. As I sat there respawning waiting for that idiot who got to the tank first to continue spamming kills at my expense, I said to myself "This is no fun. Why am I doing this? This is a waste of time and electricity." Now in fairness, I've never been the best shooter in the lobby and I have made peace with my self given nickname Point Five. As in my kill/death ratio in games like Halo, Gears, and COD is 0.5. But as my fast-twitch muscle reflexes have deteriorated so has my interested in competing against strangers that live and breathe ranked team deathmatch in {insert favorite FPS here}.

I'm not knocking those folks but it looks like I've found a new love. Co-op! The same COD: WaW game that is a miserable multiplayer game is a blast to play in co-op. Especially the competitive co-op mode that borrows a little from Halo 3's meta-game and COD 4's ranking style. It's the same thing with Left 4 Dead. I can't explain it but the versus mode in Left 4 Dead is more fun online than multi-player shooters even though it's still head to head competition. And don't get me started on Gears 2 co-op. The difference in experience between Gears co-op and Gears multiplayer is day and night in terms of enjoyment. I still love going through COD on Veteran (raining grenades and all), or Gears on Insane or Halo on Legendary but that's it for me grinding for rank online. If the next big FPS doesn't have a quality co-op component I'm going to pass on it.

From this point forward, I am a proud Halo 3 Gunnery Sargent with a skill 15. And forever I shall remain!