I'm still trying to come down from the emotional intensity of the holidays. Now that we're firmly into 2008 and back to business, so to speak, I think I'm almost there.
I traded in a bunch of movies and video games that sucked for something new, and decided on the Orange Box for the Xbox 360. It has the three Half-Life 2 games, plus Portal and Team Fortress 2. I also got Tomb Raider Anniversary from Target for thirty bucks.
TRA is actually a remake of the very first Tomb Raider on the PlayStation, like ten years ago. I remember playing it on the PS as well as on Windows. I remember getting a video card for my computer from Rendition, which was trying to take on 3Dfx long before the Nvidia and ATI wars started, just so I could play Tomb Raider at "high" resolution, probably 800x600. I was fond of the game because it was one of the first 3D games that was not a first-person shooter. It redefined platform style games before Nintendo did.
The remake is pretty faithful to the original, to the extent that many of the levels are even the same. Of course, now the graphics are HD, Lara is more nimble, and for better or worse, her boobs jiggle. What counts though is that the classic game play is there and a lot of fun.
I got the Orange Box mostly because I loved the first Half-Life, which I played on the PC I think in 1999. It was seriously creepy and combined the shooter angle of Quake with the puzzle solving of Tomb Raider. I remember there were bugs here and there, but it was fun. I ended up using the invincible cheat through the last level because I thought it was impossible.
The second one I gave up on in 2005 because I couldn't even get the demo to run, thanks in part to Valve's Steam application, which handled downloads and online game purchases. I know Stephanie bought it after she moved out, and she loved it (not to mention didn't have the problems I did). It's a pretty cool game so far, in that there aren't cut scenes, but rather the characters do their thing around you. It's funny that Robert Guillaume does one of the voices. The game doesn't have the strong polish of something like Halo, but it is fun.
It has been a long time since I've spent any significant time gaming, but it's kind of fun to just lose yourself for a couple of hours blowing shit up or swinging on vines or whatever. I'm starting to realize that if I spread myself around doing different things, each one becomes more enjoyable, whether it be gaming or writing code.
Most importantly, it gets me out of my head, where I've spent far too much time the last few weeks.