Mexico Medical Student |

I expected to use this alone time to see how my study habits changed, and I found out something very interesting: I can’t stop playing Halo 2. There is a Halo tournament next week that some friends from class are organizing. Nobody (at least that I know of) in it is any kind of fanatic player, but I thought I’d take the extra quiet time at home to dust off the Xbox and refresh my skillz.

Mistake. It interfered with studying for my Histology final, and that’s with my already having finished the game once when it came out! A mark of an awesome video game is if I play it regularly, because normally, a) I am not a gamer, b) I don’t have patience, and c) I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, so if I choose the game, there’s something good about it.

At the risk of sounding like a total geek (way too late, I suppose) here are some things I like/dislike about Halo:

• Incredible score, visuals, action
• Just the right balance of complexity and ease-of-play
• Halo2’s switch to the Convenant POV
• Regular save checkpoints: I don’t have patience to “solve” something in a RPG before I can turn the unit off to go do something else, and I have the luxury of playing for 30 minutes (improbable, but at least possible) to blow of steam
• I don’t like that Halo2 was WAY too short
• I wish there was some non-linearity in the game, although its absence is also what makes it so playable
• I hate The Flood. Every level that involves them makes my stress level increase 5x. I know that’s the point, but still…
• There are few things more satisfying than a cowardly swipe of a plasma sword behind someone’s back in a multiplayer game, that’s for sure, especially if said victim thinks he’s hidden waiting to snipe you.

It’s been fun, but it needs to stop because I am getting behind. Diversion is OK–even needed–but I need to space it out more. I chalk it up to being discombobulated with all the changes this week.

As for Histology, I am so glad this class is over. Hopefully the grades will be out by the end of the week so I’ll have the hard evidence I need to know that I’ll never have this teacher again! YAY!!