Return of the Gamer

About 3 years ago I was an avid gamer. Had an Xbox, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Gameboy, pc games, and cell phone games. Oh yeah, it was a party. Then I got partied out, man. That coaster train hit the block-breaks hard and crawled into the station. So I picked out a handful of pc and cell phone games and traded in the gaming gear for cash. Blashpemy for sure, but it was worth it to get outdoors and buy a camcorder to video theme parks.

I've been busy the past couple years out at the parks and having a great time, but a little part of me missed gaming. Even so, the few remaining games just sat on my hard drive until they were uninstalled. A few promising Morrowind characters met their demise at the hands of the Uninstall Wizard, not a gang of Argonian thieves. Flight Simulator helo awesomeness was grounded. Even Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 came to the end of it's rails, in favor of freeing up hard drive space.

This past Christmas the siren call of the Lego games was too much. Lego Batman and Lego Indiana Jones made my list. The bricked, er, caped crusader got installed on my laptop first. It was followed by a discount find of Bloodrayne 2. And they promptly filled my 50 gig hard drive. Doh!

After a couple plays, the hotness of Bloodrayne lost out to Batman's brood. (I know, I know, priorities, but she'll be back.) Since I only had keyboard and mouse, this was another minor hindrance. Yep, time for a game controller.

I was off to the game store for an Xbox 360 controller. Wired was the cheaper and simpler way to go. Seriously. Plug in, yer done. Oh, but wait, that's not how it's done anymore. I could hear Tackleberry from the Police Academy movies now, "You will get wireless NOW, MISTER!" and indeed I did, and at almost double the price when paired with the necessary wireless pc receiver, that, of course, is sold separately.

Cost aside, this turned out to be a good thing. Controller and receiver set up and paired quickly. There was no lag or signal drop out, and the controller felt comfortable in my hands. Taste itty bitty Batarang evil-doers! In about 20 minutes, Lego Clay Face was my so bitch (Ok, it's only the first level. It's been a while). Aw yeah!

It felt good to be back in the gaming world a little bit and I was pleasantly surprised with the new gear. Big improvement over using the clunky but still way cool Sidewinder pc gamepads over 10 years ago. (Anybody remember the good old days of joystick ports on pc's and daisy-chaining those controllers for Virtua Fighter?)

Hey, it's nice to have a good game or two plus iTunes on the laptop. Makes downtime on a trip MUCH more enjoyable. :)