I’ve been playing video games again and it’s awesome.  I’m only getting about an hour of play at a time, due to being wicked busy with work and social/family stuff, but the brief times I do get to play are awesome. 

Currently, my favorite games are Call of Duty 2 and NBA Street Hardcore.  I call “Call of Duty” “Killing Germans”, because that’s pretty much all you do… at an amazingly fun and quick pace.  I’ve gone through the first two missions, where you are in the Russian campaign and then join the Brits and now am with the Americans storming Normandy.  Talk about intense and awesome.  The game designers did a great job of making your blood pressure rise in this one.  I really don’t think I’ve experienced more anxiety ridden moments than when I’ve accidentally stormed a room occupied with the Germans, hit the trigger button to start laying waste and get the ole “click”, then watch the slow reload because not only did I run into a room blindly, but I did so without reloading my gat.  It’s probably about two seconds to reload, but it feels like 10 full minutes.  I really hope my brain doesn’t replace the “last day of college and I have to pass an exam for a class I’ve been skipping, yet I don’t even know where the room is so I spend the whole time frantically trying to look up my schedule in the computer lab” dream with scenes of running into rooms full of Nazi’s without a loaded gat.  It’s that much anxiety.  I’m also amazed at how much satisfaction they were able to build into those moments when you pop out of cover and shoot somebody dead on from a good distance (and damn, the sniper stuff is wicked cool too).  I usually hate 1st person shooter type games, but killing germans is awesome.  Oh, and they scream funny german crap at you the whole time.

NBA Street is just a very well put together game.  I usually shy away from the “over the top unrealistic” sports games (which is why I’ve pretty much given up on video game baseball… I actually don’t want to hit 100 HRs in a season), but NBA Street is fun as hell.  You get to build a player through a career progression and battle street players and NBA players in all kinds of different modes.  I played the first version on the PS2 years ago, but somehow I’m still in buttom mashing mode and my players will pass or shoot at the wrong time and I’m not entirely sure why.  Though, when they all three jump up and pass the ball on dunk all over the place, it’s wicked fun.  This game also has the best music I can remember from a game.  It’s well mixed hip-hop and doo-doo-kak-kak stuff.