Half Life

I usually don't like FPS games, I find them mindless and shallow. But sometimes a game comes around that completely absorbs me, and that was the Half Life series.

Due to my long standing addiction to WoW, which has subsided on the past month or so (raiding is boring, I still arena but I'm mainly waiting for the xpac), I never played many other games on the side. I have an obsessive-compulsive behavior when it comes to gaming, and I usually pour myself into one and only one game at a time. And when that's an MMO, well, I miss out a lot of other games. But I'm trying to correct that right now.

Half Life has that one feature in games I'm most interested in: storyline. Being a hardcore RPG fan, I'm a sucker for good stories. I don't even care if the controls are bad, or if the graphics are lame. If it has a great storyline, that's all that matters. And so it was with HL. I enjoyed the games very much. The story is compelling, and made me want to keep going just to know what would happen to the main character and the rest related to him. The weapon choices were fun, but they weren't a defining factor (but I did have a fav. weapon, the standard, trustworthy shotgun, nothing more satisfying than annihilating living people AND undeads in their faces with one shot). The gameplay is also satisfying, it rewards smart moves and tactics over mindless, careless "rain of bullets", although I did resource to that a couple of times. Having a quick save/load helps a lot too haha.

I'm not going to go through the storyline here, because if anyone who's interested in playing reads this, I want him/her to do the discovery on their own. I'm just going to say that is completely worth it, and there's a reason why this game is part of the "must play" list.

And in a more personal view, Gordon Freeman is hot. Despite the fact that you NEVER see him in the game, and he never, ever talks, he's still a physicist researcher who kicks ass with weapons. Like a jock with brains. I bet he's as fast to kill zombies as he is to solve difficult equations. If I was Alyx Vance I'd have screwed him the first moment I had the chance. Ok, I'll stop.

Football World Cup 2010!!

I'm not a very assiduous football follower (and yes, football, cause THAT'S WHAT IT IS DAMMIT), but I always look forward to the World Cup. Everybody gathers around to watch these games, and they're entertaining no matter if you are with the teams that are playing or you don't care about them. The matches are interesting by themselves. And I have to add, a bunch of cute guys too heh.

In my case, it has an extra meaning. I'm a chilean living in Texas. Football (soccer) isn't common here. So watching it makes me feel at home again. Specially watching it in spanish. English announcers don't have the spark and the familiarity that latin american announcers have. So I've been following it on the spanish spoken channels they broadcast here. And I just get a kick out of the comments and jokes and the always expected long shout after a goal. It makes me feel in Chile again. And of course I'm waiting for those matches in where my country's team plays. I'll be up no matter what time it is, cheering for them!

Good luck to all of the countries participating in the World Cup!

PS: Go go nordic teams and their blond players! :P

Dragon Age Origins: Awakening

I just finished the xpac for Dragon Age Origins. Good story. You can pick it up with the character you played with in the original game, or make a new one. Of course is not as long as the original game, but it adds nice content and it has alternative endings depending on what paths you chose. If you get DAO, you should get the xpac too!