connecting*the*dots

Alright, I forked over another $45 to take up another 15 hours of my time per week by purchasing "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003" and have been glued to my Dell for the past two weeks. Talk about addictive. Wow.

The environments in the game are as close to realistic as you can imagine. The waves crash on the shores of Pebble Beach. Trees wave in 25mph winds as mist rolls across the fairway. The surfaces are so life-like, you can feel how the ball lands on the playing surface. Once you get past the beauty of the product, the addictive nature of climbing the professional tour ladder comes into play, earning money from tournaments and adding skills to your game and before you realize it… it’s 3am and your eyes are glued to the flag 300 yards off in the virtual distance.

I originally purchased this to offset the violence of Medal of Honor, as I’d play MOH for a few hours and my brain would spaz out for an hour before I could go to bed. Now I don’t dream of killing Nazis, I just fall asleep to Tiger pumping his damn fist.

Punk.

Every few years or so I get sucked into a new multiplayer networked game and blow a ton of my free time killing things. Well, this year it happens to be Metal of Honor by Electronic Arts. Damn, this thing is addictive. With seven rotating environments and the choice between being an Ally or Nazi in World War II, my post-work | pre-gym/home time has been swallowed up by this classic shoot ‘em up.

And let me tell you, there’s nothing like sniping an English private from 100 yards to bring a smile to my face. Somebody needs to come up with an Irish Republican Army vs. England game. Or a game where the Irish peasants in 1846 strategically supply the English ruling class with rotten potatoes, making them sick and weak so they can be overrun by peasants with rakes and hoes.

I’d be all over those. So it’s not politically correct. I’d buy it. Sue me.