Writers Note: Since this is my first dip in writing anything that people will be seeing, I have decided to stick to some of the random thoughts and impressions that strike me whenever I play a game. There may be some bias, but it’s a blog, it’s my opinion. How can I control my thoughts during a game?

Over a week ago I ventured back home from college to enjoy a weekend with the family and see what some of my friends were up to. Spoiler: these friends are fan boys. Being that I can only game online at home, I decide to bring my Xbox 360 with me and see how some of the online experiences in some of the games I had been playing were. The main thing I wanted to see was how Team Fortress 2 worked on Xbox Live since it was impossible to play an online game at school and no one on my college’s network owned the Orange Box. As I settled in for some gaming TF2 was put on the back burner for a while as I raced through BioShock (That’s another story for another day). As soon as I was ready for some hot TF2 action, I run into a road block of bias. “Play Halo 3”, “Come on, just a little Halo 3 won’t hurt” and my personal favorite, “Joel, the Orange Box sucks, play Halo 3”.
Needless to say I was both infuriated and amazed at the blatant fanboyism that my friends showed. And this is what bugs me about some of the gamers I know. They won’t give another game a chance because they are so biased towards one game over another. This could be best summed up in the quote “I already know that I don’t like it, and I will not give it a try”. Eventually I was able to pop it in and without a doubt can say it is one of the most satisfying multiplayer experiences that I have had in a long time. No jerks, no whining, just people wanting to play the game.
After the weekend ended I felt like little had been accomplished. Fanboys were as stubborn as ever, TF2 didn’t get as much loving as I anticipated and the only thing that cheered me up was one friend saying “Yeah, I might have to buy the Orange Box sometime, it was kinda fun”. On the 2 hour drive back to the monotonous grind of college life, I felt a tinge of excitement in the fact I had only 3 weeks left before a 6 ½ week binge of gaming over winter break and finally the attention TF2 deserved.