Just when I thought I had kicked the habit. I hadn’t been playing Halo 3 on XBOX at all, and I haven’t played through any PC games (save Portal and company) for like 2 years, which was my real obsession. I only rarely indulged in Wii on a drinking night. I hardly ever played Desktop Tower Defense anymore, even in class. My spouts of addiction to random physics based games liked The Fantastic Contraption, Armadillo Run and Splitter had long subsided.

But noooooo, along comes Left 4 Dead in all it’s gory beauty. Damn you Valve.

I love zombies. I love killing zombies, so therefore, I love Left 4 Dead.

A lot has been said about how zombies cannot run. While I tend to agree with Simon’s position, when you add slow moving zombies to a first-person-shooter, you get a big steaming pile of boring. So this was part of my original justification to try it out, along with the fact that Valve was involved.

My verdict: bloody good. The best part is re-playability. Every time you play through a new campaign, it’s different. Random crowds of zombies will come at a different points each time. Boss zombies will be in new spots, sometimes…

Also, the concept behind the campaigns is solid. There is no back story, just four players (usually human in an online world) in a situation trying to get to an extraction point. Surrounded by zombies. Oh, you also get guns, ammo, health items and grenade items, but you need to get the hell out of there.

Each campaign ends with a huge fight as you wait for rescue, these can be intense and rewarding. I remember one time fighting at the riverfront, waiting for a boat. We see the boat coming it’s just three of us now running for the dock. Of course I run the slowest being a woman the most damaged and I get knocked to the ground 10 feet from the boat. One guy covers me while another helps me up as we watch a Tank boss (aka the Hulk) comes crashing towards us. We made it out with less than a second to spare. A great moment in gaming. You had to be there I guess.

To PC or not to PC: PC vs. XBOX

I have played both PC and XBOX versions of Left 4 Dead, and they are both fine. I enjoy mouse and keyboard a lot so I tend to like PC. However, I do like how much more reliable XBOX Live seems to be over the PC online play, and the split screen is awesome, especially with some brews.

So yes, I will be online, playing this game.

And I don’t think I will be quitting anytime soon. So hit me up on Steam as mstrymn or XBOX as Cheezsticks.

It was 15 miles to school, uphill both ways. In the snow.

Seriously?

To celebrate the spirit of the upcoming election, I thought I’d collect a few past stats that have turned out to be pretty good predictors of the US presidential elections. These are quite silly but you can’t argue with the results. First up is one you’ve probably already heard about somewhere…

Halloween mask sales.

This is according to BuyCostumes.com, the world’s largest online retailer of, well, costumes. According to them, the past two election years’ sales of each nominees’ masks have correlated perfectly to the actual winner. In 2000 and 2004, Buy Costumes had sold 57% and 53% George W. Bush masks, respectively. Obviously, Halloween masks have more power over our government than previously thought.

• Prediction: Obama with 55%.

The Redskins’ final home game.

Basically, if the Red Skins win their final home game, the incumbent party will remain in office. This one was dug up by ESPN in 2004, while it didn’t work out last election, where the Redskins lost to the Packers predicting that Kerry would take office, it has otherwise proven accurate since 1936.

• Prediction: Obama. Last night the Redskins lost 23-6.

Favorite cookie recipe.

Since 1992, each prospective first wife (or husband?) sent in their favorite cookie recipes to Family Circle for readers to vote on. Each year, the winner of that vote was the spouse of the winning on nominee on Nov. 4th. However, there was some talk of Cindy McCain cheating on her recipe, perhaps we should consider her disqualified…

• Prediction: (Cindy?) McCain with 54% but cheated.

The Scholastic kids vote.

Apparently, asking a bunch of kids who will win the election is incredibly accurate. It’s worked since they started the poll, except for one year in 1960 when JFK supposedly lost to Nixon. The likely reason for the stunning accuracy is that the kids simply mirror their parents political opinions. Actually, this probably leads to a more accurate sampling than most polls because kids don’t filter very well. Just ask the master of getting-kids-to-say-dumb-stuff Bill Cosby…

• Prediction: Obama with 57%.

So it looks like that’s three for Obama, and one for McCain (disputable). I think Obama is gonna take it too. We’ll see.