In the Beginning...

  The XBOX360 first came into my life in April 2006 when good fortune gave my boyfriend Mike and I the extra money to buy one. Of course, when you have the console, you’ve got to get some games for it. If you recall, some of the original XBOX games were compatible with the new version of the console. Plus, they were slightly less expensive than 360 games, so we picked a couple. Halo Combat Evolved was among them. My boyfriend had already played through this game while he was deployed, but he enjoyed it and like I said, we needed a game. We picked up Halo 2 at the same time and Mike played it through.

  Halo 2 introduced online multi-player options which meant that Mike could now gather with a bunch of friends or strangers and play Slayer, where one team battles the other to get the most kills, and Objective like capture the flag, king of the hill and oddball. It was great. Needless to say, Mike really liked playing Halo 2 online with his friends.

  Eventually we picked up Crackdown, a fun open world game made by Bungie, which included a beta for Halo 3. Once the beta launched, Mike was hooked. He spent nearly every available moment playing online games. It was a limited engagement and would only be around for a few weeks, so he had to get as much time in as possible. When the beta was gone, Mike picked up Halo 2 to fill the three months before Halo 3 launched.

  On September 17^th 2007, the XBOX360 suffered what is called the Red Ring of Death. Yes, just 8 days before the launch of the much anticipated Halo 3, with the day off of work already scheduled and plans to attend the midnight release in progress, our XBOX was dead. Luckily it was still covered under warranty because Microsoft said “That red ring is happening too often and we’re going to fix it.” But it would take 6-8 weeks to repair it. This wasn’t going to work at all. So, that very night he took the money that we had available (it seemed unlikely that we’d have enough but somehow we did) and went to buy another XBOX360. It was close to midnight and there was no choice but Walmart. They only had the elite edition available. “Shucks,” Mike said although I’m sure he was thinking “Woohoo!” (I’ll admit, the black XBOX is sexy. The new one, even sexier.)

  On September 24^th, 2007 Mike and I gathered at the store closest to our work into the most disorganized and uncomfortable “release party” I’ve ever attended. Finally, Halo 3 would make its way back to our living room. We took the game home and Mike began the mission, taking in the sights and sounds while I slept the night away.

  Mike’s sciatic nerve was not prepared for the amount of sitting he would do.

  And so, I became a Halo widow. Lucky for me, I’m good at entertaining myself and I’ve got great fodder for a blog series. There’re many Halo widow stories to tell.