Why I Don't Play Halo

  You may be asking yourself why I haven't joined in with the Halo fun instead of becoming a Halo widow. It's not because I don't like the game; honestly I think it's a visual masterpiece and the gameplay itself is often entertaining to watch. My resistance to playing Halo also has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a girl. I can think of a few ladies that would deny any knowledge of me if I so much as hinted that girls shouldn't or don't play Halo. The truth is I don't play Halo unless I'm handed a controller and plopped in front of a TV screen but I have my reasons.

  There are 3 reasons I don't play Halo.

• I'm a fidgety, twitchy, spaz most of the time. This means that when I try to look slightly to my left, I move my Spartans head all the way around. Or, I end up staring at the sky or ground, stuck in a corner because I turned to hard to the right.  Too often I resort to "pray and spray" because I have no idea what I'm shooting at. And I'm highly likely to betray you. I once killed the nice friend of Mike's repeatedly when he came into our game to save me from the second reason I don't play Halo.

• It's not his fault that I'm a spaz and can't control my Spartan. But playing Halo with Mike is like playing hide and go seek for a really long time. Here's how it goes - Mike sets up a game of Slayer, just him and I, where I get to practice trying to aim and shoot at him. (It's really that pitiful.) I miss a bunch of shots then eventually manage to take down his armor. Then, he kills me while I try to get my cross hairs to stay red long enough to shoot at him again. He's not a bully, he's just a good player and I'm an opponent regardless of who I am. It's the same way he plays when he games against his other friends. This being the case, I die a lot. Every time I die, I respawn somewhere else and I'm lost because of the first person point of view. I start running around, sometimes off the edge of something. Most of the time Mike finds me, kills me and the process starts over again. I don't know about you, but there's only so many times I can die before I start to get tired of watching my corpse while I respawn. Online gaming is out of the question because of my inability to aim and shoot before getting killed. Firefight, on the other hand, is pretty fun. I know what I'm supposed to kill and I'm not the only thing for Mike to kill. Also, the "pray and spray" technique works pretty well as long as there's no one else around.
• The Halo Universe is beautiful. I'd much rather look at it and listen to it than anything. And the Grunts are adorable. I tried to play the Halo 3 campaign to get better at shooting, even bought my own copy for the occasion, but got too caught up in the world. (And sometimes too lost.)

 
  It's not for lack of trying, Lord knows I have, but Halo is just not my game. I did play Halo Wars (the RPG) and have been known to run through a few rounds of skirmish, but again, never online because I'm too quickly pwned.

  On the rare occasion that I do play, I'm quick to hand off the controller to the next anxious gamer that I know will enjoy it. It always makes them happy, and I can get back to watching it.