The Path Of Corn, or the Box Of Orange

If you ever get the chance, going through a Corn Maze is surprisingly fun. Please keep in mind, however, that while it is quite easy to get through as long as you have your map, the moment you forget where you are, you will become forever lost. Suddenly, the sky will darken, your flashlight will slowly lose it's power, and your attempts to figure out where you are will be limited by the fact that the only landmarks you can find are "Corn" and "Corn."

Also, you won't be able to hear the sounds of people looking for you. The only thing you'll be able to hear is the noise of the corn whispering to you, as you wonder why the stars have vanished from the sky.

Instead, you can decide to be a more stay-at-home type, and enjoy the fruits of The Orange Box. Portal is a very good game, although it's not quite as good as you may have heard. Over half of the game is devoted to gradually teaching you how to play the last few levels, and the puzzles stop getting any harder right when you've finally gotten the hang of things. Also, the game's dialogue is amusing, but it's hardly the laugh out loud comedyfest that most reviewers claim it to be.

Again, the game is good, but if it hadn't been packaged with the rest of the Orange Box, I would have wanted more for my money.

After you get done with that, there is the allure of Team Fortress 2. So far, my accomplishments have been limted to fixing things so that I no longer had to jump in place to use my special weapons, and following around strangers and shooting them with a health ray. Soon, I hope to add "Shooting people in the head," to this list.

What'cha Been Playin'? (October 2007 Issue)

An odd thing happened after I quit Oblivion and forever removed it from my hard drive for the second time. I started playing games.

Getting rid of WOW and Oblivion was like kicking an addiction. I realized that I wasn't getting full enjoyment out of life, and I needed help. Gametap was a good first step, and it's nice to know that Overlord, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and Pocket Fighter (Xie-xie!) are always there if I need them for $9.95 a month. But their program wasn't right for me. I needed something, dare I say it, a little less casual. I needed something hardcore.

After attending Ryan Scott's self-improvement seminar on Thursday, October 10th, I learned about Steam. Now, I've had Steam on my computer for some time, but the service has changed in recent months. And now it has changed me.

The last time I played an FPS competitively was over a LAN network in college. We were playing Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem, and, yes, there was Blood. I pwned Blood with anal madness. At the time, I didn't have the resources on my personal computer to run Quake or Unreal, and by the time I did have the money to afford the Internet connection and the graphics card, I was far behind the curve. Games that existed in three dimensions baffled me. To this day, I still can't play Grim Fandango.

But thanks to my hero Ryan Scott, my life is back on track. Team Fortress 2 is freakin' awesome. My average lifespan is slightly over a minute, but I haven't had this much fun gaming in years.

If you need me between now and when Lost and The Wire come back on the air, look me up on Steam. I'm also game for DEFCON or a mini-campaign of Civ IV. I was able to download the latter and its improvement packs (yay, Korea! I've discovered Buddhism in a country that didn't invent it!) for a pretty decent price over the weekend.

It's too bad I think viral marketing is wrong. I'm turning out to be pretty good at this "liking" things thing. Buy the Orange Box today from the comfort of your own home!