Zelda vs. Gears vs. Wolves

As much as I wanted to plow knee deep into Zelda, online gaming has kept me only ankle deep, occasionally jumping out and getting into the cool waters of Gears of War.

I thought I was mostly done with the game. I had beaten it on "normal". That's pretty much where I'm drawing the line at most games. And with Gears, the huge amount of hard time I had getting into a ranked match made it even more frustrating. But never under estimate the power of peer pressure. With Cullers and Mike online, there is that small sense of familiarity. A hint of Halo 2 lan parties (and Perfect Dark and GoldenEye and NBA Jam). Those are powerful memories.

I can get into gaming with strangers, but the whole mating process is tired and is very repetitive. Say your "hello"s, plop into a map, hope MrFancyPantx doesn't split of on his own close range with a sniper rifle, and then you can think about sending a friend request.

I did that all throughout Perfect Dark and I absolutely loved my crew. It was diverse and we did spend a lot of time talking instead of plotting. It was relaxed. We were casual gamers. Good casual gamers. But after a couple of months, well, any game, you just can't stand playing it anymore, as you peek out from behind your Super Dragon to look at the likes of Gears players. It's like another country where they speak their own language.

I know that Zelda is sitting back there. I've waited a long freakin' time to play as grown-up Link. I was put off a little bit by the wolf form, knowing I had Okami in the PS2. As soon as I started running around as Link the Big Bad Wolf, I knew that beautiful white Okami was just waiting for me; a game that had completely fleshed out the 3rd-canine-perspective genre. Gladly it was over almost as soon as it started.