Where were you ten years ago? We're asked frequently in job interviews "Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?" This is a really hard question to answer. I like thinking of where I was ten years ago and see how far I've come. Gaming has always been an important part of my life and I occasionally like to think "What was I doing in gaming ten years ago?"
Ten years ago, my life was FULL of gaming. I was working for GameStop. I was a seasonal hire. I was hired in October and my position was over a week after the New Year. I just had a four month spurt of unemployment and was in the middle of my junior year of college. I wouldn't say I was strapped for cash or anything. I was working weekends at a local paintball store. I ended up being the only holiday hire out of six to be offered a permanent position. I ended up passing and going to work for a local grocery store chain.
The fall of 2004 was an amazing time to work for a video game store. Fable was released a few week before I started. There was a lot of negative feedback due to the game not living up to expectations. We had a lot of trad-ins of the game my first week. I got to experience the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 and The World of Warcraft releases. These games were milestones and set the standards for the games of that generation. World of Warcraft is still a very relevant MMORPG. San Andreas recently made it to the hand held market and KOTOR eventually evolved into an MMORPG that couldn't live up to the reputation of its predecessor. One game topped all of these for me and it set the standard for my preference of games ever since.
Halo 2 was the only game that was released in the fall of 2004 that had a midnight release. The game was released on November the 9th 2004. There were roughly one hundred and twenty people hanging outside the store at 11:55pm and just about everyone had paid for the game in full. This event was the easiest shift I ever worked. Everybody was excited for the game and we were ready to serve. I took a hint and picked up an XBox the next week.
I tried to do things right. I played through the original Halo and this was extremely challenging for me. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were the only FPS games I had experience in and the dual control stick layout took some getting used to. Halo was conquered over a weekend and Halo 2's campaign was destroyed shortly after that. My gaming preferences were drastically changed after this experience.
I've never been big into the multiplayer experience. I was much more into the story. The Halo franchise has a very detailed universe and Halo 2 introduced the players to the other side of the story. The first game involved the super soldier, but the second game put you in the shoes of the enemy of the first game, the Covenant. You learn about the different species of the Covenant and experience the tension of the defeat from the first game. I had never played a game with this type of story telling. A lot of people didn't like the fact you didn't play the whole game as Master Chief, but I thought it was brilliant.
Over ten years, I've played all the Halo games, read most of the books, watched the TV series, and watched a lot of Red vs Blue. I can't say Halo 2 was my favorite. It was the game that caught my attention and made Halo my favorite game series of all time. Halo: The Master Chief Collection comes out tomorrow. It crams Halo remastered, Halo 2 remastered, Halo 3 and Halo 4 into one game. I don't own an XBox One, but I anxiously await the day I do so that I can re-experience ten years worth of awesome gaming.