In a World of Darkness

Playing Halo 3 is a joy. And I'm starting to get the hang of it in multiplayer, so that I can at least be competitive most of the time. I don't usually win, but I compete, and am still around with two minutes remaining as a threat to win.

One of the big advantages I have is that I play Halo 3 on my projector. This gives me a level of detail (in high resolution and massive size) that most players simply don't have. From across the room I can see my enemies spent shells flying out of their assault rifle while they shoot at me. I can see what weapon is on the ground long before I get to it. I can aim more accurately because the targets are bigger.

Unfortunately, this comes at a price. Projector bulbs have shorter life spans than hamsters on crack, and when they get old, the get dim. I turned on my projector Saturday night for a healthy dose of "Friends List Team Slayer" and it was very dark.

Now normally, it is bright enough that I can still see clearly even with the powerful lighting built into the ceiling. I play with the main lights off, only having the stairwell light on for ambient lighting. Now, even with all the lights off, my screen, which used to look like this:


now looks like this:


You can imagine my dismay at firing up my 360 only to see that I can't see anything at all. Well, not much. But I was a trooper, so I tried a game of Lone Wolves - and got 5th place - and that was due to the 6th place guy lagging out halfway through the match.

Loath to admit I would need to move the 360 up to the den (and the lowly 25" non-HD TV), I got invited to the Friends List festivities. It was team slayer on High Ground. I'm not very good at that map for some reason. I never have been. But normally I can get close to breaking even with my Kill/Death ratio. To make matters worse, it was the first time most of these guys had seen me with my shiny new Major star.

I ended up with 4 kills and died 16 times, which is abysmal, even for me. Grumpy and embarrassed by my lack of performance, I backed out of the lobby after saying goodbye and didn't play at all the rest of the night or Sunday. So here it is Monday night, and I'm hesitant to go move the Xbox 360 up to the den.

I'll ultimately need to buy a new projector bulb (again), but at $250+, it won't be right away. So my days of 5 speaker Dolby Surround and 95" screen goodness are over for the time being. It's as if my SPARTAN'S helmet's visor went from normal size to this.



It could be worse, I could have gotten the red ring of death.