I finally got around to completing Halo 3's campaign this weekend. There really is no comparison. Whereas Halo 2's campaign was disjointed and incoherent, Halo 3's is focussed and well-written.

The multi-player portion is equally enjoyable, though I find myself cringing at game-types involving flags, V.I.P's, hills, or whatever. Equally annoying are mono-weapon game-types like Rockets and Swords. Call me a purist, but I want to experience the game at it's finest - slayer deathmatch.

Ironically, this game-type bias does not extend into the realm of Team Fortress 2, another game which is nothing if not excellent. My class of choice is primarily the spy, though its nemesis, the Pyro, also brings me great joy. What blows me away about Team Fortress 2 is that this game costs functionally around $11.

My wife and I have been back in the MMO scene for a few months now, playing the original Everquest. Unfortunately, the old doldrums have hit me in EQ, as I struggle to justify paying any amount of money each month to the customer service nightmare that is Sony Online Entertainment. After wrestling with the "customer service" representatives at Sony via e-mail, live chat, and telephone, they still can not create the guild for which I submitted an application quite literally 8 weeks ago (24 hour turnaround? psshh). Because of these issues, and taking into account that we truly enjoy playing MMO's, and having one to fall back on for entertainment when the kids are all but knocked out or otherwise entertained, we cancelled our 4 EQ accounts, and reactivated our 2 World of Warcraft accounts.

I really do enjoy WoW, but I'm afraid my hyper-competitive nature tends to spoil it for me occasionally. It is impossible for me to attempt a task at which I have a 0% chance of being completely successful, and I define success in WoW as having fun while killing the biggest/baddest stuff around. Unfortunately, the meta game of WoW, as with all other MMO's I've attempted, is such that only those people with no limit to the time they can devote to the game will reach the top within any reasonable amount of time. We tried the uber-guild scenario once before, and discovered that because things like life, family, kids, diapers, food, etc., were more important than the game, we were not good raid members.

When it comes to choosing family over raiding, the decision is not difficult. It doesn't even really qualify as a decision. When given the choice between raiding and being a good parent, being a good parent is really the only option (and rightfully so). My question to MMO developers then, is this: Why does game design dictate that in order to reach the high-end game, extended (4+ hour) periods of concurrent gametime must be available. Is it not possible to create a game which rewards time, skill, and effort given either in one sitting or across several sessions? WoW is one of the best in this regard, as Blizzard's developers continue to implement solo and small group quests and instances with very good rewards, but the fact stands that the only way to reach the level attainable by those with 8 or more hours available at one time will remain out of reach of those who can not devote their lives to a videogame.

The day a quality MMO is released that changes this faulty status-quo, I will be an instant subscriber.