5/25 video games

I love Halo. From the first night spent playing Combat Evolved, Halo 2 on Xbox Live, finishing the fight Halo 3, going Oscar Mike in ODST, remembering Reach, seeing the big picture in Halo Wars, going next-gen in Halo 4, and 4K in Halo 5, meeting the Banished in Halo Wars 2, and now exploring the world in Halo Infinite.

What started off as a cute little real-time strategy game is now fought over an enormous map in Immortal Empires. Toy soldiers done right.

I am not good at racing games.

I have no natural talent for this.

But I just love doing time trials, and gradually improving my time until I'm putting in laps that compete with the very best drivers in the world.

It's such hard work. And the better you get, the harder it becomes. You think you've mastered a corner, but as you improve, you come to that corner even faster than before, and now you need to brake even harder.

When you crash into the wall, it's because YOU messed up. And when the lap is good, it's because YOU did well. The stopwatch doesn't lie.

When you start playing, the target is some guy who you need to find and shoot. And he's got bodyguards, so it's going to be tricky.

A few missions later, the briefing goes like this: "Your target is in a castle, with bulletproof windows, security cameras, a private army guarding the place, attack dogs, helicopters, a moat full of sharks..."

But it doesn't matter how much security they have. The target is already dead. They just don't know it yet. Because you are coming for them.

My 5th game is actually a rotating slot that I'll use to play one of these from time to time:

• Tomb Raider
• Forza Horizon
• Gears of War
• Star Wars: Jedi
• Splinter Cell
• X-Wing
• Command & Conquer
• Transport Tycoon
• Forza Motorsport
• Lego Star Wars
• Minecraft
• Monkey Island
• Rainbow Six
• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada
• Grim Fandango