I used to be an avid game player. I can clearly remember the days searching around for game titles that supported the Adlib music card, which only played crappy music until the Soundblaster came along. Between Infocom, Sierra and Lucasfilm, I wasted countless hours with Zak McKracken, Authur Dent and Ben. Then there was Wolf 3d, Doom, Heretic and Quake. The first time I turned someone into a chicken with the flying egg in Heretic was a memory that will stay with me - I laughed for nearly an hour.

My final bender was with Subspace, where my roomate Fred and I killed weeks of our lives just blasting everything. Then it just stopped. There was no real reason, the games just didnt excite me any more.

Flash forward 6 years to 2003. I haven’t played a computer game since. But something wierd happend today - I was picking up a keyboard at the Microsoft Store and noticed an interesting title as I walked by. So for some bizarre reason, I ended up buying Rise of Nations. It’ll be interesting to see if I play it or not.