I am not as good as I once was, and that is okay. I am not as good as I once was, and that is okay. I whisper to myself, huddled in my chair, as my body ragdolls across the screen in a combination of grim humor, and game physics. Of course this is just a fantasy, my words weaving a tail to cover the awful, and gut-wrenching truth. “Fucking bullshit, where in the ass did that come from?” My rage bubbles to the surface like a great leviathan of the deep, my Discord in shock and awe from the unfiltered epitaph spewing from my lips. I am rage, and I am my truest form, machine and nerve, raging against the unstoppable truth of time. As the curses, and insults flow I am visited by a flash of temperance. A brief blip of shame enters the cavities of heart and I realize, my 31-year-old self is forfeiting all composure over a combination of pixels. I am not as good as I once was, and that’s okay. Hello Halo Infinite, I love you. 

Halo Infinite literally spits in the face of my preconceived conceptions about my skill level as a player. Maybe I haven’t played a competitive fps on PC in a long time but the difference between what I anticipated, and what transpired is vast. For reference (I am about to humble brag for a while, just if you want to skip it, I will bold the end of me jerking myself off.) I used to be a great player. The year was 2007, and I eagerly awaited the school day’s end so I could jet home, and hopefully play the newly released Halo 3. A mere 17 year old, I couldn’t buy the game myself due to the mature rating, so I had to bribe, and beg my step father to acquire it. Not an easy feat. But I had given him the money I made working at a local movie theatre, and prayed he would hold his end of the bargain. As the clock ticked 3:30 pm I skipped swim practice, and sprinted down the hallways towards the yawning doors of the exit. My car in view, my pace quickened, my panicked hands struggling to insert the key to unlock the car door. I think the best part of this story is that, in all my hurried haste, I stopped at Target on the way home to literally grab Mountain Dew Game Fuel. My untempered youth convinced me that I must have it to perform at an optimal level. Anyway, I made it home, and much to my dismay my stepfather stood in the kitchen empty handed. Distraught, I turned away in a mix of shame, and disappointment. With my back to my stepfather, a surred shit-eating grin appearing on his face as I opened the cupboard, I searched for some form of sustenance, or food-based solace. But wait, what is this? A plastic bag in the cupboard, this doesn’t belong here, nor would it be allowed to stay in a household as strict as mine. The crunched red logo of Target in view I slowly came to the realization. This asshole got it, and hid it, just to torment me.

I was too happy to even consider the tomfoolery that had just pushed me to the proverbial edge of childhood trauma. In my hands was my aged 17 holy grail, nothing could be greater to me at this moment. I quickly chanced a hug with my stepfather, and gleefully ran to the basement to continue my quest with Master Chief. My hands shaking, I tore through plastic and packaging, the disc in my hands, now in the CD tray, now entering the Xbox, now the screen turning blue. And the first low tones of the Halo theme ring in my ears, and I am gripped. Consumed. If there is one soundtrack that evokes nostalgia for me above all others, it is the menu music of Halo 3. So many hours lost to the orchestral symphony, the haunting choir, the unabashed beauty of sound.

As I hurriedly read through menus, navigate the various options, I get a game invite. Great. Some of my buddies are already putting together custom games to learn the maps, guns, spawns, and various techniques that will no doubt consume my synapses at an alarming rate. As I load into Last Resort, I am greeted by the familiar sights of the AR and, what’s that? A Mongoose? Hell yeah. As I board the mongoose, dreams of ramps and splatters littering my mind, my screen turns black. My Xbox wheezes, makes a sound I will never forget and presents me with the Red Ring of Death. Imagine my surprise. I don’t even remember being mad, more of a wistful amusement as my day, month, basically year was dashed to bits at the hands of a common Xbox problem. 

I eventually got a new Xbox a couple weeks later due to the warranty my parents got on mine, and I then proceeded to pour every free hour I had into Halo 3 without any remorse at all. I was waking up before morning swim practice just to play a few games. For reference I had to be in the pool at 5:45 AM. And it was everything I ever wanted, it really was. Within a couple weeks I had reached the max ranked level, 50, in Lone Wolves, Team Objective, Team Doubles, Team Slayer, and Team Control. I was absolutely a ranked sweaty. I burned game after game just for the sweet dopamine of seeing my number increase.  It got to the point where I had to make other accounts to play with my best friends to avoid them having to play against untenable opponents. I didn’t realize how good I was until I started playing tournaments, both with my schoolmates, and at the local mall. It all came too easy to me, my local opponents were just never enough to really challenge me. I remember trying to convince my parents to travel with me to play in larger tournaments but I never got that opportunity, which is fine. In Halo 3 you had a profile where you could host clips and photos of your achievements, and I littered mine with pictures of me defeating pro players. Snipedown, Walshy, Ogre 1 and Ogre 2 all testaments to my skill, monuments to all of my sins. Granted I lost my fair share of games too, I often played too aggressive and cost my team. Such is my untempered youth.  

Since I wasn’t able to travel for real tournaments I turned my focus to something more.. lucrative. I found a buddy with similar interests, and we developed a way to make a fair amount of money all while playing Halo 3. We would sell max ranked accounts, and damn was it easy. For the small price of 1,600 microsoft points you too could have your own ranked 50 Halo 3 account. And we even specialized them too! You want an account ranked 50 in Team Doubles, and Lone Wolves? Done. 50 in Team Objective and 25 in Lone Wolves, easy. I didn’t have to pay a single cent for Xbox Live for five years because of this. By far the easiest way to rank accounts fast was Team Doubles with a negative win rate account. My buddy and I would enter team doubles matches and instantly concede them for hours, to drop the “MMR” to negative numbers. We would then pair the “dummy” account with a fresh one and absolutely crush ranks. I think we got a fresh account to rank 50 in 12 games? 12 straight wins with the dummy account would yield a rank 50, and another $20 in the account. This went on for some time until my child-sized attention span moved on to some other fix. I often consider my Halo 3 days the peak of my gaming skill, and in many ways that’s true. I have never felt as dominant in a game as I did Halo 3, and maybe that’s why I look back so fondly. Nostalgia is a devil though.

Humble brag over. Now if you made it through me proselytizing about my younger years and think I could use a good smack, this section is for you.  

Back in the present the respawn screen taunts me, flashing directly in the middle of the screen. This testament to my failure, an ode to my hubris, offers nothing but sickening defeat.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

We begin again. Thrust forward from the jowls of death with a renewed vigor, and the tingling feeling that this time will be different. It’s not, and it won’t be. My hands shake while controlling my mouse, fingers fumbling over keys as I miss the button for melee. My limp corpse waves to me as the death screen shows itself again. I am not who I thought I was. Gone are the days of my Halo based dominance but that is the plight of all mankind. 

Halo Infinite may be the rudest awakening I have ever received in my life. Sort of like that expectations vs reality scene in 500 Days of Summer except instead of being sad at a party, I am eviscerated by gunfire, and grenade blasts. I found that my mind expects a certain level of performance that my hands can not currently provide. A general uneasiness hangs around my keyboard as my hands work to adjust. My mouse often under shoots the move to a target or lands just above the head of an unshielded enemy. If you’re strafing? I’m already dead. I see other players hitting shots I used to, employing strategies I used to do, and flat out decimate any kind of resistance I can muster. I now often focus on controlling the objective (Oddball, and Capture the Flag) as I am a liability to my team when it comes to gunplay. Now don’t get me wrong there are games where I feel like my old self again but they are few and far between.  

Halo Infinite is insanely fun, and I’ve been enjoying every second I play it. Joining a group of my friends really brings back the memories, and that may or may not contribute to this nostalgia issue I’m encountering. We all experience similar amounts of elation, and frustration as we wrestle with time’s depleting affects but if we’re having fun, does it matter? I will say it feels like the Halo I grew up loving which feels crazy to say. It’s been 14 years since the release of Halo 3 and it still feels the same? I guess if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. 

How much do I attribute the change in perceived skill to changing from controller to keyboard and mouse? Not much, I mean aim assist exists, and the data supports that controllers have a clear advantage in Halo Infinite but it feels like sour grapes to attribute my lack of skill to it. I would like to get a controller, and try the difference for myself but that idea must come after rebuilding my pc. Because I am in dire need of an upgrade, and if I were to blame anything other than myself for how bad I am, its performance issues. My processor is like nine years old, poor thing. I hear my 1070 Ti wheeze as l load into a game, but again I’m not going to blame anything or anyone but myself. I put myself on this Halo shaped pedestal, and it’s only right that I knock myself off of it.

Nostalgia is uniquely human, and uniquely devastating. How often we look back, to the past, to the good times, and the bad. Unable to recreate everything in exact detail, our mind takes liberties with what’s missing, often making things more or less realistic. I know people often look back at the “good old days” with rose-colored glasses, but I must confess it happens with the bad times too. Nostalgia is so hyper-realistic that we forget that we are subconsciously romanticizing what has passed. Which is beautiful, and terrifying. Forgive me, for as happy as my days on Halo 3 were, they will always come with a tinge of melancholy. For what if anything, my youth was wasted. I don’t think it was, nor should you. Remember when looking back, to not look back so harshly or so histrionically. We were un-tempered, we were young, we were human.  

Oh yea, uhh, the Halo Infinite multiplayer beta is out. It’s free too so, I guess, come experience the harrowing existential dread that encompasses getting old. Progression system seems pretty grindy though, just as a warning. I finished my rank placements by the way. Got placed into Platinum 1, which I would call a success. Cheers. 

PS … Git Gud.