I’m occasionally a little stubborn.

Let me explain further.

I’ve owned an awful lot of game consoles, dating back to the Genesis, and I noticed that I had a habit of buying a console early in its lifespan and buying some really expensive games for it that were bargain-bin titles within a couple of years.

Probably the worst example is paying roughly $100, with tax, to own an imported disc of Battle Arena Toshinden in September of 1995. At least I played it a fair bit.

So recently I’ve been trying to hold off on buying consoles TOO early, and when I do I try to hold off on the full-price titles that everyone and their cousin is buying and that will be the first candidates for the budget line / bargain bin.

This was the case with our XBox. By the time my wife decided we needed one, it had been out for a while and there was a lot of discounted software available for it.

But, Halo was still 50 bucks.

I decided, damn it, I was going to grit my teeth on this. It was going to become a matter of principle. I was NOT going to buy Halo until it hit Microsoft’s budget line. Microsoft didn’t have a budget line yet, but I was sure it was coming.

And it did. And Halo wasn’t in the budget line.

I gritted my teeth some more, and eventually it dropped to $30.

Then it dropped to $20.

Then they re-issued it in the Platinum Hits packaging, and I bought the damn thing.

Didn’t play it, mind you, but I owned it.

Recently I’ve been enjoying Xbox live sessions with a friend and some of his relatives, and it’s been a little tough joining in.

I made a list of my Live-compatible games, and it was stuff like, mmm, Perfect Dark Zero, Dead or Alive Ultimate, and Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, and they have stuff like, mmm, Call of Duty 2, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Gears of War, Counterstrike, and Halo 2.

We don’t really have similar tastes in games.

Nonetheless, Call of Duty 2 was discounted to $30, so I bought that so I’d have one game in common. I added Counterstrike, because it was $10.

They play a lot of Halo 2.

I was trying to hold out for it to be released in Platinum Hits packaging, and then I realized:

The Xbox is dead and discontinued. Microsoft will not be adding new entries to the Platinum Hits line. I will have to pay $30 for Halo 2.

Damn it.

So I bought that, and happily joined up for the next Halo 2 night.

It didn’t go well for me. Of a dozen or so games, I actually managed not to go negative a couple of times.

Obviously I need practice. Just as obviously, I can’t start playing Halo 2 without having played the original Halo, and I’ve heard the original has quite a good storyline and there’s the spectre of Halo 3 coming out later this month to make me feel even further behind.

Sunday afternoon, around 4, I put Halo in the 360 and decided, well, let’s see how this goes then.

Monday morning, around 2, I took Halo out of the 360 and staggered to bed.

Then I played for a couple of hours before work.

Then I got home, and actually managed not to put the disc in until 8 or so.

Four hours later, I have to admit: That was a heck of a ride.

I’ll give the sequel a shot while this one is still fresh in my memory. It would be kind of keen to be up-to-date before the final game of the trilogy is released. Anyone’s guess if that’s going to happen or not, of course. Me being up-to-date, that is, not the game coming out.