The Nerd Next Door

When I was a wee lad  Naruto was the hottest anime on the air, Linkin Park had just dropped their Minutes to Midnight album, Michael Bay was breaking the box office with Transformers , and Halo 3 was one of the hottest games released. This was actually the game that got my parents to set us up with Xbox Live, my brother, father, and I all got accounts to play Halo 3 .  A lot of things from Halo 3 are nostalgic for me, but what has recently come back to my mind is its lobby system, a system so good that even Call of Duty copied it. In this era of gaming, when you start playing matchmaking you get taken to a pre-game lobby where you can mingle with other players, vote on map and modes, and listen to slurs dropped by 12-year-olds. Outside of those slurs this system was great, it let you get a feel for who you were playing with or against, and let players choose which maps they actually want to play. After the match you got to choose whether to stick with those people or bail. ...

You ever wake up to news that makes your soul exit your body, leaving nothing more than a feeling of dumbfoundedness? Well that's what I felt when Fornite announced a Martin Luther King based event. I was shocked and dumbfounded that Epic thought this was a good idea, putting MLK into a goddamn shooter? They know how he died right? And does this event have a 3D model of him that can be ripped? That's even worse, what are they thinking? Well I had forgotten about Fortnite's attempt to be Minecraft , Creative Mode, which is NOT primarily about the fighting or shooting. So there was going to be no shooting or 3D model to abuse, which means the devs clearly thought of the two biggest issues. I figured fair was fair and decided that I was going to do something I hadn't done in years, play Fortnite .... MLK Edition. Spawning into the game mode winds up with one in a recreation of the Washington Monument from one end of the reflecting pool all the way to the steps of the Linc...