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Ok, I admit it.  I like computer games, basically those in two categories: the genre popular known as "first-person-shooter" and any good driving simulator.  The former are the closest thing we have yet to true virtual reality, and the latter allow me to learn how to drive a car at its limits without being arrested, careening into another car, or generally causing mayhem on the streets. The guys who designed the Holodeck on Star Trek have it all wrong.  In the future, we're not going to walk into some room that magically changes its physical form and becomes larger to imitate any real-world environment.  We're going to plug ourselves into some apparatus that feeds sensory information directly to the brain to imitate external input.  The difficult part is the engineering: finding the right neurons to stimulate and getting the signal to them.  I can imagine some in-between stage, the primitive likes of which we already have, where the input remains external but all-encompassing.  Basically a big suit with speakers and pressure nodules and the rest.  No thanks.  I'd rather have a chip in my brain. Actually, I'd rather BE a chip, but that's another story.

Anyway, enough futurist BS.  I am sure you simply cannot wait to see what I own.  As a special bonus just for you, I've even rated the quality of each game in units of Adrenaline   or Epinephrine for you biochemists / new school types. You'll notice that most of the recent games get high ratings, and honestly, that's because I can't afford to waste what little game-playing time I have these days with stuff that sucks.

	Fucking Awesome
	Sort of Kick-Ass
	Interesting
	Waste of Money
	Piece of Shit

Sorted in chronological order for your viewing pleasure.  By the way, I've played these on various bad-ass PCs. It helps.

Game	Adrenaline Rating	Comments
Call of Duty 2		I picked up the sequel to the original CoD because I was getting bored with Day of Defeat but still love WWII shooters. CoD 2 is just CoD but bigger and better. I haven't even looked at single player -- all I'm interested in is multiplayer. It does have one downside, which is that it has highlighted the failings of my aging Athlon 64 desktop PC.
Day of Defeat: Source		This was included in my silver or whatever edition of Half-Life 2. It's basically the same as the older Day of Defeat, but running on the new Half-Life Source game engine. There are still a few bugs as of this review (people stick to each other, for example), but the good qualities of the original are retained with some new eye candy. I do miss the MG34, though.
Battlefield 2		An updated, modern version of the multiplayer classic, BF2 provides just the right number of updates while keeping the fundamental formula the same. Engrossing and quite easily a gigantic time-suck.
Half-Life 2		A very atmospheric and action-filled sequel with great graphics, cinematic settings, and an amazing physics engine. The gravity gun is just the coolest thing since the Quake 2 BFG. Multiplayer is a boring adrenaline-fest, but the single player is really quite good.
Forgotten Hope (BF1942 mod)		Yet another free mod for Battlefield 1942, this may very well be the best of the lot. It doesn't try to create an entirely new game, but rather it just makes BF1942 better and more realistic. There is no aspect of the game that hasn't improved: better sound, better maps, better scenery, more and better vehicles, realistic weapon impact.
Doom 3		Doom 3 is a love-it-or-hate-it game. Those who hate it say that it's basically the same game as the original Doom was, and doesn't introduce anything really new to gaming. Those who love it, myself included, think that the new graphics, sound, environments, and monsters make for an incredibly atmospheric and exciting game. Yes, all you do is shoot monsters and find stuff. You know what? It's fun, and in many places, it's adrenaline-pumping, shit-your-pants scary.
Desert Combat (BF1942 mod)		The famous mod for Battlefield 1942, Desert Combat is up to version .7 and is very impressive, especially considering it's free. I wish there were no WWII maps (since that seems stupid), but the vehicles are great and the Iraqis finally speak, um, whatever language they speak, although some of the voice clips sound like someone sitting on a toilet in a small marble bathroom.
Far Cry		Those who know this game may be surprised that I gave it only 3 stars. The graphics, sound, and overall feel are spectacular. There are lots of nice touches like flocks of birds and schools of fish. But it's just another single-player FPS, and a really long one at that, where you spend untold hours trying to fight past hordes of monsters. Yawn. I will grant that the sniper rifle is really cool.
Battlefield Vietnam		BFV certainly isn't as original as its parent game, Battlefield 1942, but it's fun nonetheless and there are a number of nice additions to the gameplay. The vaunted undergrowth graphics engine isn't all it's cracked up to be, since it only works locally -- go prone and you can't see shit, but stand up and you can see someone lying prone a quarter mile away. The weapons also don't really have the kind of punch you might expect. The CAR15 sounds like a pea shooter.
Call of Duty		Yet another WWII shooter, with both strong single player and strong multiplayer aspects. It's a fun game, and looks very up-to-date even though it's based on the aging Quake III engine. Single player gets very boring as the Russian campaign deteriorates into little more than an adrenaline-driven Nazi slaughter exercise. Multiplayer is lots of fun, and the "look down the sight" aiming for weapons is awesome.
Day of Defeat		Home-grown WWII infantry combat mod based on the aging Half-Life game engine, finally released for retail. Sounds lame, doesn't it? WRONG!! This is by far the best infantry squad game out there. The look and feel of the weapons is amazing. Incredibly addictive.
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault		This is the game that Battlefield 1942 should have been, crisp, responsive, and sharp. It may not have the same huge maps or all the equipment, but it has fantastic realism. The "sounds of war" in this game have been praised and rightly so--the sound effects are amazing and contribute tremendously.
Battlefield 1942		At first I gave this game a top rating, after all, the concept is a nice one: all-out WWII battles in large-scale compaigns with a huge variety of weapons and equipment. But it is really buggy and the lag is terrible, even on EA's own servers. What kind of game makes lifeboats attached to a ship lag behind the ship? That is some pretty awful programming. Lots of potential, but even after the first patch, it's unrealized. UPDATED: After several patches and two expansion packs (Road to Rome and Secret Weapons of WWII), this game really kicks ass. It helps to have a new video card.
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast		The latest entry in the Star Wars FPS series is pretty good, although single-player mode starts out slowly and involves way too much blasting of stormtroopers. Multiplayer is loads of fun. How can you argue with a game that lets you force grip your opponents to near asphyxiation and then strike them down with a single powerful blow from a light saber?
Return to Castle Wolfenstein		Wow!! The granddaddy of the shooters is back, but this time the little 2-D maze has been replaced by massive cinematic levels run by the Quake III engine. It kicks ass! Not only does it have hordes of goose-stepping Nazis and other bad guys to shoot, but it has an incredible range of realistic weapons and the best simulation of first-person WWII infantry combat since Saving Private Ryan. Multiplayer is incredible, and it gets bonus points for the beach invasion map and the axis vs. allies theme. It's good.
Tribes II		Incredibly sophisticated and challenging, not to mention well put-together. A drawback is that it takes a frickin' Pentium IV/GeForce3 to get good graphics performance. It wasn't quite as much better than the original Tribes as I was expecting it to be. UPDATE! This game kicks ass on a Pentium IV/GeForce 3. It gets 5 molecules now instead of 4.
Quake III Team Arena		Pretty good, but not as good as the original. Other games do team games better (Elite Force, for one, and Tribes and Tribes II far and away are superior).
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force		Very, very impressive. Think Quake III with photon torpedoes. Single player is not too bad, and multi-player is tons of fun--blowing up Borg just seems cooler than shooting those stupid Quake III characters. Except that roller skate girl...
Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed		Wow. This game also kicks ass. The realism is pretty good, except for the fact that if you hit a brick wall at 150mph you don't destroy the car.
Daikatana		We waited that long... for THIS? I have to trek through this huge swamp and keep shooting all these f***ing metal mosquitos? It's how damn slow? I actually bought this thing?
System Shock 2		Very immsersive, but not immersive enough to justify all the details you need to do to move through it.
Unreal Tournament		Decent game. Better for strategy and camping than Q3A, but nothing near the adrenaline rush. Very nice graphics.
Quake III Arena		Wow. F***ing amazing. There is no better way to get carpal tunnel syndrome real fast than this. No other game comes close in speed or brutality.
Carnivores 2		Not bad, and good graphics, but it's really no different from the original.
Half-Life Opposing Force		Very good, but not as original as the original (er...). The loads of new weapons are much appreciated. The squad helpers are interesting but not very impressive--they're not particularly smart and usually they just get themselves killed.
Unreal Mission Pack 1		Pretty good for a mission pack.   Gotta love the little lizard things.
Sports Car GT		The only thing it doesn't do is recognize the gear-flip paddles on my wheel.  But I can use other buttons for that.   Very realistic.
Official Formula 1		Mediocre.  No wonder it only cost twenty bucks.
Aliens Vs. Predator		Wow.  Predator mode is great, but what can be better than shredding hordes of acid-spurting aliens in a hail of bullets?
CART Precision Racing		Very realistic, but the graphics are so-so and the force feedback support is erratic.
Need for Speed IV: High Stakes		Great graphics, but the realism leaves a bit to be desired (real drivers do not leave inches of rubber on the highway).
Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit		Pretty good, but the lack of gamma control makes a couple of the tracks dicey and night driving impossible.
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith		Ok for a sequel.  I had just seen Episode I.
Carnivores		Surprisingly good for a cheap game.  Not fast-paced or action-packed, but probably the best dino simulator out there today.
Star Trek Klingon Honor Guard		Unreal engine.  Big deal.   Boring.
Half-Life Team Fortress Classic		It was free and it's still one of the best internet games.
Tribes		Very cool.
Half-Life		The best single-player game I have ever played.
Unreal		The second best single-player game I have ever played, and it's gorgeous.
Test Drive 5		Bleah.
Quake II Mission Pack 2		Ok, this stuff is played out by now.
Quake II Mission Pack 1		Almost as good as the original, but most unsatisfying when you finish.  You get a screen that says you finished.   Oooooh... aaaaaah.  Bleah.
Trespasser		The worst piece of shit I have ever gotten.  It's slow.  It's buggy.  It doesn't look good.  The dinosaurs are about as a life-like as the big robots at the museum.  This is what happens when you build software on a tight budget, in limited time, don't test, and don't care.
Postal: Special Delivery		See below for the full story
Postal		I bought this one Friday when I was incredibly pissed off about things at work.  I got the mission pack for free.   It's one of those look-down-on-the-minions-from-above type games.  It's violent.  It's gory.  It's not really that good.
Quake II		The first release lacked a little polish but the engine was fanstastic.
Turok Dinosaur Hunter		Boring, long, and stupid.  I don't want to waste my time jumping from one little platform to another little platform, or run through 50 levels looking for the one stupid piece of whatever that I missed.
Shadow Warrior		More penis jokes than you can... er... shake a stick at.  Primitive graphics but lots of "interesting" enemies and weapons, and ya gotta love the samurai sword.  Lame ending.
Quake Mission Pack 2		Better than the original.   The dragon is great.
Quake Mission Pack 1		A little bit of a let down.
Quake		What more needs to be said?
Duke Nukem 3D		"Come get some".   Old-school graphics, vulgar jokes, tons of fun.
Star Wars Dark Forces		Pretty good, the first Star Wars game I really liked.
Star Wars Tie Fighter		I went through a space combat phase.  It was short, but it wasn't the game's fault.
The Hive		Otherwise known as, "Crap".
Final Doom		Enough already.
Doom II		Some new enemies and stuff.   Pretty good.
Need for Speed II		Bleah.  Early 3D graphics really sucked.
Rise of the Triad: Dark War		Erm, kind of a lame almost-3D shoot-em-up.   If I wanted to play Super Mario Bros. I would.  Admittedly, the firebomb weapon created just about the coolest explosion ever, and the flying eyeballs were a nice touch.
Doom		It's the best selling game ever and there is a reason.  It's good.  Totally ground-breaking when it came out, and only the second game that could really freak you out.
Castle Wolfenstein 3D.		"Gestapo!  Gestapo!"  The FFPS (first first person shooter) remains a classic.  Plus it had that freaky bad sound track.  Just the right cartooniness.  In what other game could you ever shoot at a Hitler wearing a robot suit? (Note: I realize that technically there was another game that came before this one that was a first person shooter, but you know what? It sucked and this kicked ass.)
Test Drive 2		Pretty good in its day, but samey.
Test Drive 1		Version 1.  And it showed.

That's as far back as my records go.  According to legend, there are other games from the ancient days buried in the archives such as Tankwar, Sopwith, and other memorable lo-res creations. Of course, prior to the PC Age the Atari Age had its own set of classics. I even wrote a couple games back in the Atari Age. They were lame.