I used to play Quake 2. No, correction — I used to breathe Quake 2. In case you’re not familiar with Quake 2, it used to be a popular first-person PC game, and playing it online was addictive. It wasn’t uncommon for me to play it around 8 p.m. and suddenly take a break to find out it’s 6 a.m. in the morning. I played it daily for about a year, and I got so good at it, that even my best friends wouldn’t play against me online anymore. They couldn’t even kill me, and they got sick of dying over and over and over again.

This one map I was particularly good on. It was the perfect 1-on-1 map, Q2DM3. I knew all the trick jumps, all the best ways to get from Point A to Point B, and knew exactly where my foe was based on the sounds that I’d hear. In any case, I decided to fire it up tonight and try it out, even though I haven’t played the game in years. I was horrible. I couldn’t perform the trick jumps anymore, I couldn’t use the environment to my advantage, but I did remember what certain sounds meant and could still find out where my foe was at, or what he was about to do. That’s something I won’t forget. It’s just interesting to see how rusty you can get, and how hard it is to regain the skills you once had, even though you remember how to perform those skills.

Ahh, the glory days of gaming. I long to have broadband so I can play online again.