If it weren’t for the legendary Chuck Norris Facts, I would bet that the majority of kids and even teenagers these days would have no clue who the above rockstar is – sweet mullet and all.  Chuck is an absolute legend, not only on the battlefields and kung fu arenas of the 1980′s, but also when it comes to delivering terrible, heartbreaking news to adorable little children – a burden that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  One of his best performances though came in the cinematic form of, Lone Wolf McQuade, which debuted when yours truly was still “brewing” in the womb (microbrewing, to be exact).  As the Lone Wolf, McQuade plays the role of a renegade, I-don’t-give-a-fuck, Texas Ranger (has he ever played a different role?), that seeks revenge after his partner gets capped by coincidentally, a kung fu master/criminal mastermind.  Ultimately, McQuade is forced to roundhouse his way to Revenge Street on his own, hence the Lone Wolf nickname.  So what in the world does this have to do with video games, you ask?  First off – two words: Counter-Strike (okay, one hyphenated word – eat me).  Second, and arguably the most important, is that I’m realizing I prefer single player games and campaigns a lot more than multiplayer, for reasons which will be discussed below.  Double tap the link below for more.

Okay, you’re scratching your head, and probably not even reading this article anymore. Maybe posting a link to the Chuck Norris Facts website was a bad idea in hindsight, oh well. So Counter-Strike. Not including the World of Warcraft/Everquest/MMORPG’s in general, there is not a bigger, more popular multiplayer video game than CS, period. When Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike Source found its way onto my hard drive in my college days (2004ish), I didn’t leave my room in our fraternity house for probably two straight weeks. I didn’t go to class (hey, I graduated), and I even stopped drinking (okay now that’s an obvious lie), just so I could feed my CS addiction. The multiplayer was that good (that’s what she said!). The map, Westwood 2 (de_westwood2), was IMO the best map to play on not named de_dust2, and to top it all off, the server I played on featured one of the best quotes in sound byte form from “Lone Wolf McQuade”, which for those of you who haven’t put one and two together yet, is the title of this article.

So that’s the first gaming connection. Every time I watch Lone Wolf McQuade, my glory days smoking ski-mask wearing Terrorists on the streets of Westwood pop into my head, and I smile.

My second connection, well, that goes a little deeper. If you mentally check out now, or feel like you need to take a Chuck Norris Fact break – by all means, go right ahead.

With it being 27 years since I watched Lone Wolf McQuade kick some ass from the womb (my mom streamed it to me – I love you, mom), my gaming tastes have really changed, and I don’t think in a bad way.  Early in my gaming career, my time was ruled by multiplayer addictions, usually in the form of Double Dragon II, Red Alert (via Heat.net – remember that shit?), Goldeneye 64, Starsiege Tribes, or Counter-Strike – depending on the decade/year.  Now that I’m older, my gaming preference has shifted away from multiplayer, even in today’s world of Xbox Live and PSN, to single player campaigns.

Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer?  I hate it – CounterStrike is better, and I get bored after five minutes.  Gears of War 1/2?  Yawn, although I have beaten both on every single difficulty level, for a total of SIX playthroughs (can you tell I REALLY, REALLY like Gears of War single player?).  WoW/EQ2/MMOs?  You all know my take on those.

So what’s the deal?  Am I just getting old and impatient, or is it something else?  I honestly don’t know.  At first I thought it was due to the need for a really good storyline, but Gears of War has a laughable one: the insanely fast-paced, less-talky-more-shooty-and-movey-action is what I love about that series, and hope to see more of in the third edition.

The most logical answer to this shift, in my opinion, lies in another answer to a question that has yet to be answered: “What the hell is a mature gamer, anyways?”  With the mature gamer being around 30 years old, like myself, there really is no precedent or evidence from the past that suggests this to be a normal change, so I can only ask my “mature” gaming colleagues to see if any of them are going down the same path, back to the single player.

If you’re old enough to fall into that category, please post your thoughts below.  If you’re not, then feel free to tell me how big of a retard I am for calling Modern Warfare 2, “stupid”.

I dare you.