time killer

I have to admit, I've been playing a lot of the video game Left 4 Dead lately. I bought it for myself as a reward for passing my Network+ exam, and it's been nearly two weeks now. What is so appealing about running around a city shooting zombies? Dunno. But apparently I'm one of many, many other people who are enjoying it, too.

The game itself is a system hog. It took forever to download and install the thing. Then it said that my video card driver was out of date, and made me download the latest one of those (took just shy of forever, too). Once I got it up and running it was fun, but the on-line servers seem pretty weak. I'm constantly getting booted off line and dealing with lag issues. I thought that upgrading my RAM might help, so I went from 1gig up to 2gigs, but it's not much better. I think maybe the weak link in the chain is my processor. The minimal system requirements suggest a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4, mine is only 2.8Ghz. Still, I thought that by doubling my RAM (up to twice the recommended requirements) would be some help- apparently not.

Also, you are forced to download this additional software from Steam, which is used for on-line play. It controls the servers and multi-player aspects of the game... But I don't like it. It is also a system hog, and I am constantly turning it off after game play (which I don't like having to do).

None of this is detracting from my amount of game play, though. I play this thing for hours at a time. Any of my blogging friends players? If so, let's meet up for a game!