It’s absolutely amazing how many good games are coming out right now. If you’re a gamer, this is a golden time — a veritable renaissance of gaming. The industry is rapidly expanding, as gaming gets more and more mainstream. To hear about Ben Affleck’s love of Doom or Dave Navarro’s obsession with Grand Theft Auto is becoming less surprising. The games right now sure don’t disappoint. Probably the biggest headliners are the following…

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) — if you haven’t heard about the controversial crime-sim GTA, you must be living on a different planet. The most recent installment, while not redefining gaming, offers the solid, open-ended gameplay we’ve come to know and love. The cities are bigger than ever, as is the 90’s blacksploitation element. Expect to see many conservative groups and getting upset over this one.

Halo 2 (XBox) — the eagerly anticipated sequel just shipped, with over a hundred million dollars in initial day sales. Such a release is an indication of just how far the gaming industry has come. Something like one in four XBox owners picked up this game, spending many a sleepless night playing on XBox Live.

Half-Life 2 (PC) — the physics in this game are going to astound you. Oh, that, and the intense graphics, story, and gameplay. Six years in the making, stolen by hackers, and now, finally released, PC gamers the world around are finally getting their hands on what may be the best fusion of good sci-fi writing and first person action available. This is also the engine that powers the most popular online gaming community, Counter-Strike.

Those are the big three, but what other games are you not playing in the mean time?

Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2) — if you’ve played the others in the series, you know how good this game is. One of the best platformers around, R&C3 provides the same great action you’ve come to expect, with the addition of multiplayer elements. If you’ve been dreaming about playing R&C online, dream no more!

Viewtiful Joe 2 (PS2, GC) — no one on PS2 played the first, but this is one of the best games on the platform. It’s certainly the most underrated game. The sequel promises to offer as tight and entertaining gameplay as the first.

Metroid Prime 2 (GC) — the subtly beautiful first person shooter is back to fight the legions of aliens, this time with a light and dark universe theme running throughout.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snakeeater (PS2) — the most famous stealth action game (yes, even over Splinter Cell) is back. Too bad its release has been overshadowed.

Thank God I don’t have all gaming systems. It’s tough enough to get anything done with just a PS2 and a PC. Yet, somehow I still long for the other consoles. The new Zelda looks incredible, as does the new Resident Evil 4. Plus, believe it or not, XBox’s online scene is doing way better than the PS2’s, I’m sad to say. If this is the face of gaming now, I can’t wait for what the future will bring. In the mean time, I’ll try to remember what it’s like to sleep at night.

Living in Massachusetts, it’s not hard to find people who oppose the current administration. Almost everyone I talk to voted Democrat, but again, this is Massachusetts, so that’s to be expected. Yet, for some reason, I never expected this election to run so close. Why was it such a surprise? The young voter turnout was offset by something: the moral right turnout.

There was voting in amazing numbers yesterday. Maybe not as high as the Kennedy elections, but pretty damn high. The primary issue people reported on exit polls was not terror, Iraq, jobs, healthcare, or the economy. Nope. The primary issue people reported was morals.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Even Alan Keyes, an ultra-conservative radical, managed to pick up 16% of the vote in Illinois. Think about that: this implies that about every seventh person you meet in Illinois supports Alan Keyes’s views.

This is where I get confused. As it stands, Bush has a quite strong chance of winning this election. I wouldn’t have thought this possible. We’re talking about the same President who refuses to admit error in anything he does. This President got us into the war in Iraq on the premise that it had something to do with September 11th, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 troops, and counting. This is the same President under whose administration we’ve seen an incredible drop in jobs (followed by the creation of much crappier jobs, to offset the loss), and one of the most amazing swings from budget surplus to deficit ever. Where are those hundreds of tons of explosives that went missing in Iraq? His adminstration saw the creation of the rather expensive Department Of Homeland Security, which a) hasn’t really done much to make us more secure; b) costs us a lot of money; and c) releases rather timely detail-absent terror alerts. Let’s not forget the fact that this President also was responsible for the shift from receiving the world’s sympathies and support post-9/11, to being at odds with most every civilized nation (well, except Poland, I suppose) due to our imperialistic tactics.

That’s when it struck me: I’m focusing on the wrong things for this election. All of the above are liberal points. Only leftists care about them. On the right, this election was a moral issue. Terror? Iraq? Forget about it. Let’s stand strong against gay marriage! That’s the other sound bite dribbling out of the media: the public is overwhelmingly voting against gay marriage rights.

I have nothing against public opinion. I may disagree with what they have to say, but I respect their opinion on the matter. This is mostly because I have the ability to respect other people’s opinions. The left and the right, on the other hand, do not. For the left, this is a matter of civil rights — gays can’t help who they are, and should be accorded marriage rights. Hence, to oppose gay marriage is to deny rights and benefits accorded to others in a sort of new age racism. On the other side, the right holds that marriage is a sacred union, under God, between a man and a woman. There are no civil rights associated with it, because homosexuality is for them a priori evil under the eyes of God. Hence, their opinion stands in a religious context (which makes me nervous for other reasons *cough*separation of church and state*cough*). I have the sneaking suspicion that the right just finds anything gay to be “icky”, anyway.

This is why I keep feeling flabbergasted. I don’t think people should vote for moral reasons. That is the domain of family, law enforcement, and church. Rather, I feel people should vote for policy reasons, or to phrase it another way, political reasons. How are we as a society going to fare under this new administration? What will these policies do for our country?

Going from the last four years, I am not optimistic should Bush get elected. He could surprise me, but I’m guessing that he won’t. However, what I’ve learned is that the country at large, at least the voting part of it, has said loud and clear: we don’t mind this guy, because at least he’s moral. That’s the problem with democracy: sometimes you just don’t agree with the other folks. I look forward to the results from Ohio with dread.

Like many Americans, today is the first time I’ve ever voted. Our forefathers fought for our right to be heard, but until recently, I’d taken such liberties for granted. No more. Voter turnout today promises to be the highest it has been in quite a while.

I was surprised by how informal voting still is. My morning began with a quick stroll down to my local fire station, where I got to wait in line for about ten minutes with various fellow local residents I’d never seen before. Howdy, fellow neighbors! For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to vote right when the station opened. I’m not usually awake this early, and standing in line does not exactly rank in my top ten best ways to start the day. Nonetheless, people were quite friendly, though there were a large number of people there, all thinking they had the “unique” idea that they were going to beat the rush by voting early in the morning. (About an hour later, the number of cars parked outside was significantly less than before.)

You of course need to be listed as a registered voter before voting, which entailed them asking for my street address and name. They didn’t even ask me for a picture ID. I’m wondering if that was a pre-coffee-I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing-yet sort of thing. Regardless, they handed me a simple one page ballot with about a dozen questions and directed me over to a bunch of tables at which to stand to do my civic duty.

I don’t know, perhaps it’s the romantic in me, but that first vote is somehow anticlimatic. In the movies, voting booths have these little curtained privacy rooms with big machines and levers. I expected a little seclusion to make my choices, for better or for worse, but was left with nothing but a table. Not a curtain to be seen. Plus, using a marker to fill in an oval is just not as cool as getting to pull a lever. I wondered what would happen if I marked the wrong candidate — would they give me a do-over, with a freshie ballot? I figured this must happen, and wondered how many extra ballots they kept. Visions of graveyard voters danced in my head.

The first question was the important one: who did I want to be President Of the United States? Easy enough. I found it interesting there were four choices, as I only really heard about two of them. Who were these other people? Were they on all ballots across the country? For what did they stand?

The next questions only had fleeting interest, yet were perhaps the ones in which I had the most say: state officials. I had only briefly heard about many of these candidates, and certainly hadn’t researched many of them in detail. I also found it interesting that some posts had only one candidate, meaning that I could vote for them, or abstain, I suppose. Perhaps I could even write in myself if I really felt like it. I didn’t.

When done, I had to go to the checkout table, where they looked up my street address and name anew. Again, no picture ID was required. I then placed my ballot in the shmancy ballot-taker-thingy machine, which sucked it into its dark confines. I was reminded of multiple choice scantron tests in high school. Did I pass? Did I fail?

And that was it. I had voted. I had done my duty. I somehow expected more fanfare. Where was the button saying I voted? Where were the reporters, wanting to do an exit poll and get a feel for how the tide turned? I stumbled out of the firehouse, wondering if that was it.

However, after a moment, I became proud that I had actually taken the time to participate in the process. After the last election, I didn’t feel like I could really comment too much on the administration, as I hadn’t exactly voted one way or the other in the election. While a vote isn’t a free pass to complain about the administration, I could at least note that I had put in my two cents, or complain while taking my lumps for electing a moron.

Get out there and vote. If I can do it, so can you. If you don’t do it today, do it next time around — it’s not hard, and it gets your opinion counted.