Okay, maybe not so random

Three hundred hours.

My jaw dropped when I saw how much I'd played. Three hundred hours of Team Fortress 2. I had the scores to show for it, the hats, the guns, but I don't recall noticing how much I had played. Maybe that tracking feature wasn't around before? Three hundred.

And I'm closing in on four hundred. I've never put that much time into a game. Probably over a hundred hours on Street Fighter Alpha 3, or eighty hours in a game like Advance Wars DS or Dragon Age.

But why?

Tonight, I was playing, and I decided I wanted to play a Demoman, and picked the grenade launcher, chargin' shield, and... then I had to pick a melee weapon. The sword and the head remover reduced my health. The axe would slow me down. The grenade would blow up in my face. I wanted a weapon without drawbacks. I always used the head remover, but never really thought hard about the vulnerability it gave.

I picked the Demoman's most basic weapon, the bottle, and went forth into the fray.

Team Fortress 2 has changed, but by drips and drops. The game is much bigger, with many more options, but it doesn't change. And yet, I still feel like I'm discovering more all the time.

Charging around, I murdered people right and left, switching between the grenade launcher and bottle. One-shotting people with a sword is one thing, but taking down people with a broken piece of glass obviously never intended for war? By the time I was whittled down I'd exploded or shivved ten enemy players.

And that's why I keep playing. Because even as I close in on four hundred hours, I'm still surprised by the game - and myself.

I'll have to try the same thing with the frying pan sometime. It's no different, but it's a frying pan!