"Two possiblities exist. Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are terrifying"  - Arthur C. Clarke

I have been on a Sci-fi kick. Like, hard. Like I'm ready to invest in a telescope and start pretending I didn't drop out of Astronomy hard. What started this longing to explore what lay beyond the stars, you ask? This current fascination of mine started simply enough, as so many of my impromptu obsessions usually do. With an impulse purchase. I was at Best Buy grazing the new releases like an over fed cow, when a large purple and slate box caught my eye. The Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Collector's Edition stared back at me like a newly discovered alien hieroglyph just begging to be brought home for further analysis.

I perused the fancy packaging, flipping it over to practially memorize the game summary and tiny screenshots that decorated the back of the box. Granted none of this should be new to me. I own Wings of Liberty and have been bed fellows with Blizzard for several years now. I know what their games look like. I know what Starcraft is and how terrible I am at it. I knew in my head that I hadn't gotten even halfway through Wings of Liberty's campaign before I got stuck and eventually lost interest. This was not 80 dollars I needed to spend.

Yet somehow, the box captivated me. Drawing me in with its promise of behind-the-scenes featurettes and limited editon DLC for Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft  (both of which I had been actively playing at the time) I just couldn't say no. 20 hours later and I'm watching the Heart of the Swarm credits roll and I am wishing they would go faster so I could start a new game on Wings of Liberty. I forgot how much  fun Starcraft could be. Even though I'm so bad I had to lower the difficulty to casual to enjoy the game without fear of getting stuck, I had a blast. The story, hailed as a cheese fest by most reviews, had me cheering in my seat. Kerrigan is a total badass, and this game made me care about the world of Starcraft in a way I just hadn't until then.  Suddenly I was enthralled with the mysteries of the Protoss. I felt empowered commanding the unstoppable Zerg swarm, washing over my enemies like a force of nature. I wanted to be Jim Raynor. Piloting the Hyperion, navigating a volatile galaxy at war with itself.

This lead me to rediscover another game I haven't picked up in a while. XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I pre purchased Bioshock: Infinite a while back and had been keeping my eye on the pre purchase rewards because the last unlock was a free Steam key for XCOM. Yet another game I already owned and had not finished. To my surprise, I got my key already; before Bioshock releases (I wasn't expecting this). I had to install it straight away to see how the PC version stacked up. Holy crap. Yet again I was drawn into a game about aliens and war that I had shelved without giving it a fair shake. I mean, I loved XCOM back when I played it on the Xbox, I just got distracted by other games like a bright, shining light in the woods, and was abducted by them.

Fast forward to now. I'm currently running through XCOM from the beginning (and doing substantially better the second time around) and slowly regaining ground in Wings of Liberty (Heart of the Swarm was a much better campaign). I'm trying to make a list of cheesy B sci-fi films on Netflix to watch and even considered downloading War of the Monsters on PSN (a PS2 favorite of mine). So next time you find yourself with nothing to play, consider choosing a genre that you like and returning to some older titles that fit the bill. Find movies that will syke you up to play them. Head down to your local comic store and pick up some books that look like they're the in the same vein as what you're currently into. As someone with a huge backlog right now and a tight budget, getting this much enjoyment out of games that I already own feels great. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm on the phone with SETI and I think we found something...