Short answer: My roommate.

Long answer: Last year my parents bought me a one year subscription to Xbox Live. I started the service when the semester started because I figured I would play games online every now and again. One game changed "now and again" to daily.

When Castle Crashers was released, I moved my Xbox from the living room (I live in an on-campus apartment) into my bedroom, since my only ethernet cable was less than ten feet long. So I played and played and got my Green Knight a magic farting machine, which caught my roommate's attention. He asked if he could play, and I of course obliged. We would play co-op over and over and build up our characters. One day I decided I wanted to try out another game. One I bought over the summer because it looked cool. One I bought over the summer because I expected a carefree arcade romp, with both single and multiplayer.

One that would trigger an addiction.

I played this online a bit. The class system was fun, and I enjoyed creating custom classes with witty names (like "Shawt Gun" for a shotgun based class; a nod to the Metal Slug announcer). But every so often, whenever I fired up the game, I noticed my aiming was changed back to normal, rather than invert. This was odd, but I didn't mind since it was an easy fix.

This happened multiple times a day, until one day I saw my roommate sitting at the base of my bed, wearing a headset, and smack-talking people nonstop. Being the introvert that I am, I didn't object to him playing. The benefit for me was that he was unlocking a lot of the guns faster than I could have. Eventually other single player games were released, so I took the Xbox back into the living room to play them on the HDTV. No problem until the end of the semester.

The first time my roommate and I went shopping this semester, he bought a twenty-five foot ethernet cable. He said he could play COD4 online with it, without having to be in my bedroom, and still able to use the big TV. No problem, I thought. All the stuff in the living room is mine, so it's not like he could mooch too much.

Since then, I have become too accustomed to the word "mooch."

Until last week, every day I would come back from class, and he would be playing COD4. I would get back from work anywhere from 9 PM to 1 AM and he would be playing COD. I would wake up and he'd be playing COD. I'd want to watch a movie after finishing my homework and he'd be playing COD. Day in, day out, late into the night, drunk, sober, hungry, full, sick, well, he would be playing COD. It isn't like he could hide it: I post regularly on a forum, and my signature is my GamerTag. He doesn't have a Live account at all, so he just uses my Gold one. For everything. Eventually I would be relieved when I did not see a green star with a four on it in the front. Now, I get pissed when I see that mother f**cking star.

In addition, he would use my Steam account and play Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead. I learned about this when my supervisor at work, a very active gamer, asked why I rejected his game invite. I told him I was at work, and he asked who was on my account. After that, I changed my account to require password authentication whenever Steam is booted. Problem solved.

Last week I had a bit of a dopamine ushered emotional fit, which caused me to hurl the box and the disk a few times while he was at class. He asked me how the box got to the other side of the room, and I eventually said "I threw it." I didn't tell him why, but he stopped playing. Until last night. Bastard.

Anyway, I'll get back to my point. He is a COD addict. When I buy a game he likes, he plays nonstop. He has done the same with every game I own that has guns, along with any other game he just wants to try out. (The sole exception would be JRPGs, so I can find solace in Star Ocean: The Last Hope.)

I did not buy Street Fighter 4 because I want access to my Xbox 360. If I had that game, he would transfer from playing COD on my Live account to playing Street Fighter on my Live account. There are two inherent problems with this:

1) He's a God damn mooch.

2) He would probably unlock a lot of stuff for me, which would ruin most of my enjoyment. (Besides beating people up with Cammy and Fei Long).

That's why as soon as the semester is over, I'm buying Street Fighter 4 and two of those Mad Catz controllers. My friends back home and I are going to tear each other up, without me having to worry about the Xbox running 24/7.

Resident Evil 5, on the other hand, will provide a similar dilemma. I hope and pray he won't like it, just like he doesn't like the Metal Gear Solid series, because the action is too slow for his tastes. He does not like plot in games, just meaningless action and violence. Today he began playing Resident Evil 4, and I'm not sure if he likes it.

He was doing terribly in the first few minutes, using every healing item offered before the end of the first chapter. He ran into mines, stepped in bear traps, and could not suppress los ganados to save his life (literally). He was pissed at me when I didn't warn him about a not-zombie (as I call them) hiding in the third shack in the game, which hit him with a hatchet. I kept reminding him that Resident Evil is not an action series, but a horror series. He stopped playing after dying a few times at the beginning of the second chapter.

As selfish as this sounds, I don't want him to enjoy Resident Evil. I want my Xbox.