In the battle for her boyfriend's attention, Lindsay Cosens fears only one foe. It's not other girls or his friends, but one many other girlfriends are facing — video games.

First-person shooter games — Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 for Xbox, the Microsoft game console — are commanding the attention of many boyfriends while other girls have lost their men to the online computer game World of Warcraft.

Cosens, a graduate student, first came into contact with Halo when her boyfriend, who she says has been "obsessed with video games forever," became determined to beat it.

The couple has been together for more than six years, but the game did cause a few problems, Cosens said.

"We've gotten into little spats where maybe I want to watch TV and he's using it, but we solved that by getting a second TV," she said.

Cosens isn't alone in her struggle against video games. Chelsea Chamberlin, an education sophomore, created the facebook.com group "Halo stole my boyfriend," as a response to a boyfriend who loved the game a little too much.

"My boyfriend at the time played the game all the time," she said. "He would have Halo parties all the time and I wouldn't be able to hang out with him because he was having those parties."

The first game was so popular with her boyfriend and other guy friends that she dreaded the release of Halo 2, Chamberlin said.

"I was kind of mad when the second one came out because I knew it would be even worse," she said.

The first game focuses on humans who land on an alien planet shaped like, what else, a halo. The planet is actually a weapon — think Death Star, only death ring.

In the second game, the aliens come to Earth and the planet must be defended.

There are multiplayer features in both games, but Halo 2 can be played on Xbox Live, an online community of players.

Chamberlin said she tried to join her boyfriend in the games, but it was to no avail.

"They were all so good that it was no fun for me to play because I'd just get killed immediately," she said.

The Facebook group now has 24 members at MSU, including general management sophomore Lauren Durante, who ended up liking the game herself.

"I'm horrible at it, but I enjoy it, actually," she said. "I kind of like video games and it's fun to play with him."

Applied engineering sciences sophomore Joe Larkin, Durante's former boyfriend, said he was introduced to the game by his roommate, and now plays about five hours a day using the newest Microsoft gaming console, the Xbox 360.

The video game created a time issue for the former couple, Larkin said.

"She would want to hang out and I would be busy with my roommate or sometimes just a single-player game, so she would get upset," he said.

When he had to choose between playing with his friends or his girlfriend, Larkin admitted he handled it "pretty poorly."

"A few times I would reason with her and work out a deal, but most of the time I stayed with my friends playing Halo," he said.

A year after its release, the Halo craze might finally be dying down, but there seems to be a new relationship killer on the horizon in the form of the online computer game World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is a role-playing game in which a player creates a character and travels an online world completing quests and gaining experience, eventually grouping with other characters to form a guild. Guild members complete quests together in the online community.

The game wasn't the cause of the end of MaLeah Lile's relationship, but it did affect it, she said.

"It's not the main reason we broke up, but it was a factor because we were always arguing about it," the psychology junior said.

Lile began the Facebook group, "World of Warcraft stole my boyfriend," which currently has three members at MSU.

Her former boyfriend of three years and his friends were addicted to Halo 2 at first, but Lile said that wasn't as much of a problem as World of Warcraft.

Her ex-boyfriend, chemical engineering sophomore Drew Geda, said a friend convinced him to play, even though he knew it would be hard to quit.

"I didn't want to at first because I could tell it was really addicting because he was hooked on it," Geda said. "He was really adamant about me starting to play — he actually bought the game and extra ram for my computer."

Sarah Chesney, a dietetics junior, said she won't let her boyfriend of more than three years try the game because she's seen what it does to other people.

"He's obsessed with video games," she said. "He loves Halo. If he ever got obsessed with (World of Warcraft), our relationship would go down the hole. I can never let him do it."

Many of her friends have sacrificed social lives for love of the game, Chesney said.

"I've had parties at my apartment and they'll tell me they're going to go until the last minute," she said. "Why won't they go? They have a mission with their guild.

"It ruins their social life."

Though World of Warcraft has helped international relations sophomore Charles Allport forge stronger friendships through playing together, he said it hasn't left much time for any significant relationships.

"There really isn't time to devote to building a relationship when the game requires so much dedication," he said.

The social aspect of the game is what made the game fun, Geda said.

"You're always meeting friends," he said. "You really relate to each other because you're playing the same game and talking and helping each other out."

The game is addicting, Allport said, adding that the time he's spent on it is upwards of 45 days.

"I didn't expect to play that much," he said. "I'm always trying to see what you can do better for your character. You form an emotional bond — when they progress, you feel like you've progressed.

"You really can't leave that behind."

Geda recently decided to leave it all behind and quit, hoping to devote some of his free time to playing guitar and getting in shape.

"It took so much time away from other hobbies of mine," he said. "It's a new semester, a new year. I figured it was a good time."

Allport said he constantly regrets starting the game, but doesn't want to quit.

"The amount of time I had to spend to get where I am right now definitely could have been spent on other things," he said. "At the same time, it's hard to say I wouldn't want to play because I had a lot of fun. I don't want to stop. I want to be the best I can be.

"It's about achieving perfection."

That attempt at perfection comes at a high cost, Chesney said.

"People put it above school, relationships, a social life," she said. "It's too much. It takes over your life."

The makers of the game are always releasing new features so it's constantly evolving, Allport said, adding that for anyone interested in grouping with him, he's "whisper jeraldo on laughing skull."

"It's never going to stop until the popularity of the game dies," he said.