Video Games

Did you grow up playing video games? I did. NES was the first system we had at home. I remember the first time I saw Super Mario Bros. It was Christmas and my nephews had recieved one from their grandma. It was amazing. So much better than tv. You can't interact with your tv. But I could make Mario jump, run, turn around, throw fire, it was great.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo, this game brought the competition. Along with Mortal Kombat (not as good) and Killer Instinct (a great game in it's own right) SSIIturbo was one of the best fighting side-scrolling fighters ever made (Battle Arena To'shin'den was a really sweet game for it's time too but polygon 3d).

Console Fighters and side-scrollers are great and fun. Sports games are at their best on a console in my opinion. But, my true love has always been and continues to be RPG's. Yes, the time eater, the belly-fatner, the girlfriend-ender RPG.

I loved playing RPG's on paper with friends. Nothing can touch that party-gaming experience. When the technology arrived the granddaddy of all RPG genres was born...the MMORPG.

I bought Everquest and Ultima Online and played little. (Ultima's learning curve was rediculous, and my comp was to slow to run EQ when it came out.) By then, I had heard from a friend about a game called World of Warcraft based on the RTS world by Blizzard. I would regularly go to the website and read the Journal of Bran (Remember that one?) as he trekked across the land of Azeroth.

I was there when the game came out and I played, ALOT, for nearly two years. Blizzard had created the greatest MMO of all time, and probably the greatest RPG along with it, single or multiplayer. Then I felt the treadmill. The game had lost some of its magic. Many of my best friends decided to hang it up. I grew disallusioned. I quit.

I quit, and bought Neverwinter Nights II and started playing Oblivion. Both good games, very good games, but not the best game. And I wondered, "Why am I not playing the best game? Why am I playing these games, they're not as good?"

WoW playing friends and I got together, and I missed, I actually missed the good times we had. I missed playing with them. Odd, but I had few other outlets to interact with them but this game, that I no longer played. I felt I had made an error in quitting, a mistake that, due to circumstances, was unrectifiable.

I felt I had been foolish to let such an outlet slip away for good when all I really needed was a break. And so I began again, but with a new mindset. Games are not work, they are not a job, and when they start feeling like one, it is time to stop.

But I was wiser. Through my mistakes ( and there were MANY) I learned. My attitude changed. My priorities changed. And so I began anew, to enjoy WoW. But not place a high priority on it. To treat all games as games, and not a way of life, not something to be caught up in, but something to be enjoyed when it is appropriate to enjoy them.

The experience was painful at times and humbling. But lessons were learned, not just about games and priorities, but about life and balance.