I came across an article by a gaming website recently where they discussed whether gaming can be a spiritual experience. I'm not too sure about the whole idea of spirituality itself, but it led me to introspect on what games have meant for me. Recently, a senior of mine shared a few pictures with me of his collection of games back home, after he passed out of college and after the event our FSAE team was taking part in.
The games were old, mostly racing games and scattered in variety. It took me back to my school days when it seemed all I used to do was game, when I was on a working computer (the rest of my time was usually spent on trying to make it work). This senior in question was somewhat quiet, just like me. Not one to open up easily. I feel like I barely knew him all the time he was in the team, and gaming was one of the few things I had in common with him. It's when I grew up that I realised how much my games meant to me.
Back in school, I didn't have many people I'd call friends by my standard. Maybe a handful at max. When I wasn't with them (which was most of the time) I used to game. And what worlds they created.
The Need for Speed series gave me the thrill that only working with cars in real life can beat. After Underground, which I could barely play because I didn't have computer hardware that powerful, I played Underground 2, with it's enormous (for the time) free roam mode. I felt so free when I played that game - it was more than I could be in real life, earning money, racing, driving cars I loved, hearing them rev... This continued with Most Wanted, Carbon, ProStreet, and culminated into the best of them all, a simulator, Shift, one which I compulsorily have on my laptop today.
Then came the Grand Theft Auto series. GTA I was the first one I played, and the top-down free roam mode gave me hours of fun, even though it was basically absolutely aimless wandering, since the game didn't even have a map. I skipped then, straight to Vice City, with it's 3D graphics and all. This was by far the most invested I've ever been in a game - I used to do everything possible to complete each mission as properly as I could, I spent hours taking joyrides in others' cars and completing missions that usually ended up in destruction. GTA: San Andreas was much like that, too. I mastered plane and boat licenses, dated women, robbed casinos, and did so much more in the shoes of Carl Johnson. And here's the thing: after playing it for so long, after having so much fun, you get attached to the storyline, the characters, the plot twists... San Andreas had a somewhat wayward but fantastic storyline in that sense. Friends backstabbing you, the world being unfair, the corrupt police, everything. The game had a befitting ending where CJ murders the corrupt cops, and I got tears in my eyes when the ending credits rolled.
The GTA series have received a lot of flak for being violent games that could rub off the wrong way, but for me, the blood and gore didn't matter. It's all about how your nature is. Yes, when I was angry, I used to fire up SA just to activate god mode and set half the city on fire - it was even cathartic, you could say. But on other days, I didn't revel in killing hookers or pedestrians just for the fun of it.
Then there are the games that were just fun - Sid Meier's Railroads! is one of the best strategy games that I have come across, and Quake III, with it's plain crazy shoot-to-kill gameplay style was thoroughly entertaining. Splinter Cell: Conviction was also staggeringly good, and one of the friends I gave it to ended up failing a few papers in his internal exams. Blacklist was the one I bought original after that, and it proved to be just as good, if not better.
Bioshock was also a game of deep attachment to me, because I'd been reading Ayn Rand back then, and I happened to support her theory. Even without it, the storyline, the characters, the way the game forced you to make a choice between saving or harvesting the Little Sisters... Simply amazing. I was bowled over and made sure I played the other games in the series as well.
So, yes, games opened up new vistas for me, and I do not regret the time spent on them - it's just that I do not have time for them now, so I'm just building up a collection I hope to eventually have time for.
The games were old, mostly racing games and scattered in variety. It took me back to my school days when it seemed all I used to do was game, when I was on a working computer (the rest of my time was usually spent on trying to make it work). This senior in question was somewhat quiet, just like me. Not one to open up easily. I feel like I barely knew him all the time he was in the team, and gaming was one of the few things I had in common with him. It's when I grew up that I realised how much my games meant to me.
Back in school, I didn't have many people I'd call friends by my standard. Maybe a handful at max. When I wasn't with them (which was most of the time) I used to game. And what worlds they created.
The Need for Speed series gave me the thrill that only working with cars in real life can beat. After Underground, which I could barely play because I didn't have computer hardware that powerful, I played Underground 2, with it's enormous (for the time) free roam mode. I felt so free when I played that game - it was more than I could be in real life, earning money, racing, driving cars I loved, hearing them rev... This continued with Most Wanted, Carbon, ProStreet, and culminated into the best of them all, a simulator, Shift, one which I compulsorily have on my laptop today.
Then came the Grand Theft Auto series. GTA I was the first one I played, and the top-down free roam mode gave me hours of fun, even though it was basically absolutely aimless wandering, since the game didn't even have a map. I skipped then, straight to Vice City, with it's 3D graphics and all. This was by far the most invested I've ever been in a game - I used to do everything possible to complete each mission as properly as I could, I spent hours taking joyrides in others' cars and completing missions that usually ended up in destruction. GTA: San Andreas was much like that, too. I mastered plane and boat licenses, dated women, robbed casinos, and did so much more in the shoes of Carl Johnson. And here's the thing: after playing it for so long, after having so much fun, you get attached to the storyline, the characters, the plot twists... San Andreas had a somewhat wayward but fantastic storyline in that sense. Friends backstabbing you, the world being unfair, the corrupt police, everything. The game had a befitting ending where CJ murders the corrupt cops, and I got tears in my eyes when the ending credits rolled.
The GTA series have received a lot of flak for being violent games that could rub off the wrong way, but for me, the blood and gore didn't matter. It's all about how your nature is. Yes, when I was angry, I used to fire up SA just to activate god mode and set half the city on fire - it was even cathartic, you could say. But on other days, I didn't revel in killing hookers or pedestrians just for the fun of it.
Then there are the games that were just fun - Sid Meier's Railroads! is one of the best strategy games that I have come across, and Quake III, with it's plain crazy shoot-to-kill gameplay style was thoroughly entertaining. Splinter Cell: Conviction was also staggeringly good, and one of the friends I gave it to ended up failing a few papers in his internal exams. Blacklist was the one I bought original after that, and it proved to be just as good, if not better.
Bioshock was also a game of deep attachment to me, because I'd been reading Ayn Rand back then, and I happened to support her theory. Even without it, the storyline, the characters, the way the game forced you to make a choice between saving or harvesting the Little Sisters... Simply amazing. I was bowled over and made sure I played the other games in the series as well.
So, yes, games opened up new vistas for me, and I do not regret the time spent on them - it's just that I do not have time for them now, so I'm just building up a collection I hope to eventually have time for.
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