Though my entire life does not revolve around video games, they most certainly do take up most of my free time. Some would say I'm wasting my life, but in the words of John Lennon "time spent enjoying yourself is time well spent." Video games are fun, but that's not the only reason I love them. Some video games have left a lasting impression on me, helped me become who I am today. So today, I'll share this list of video games with you.
1- Super Mario World
You never forget many of your firsts. Your first love, your first crush, your first kiss, your first car, and so on. This was my first game. In the year 1991, when I was a five year old child, my uncle bought me and my brothers a Super Nintendo, which came packaged with this game. When I first tried it out, I was hooked. I'm a gamer today thanks to this game.
2- E.V.O. The Search for Eden
For me, games have always been about having fun, above all things. But they aren't entirely mindless fun; a game can contain heavy themes, thought provoking topics, and an underlying message that can change your perspective on life. Although E.V.O. has a very thin story, it at least was the very first game I ever played that tried to say something about the world around me. And that lesson was: the world of today wasn't like this yesterday, and it won't be like this tomorrow. An innocuous lesson for an adult to learn, but I wasn't an adult when I first played this game, I was seven. This game taught me that the past wasn't just dinosaurs, but that there was an era that had no life on land.
More than that, though, this game was the very first to spark my curiosity, as well as my imagination. How excited was I to read up on paleontology and discover that yeah, there WAS a time on Earth before dinosaurs, where all life was under water! I read up as much as I could on paleontology, learning about the Paleozoic era, the Mesozoic, the Azoic, the Cenozoic, and so on. I began to hunger for more knowledge, and I owed it to a video game. Speaking of...
3- Final Fantasy Tactics
I've said this before, so I'll say it again: this is the game that changed the course I took in life. This game inspired my love of history, my desire to know more about the past. This game also taught me to take what the history books say with a pinch of salt, as history can be edited.
I don't know if words can describe just how much this game has influenced me. When I was 12, that's when Final Fantasy Tactics came out. I bought it primarily because I became a HUGE Final Fantasy fan thanks to FF7. I still remember the first night I ever played it, how blown away I was by the music, the graphics, everything. The game sparked my imagination with its tale of knights, princesses, ancient conspiracies, and religious skepticism,
That's something else I want to point out. This game was the very first piece of fiction that ever had me questioning the veracity of religion. Growing up, you're taught that your religion is 100% factual, that Scriptures were indisputable, that God was real. This game, however, taught me that religions often have an origin in falsehoods, exaggerations, and misunderstandings.
For the record, I am NOT some Reddit level euphoric atheist. I'm more of an agnostic who prefers to see the forest for the trees.
4- Travians
The summer of 2009 may not have been the best summer of my life, but it certainly was one for growth and development for me. I was right in the middle of earning my Master's, had taken a summer course, and was just about to turn 23. I was stressed out because I was just finding out how expensive it was to go through grad school without a job, not that I made no effort to find one. A lot of things were bringing me down, from my failure to get a job, my failure to pass my Teacher's Licensing Exam, to my loneliness.
Travians helped alleviate all that. Travians was a social game that helped me meet new people, interact with them, make new friends. Some of the best people I've ever met, I met in this game. Likewise, I met some of the worst people ever here. I met girls who took my breath away. I met guys who cheered me up when I was down. I met people who told me point blank to cut my shit. I've met people who hurt me. I hurt some people too.
Travians helped me grow up. Speaking of growth...
5- League of Legends
In the year 2011, I was at my nadir. I was depressed, for so many reasons. I didn't have a job, I couldn't finish my Master's because I failed the exam (again), I had no topic for my thesis, and something else that I just can't talk about. I was still living with my parents, I had no money, and all in all, I was just tired of being me.
A friend of mine actually goaded me to play this game with her. I downloaded it, played three games, and never once looked back. That was five years ago. I still play the game.
The game saved me from the greatest depression I ever felt in my life. But more than that, the game taught me a very important lesson, one that I hadn't learned yet, but desperately needed: it's OK to fail.
Growing up, I lived with one creed: you get ONE chance. You only ever get one chance to do it right, because your failure will mark you. If you don't pass this class NOW, you'll fall behind everyone else and you'll be all alone. If you fail to pitch the ball right, your team will never let you pitch again. If you fail so much as one college course, you'll have to repeat it but you'll lose out on your scholarship. If you fail this one test, your GPA will take a dive and you'll lose your prestige. That was all I ever knew: one chance, that's it.
League taught me that it's OK to fail. Failure isn't something to fear, it's something to learn from. Yeah, you'll fail sometimes. You'll fall, stumble, land on your face. When you do, it'll hurt. You'll be humiliated, and alone. Because if there's one truth in this world, it's this: When you win, the world wins with you, but when you lose, you lose alone.
But what you do after you lose, that's up to you. If you choose to get up, that's your choice. If you choose to stay down, that's YOUR choice too. If you want to get beaten down by life, blame your misfortune on others, and act like the world owes you just because you exist, that's on you. What's ALSO on you is deciding to get back up, to bloody your knuckles, to sweat, to dust yourself off and try again.
The world is tough and cruel, and it only cares for winners. That's something I've always known. But what I didn't know was that failure wasn't the end. You CAN get back up after you fail, because there are more important things in life. League taught me that, by always giving me the option to get back in the game and try again.
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