Personal Essay (4 Viet)
Before I moved to Louisville, Kentucky, the largest city I have lived in, I learned to whistle, and I played with toy cars, and I rode my bicycle, and sometimes I watched cartoons. I remember two girls who were my friends, and playing at the playground. Then, Louisville arrived. My newest friend was Chris, who met me as I sobbed on the bus on the way to my first year of elementary school because I was sitting on the wrong side of the bus and I couldn’t wave to my mom as we left. He had two things in common with me; he liked to ride his bike, and he liked video games.
I had seen the advertisements on the television, and the games were no longer a simple white ball bouncing around on a green screen and they no longer were unaffordable as a Christmas present. They were like the cartoons I had watched, but with a bonus that made them incredible. You controlled the action. Everything that happened on the screen was your own creation, a piece of art nobody else could replicate precisely, but they could watch and enjoy. Chris had what we called an “NES” (Nintendo Entertainment System), with the two best games around. They had straight-forward, clear-cut objectives. Duck Hunt consisted of shooting ducks that looked similar to white UFOs as they moved in an arc. When you shot some, you moved to the next level, and they flew faster and more often. In Super Mario, we walked along a path, jumping on our enemies. The best part was getting the fireball power-up and throwing bouncing balls of fire at the enemies. Unfortunately, they were both single-player, and since they weren’t mine, I didn’t play them very often.
Next Christmas, I had dreams of a newer, better video game system, the Sega Genesis. It was twice as good as its predecessor (16-bit instead of 8-bit) and the controller had an overwhelming 6 buttons instead of 4. I found it under the tree on Christmas morning. The first game I played, I fell in love with. It was exciting and fast-paced, appropriately titled “Sonic.” It featured a blue hedgehog with amazing speed, so fast your reflexes were tested to their limits. At times, the game moved so fast you felt as though the controller was meaningless and the next millisecond might bring on a sudden doom. Over time, I became better, and could reach the last level in just under 3 hours. This would still take me 6 days because my parents, probably feeling that it had some adverse effects, limited my game-play to 30 minutes a day. This game was much more difficult than any game I had played before. Chris also bought a Sega Genesis, and we soon were discussing it like it was the morning news. However, the enemies were still methodically placed throughout the level, and could be expected to be where they were last time. Their patterns and timing were consistent and repetitive.
Then I began renting games. One stood out because of its novel features. Named “Cyborg Justice,” the main character was a customizable machine. This was in a few other games, but the brilliant aspect of the customization was the ability to change body parts as you defeated enemies. Upon defeating other Cyborgs along the way, legs, arms, torsos, and weapons would be lying around, and whichever was the most useful to defeat the next enemy was the one I would pick up. The enemies were everything a video game player could want- they randomly appeared, were made of randomly pieced together parts, and gave a random piece of equipment to you when they were destroyed. This element gave this one game a great replay value, a term gamers use to describe how fun it is to play it from start to finish more than once.
Eventually, Chris and I parted ways, but my Genesis stayed with me. It wasn’t long before the advancing communication sector crossed paths with the gaming industry. The Sega Channel was a fat cartridge that connected to a phone jack, and all I knew was that through that line came at least 20 new games each month, and about 30 of the old games were retained. The price was of little concern to me, not only because my parents would never spend a lot on games, but because 20 rentals from Red Giraffe for a month each would have been a bizarre and unthinkable amount of money, so if it was a low enough price for my parents, it was surely a great deal. One night, on the 31st, my father’s friend had come over, and I had the uncanny ability to stay up indefinitely, as long as someone else was awake in the room. That night, since it was the end of the month, a flow of new games would stream from Denver Colorado into my home, thanks to the geniuses at Telecommunications, Inc. and Time Warner Entertainment Company. I couldn’t get enough of the games, and new ones kept coming, an infinite, seamless, on-demand supply. I didn’t get along with the only kid in my neighborhood, and elementary school was a waste of time. I learned my multiplication tables at home; I wrote the answers at school.
Suddenly it was Christmas of 4th grade. At Toys ‘R’ Us, I found the latest gaming platform, inside a glass case, with an intricate controller sticking out. It had three places to put your hands, one of them being a joystick which I had never used before. I picked it up and played a game that was to become engraved in my memory: Starfox64. It was the first truly multiplayer game, and it brought a new meaning to playing a video game. After receiving my Nintendo 64 for Christmas, and moving back to the apartments Chris lived in, I played video games more, but it usually involved my friends. With four controllers, Jeffery and James joined us in Golden Eye 007, WWF War Zone, and Starfox64. I was undeniably the best at Starfox64, James was the best at WWF War Zone, and we were all good at Golden Eye 007. The latest I stayed awake up to that age was one night, when the four of us were all lying in sleeping bags in my living room, side-by-side, talking and playing some version of FIFA, when I turned to laugh with Chris about a mistake I made, and realized at 4 A.M. that everyone else was asleep, and I was the only one still playing.
Since I moved away from those apartments, I have stopped playing single-player games. Any game where I am drawn into an artificial world and I forget the real one that I live every day, I avoid playing. My friend who lives nearby owns an XBOX, which is twice as good as my old Nintendo64, which I gave away to a younger kid. Is it more fun? No, but it looks more real, and sounds more real. The games are longer and more involved. I go to his house and play sometimes, but only when we are both playing.
For around 5 years, I have played an online game called StarCraft. Many of my friends played it off and on during those years. This is the first school year I have stopped playing it entirely, not just because none of my friends play any more, but also because I do not wish to be wrapped in a cocoon when the real world holds so many opportunities. There are degrees to everything, and I have been so close to the point of no return that I could feel it, and it’s a good feeling to be far from it.
I had seen the advertisements on the television, and the games were no longer a simple white ball bouncing around on a green screen and they no longer were unaffordable as a Christmas present. They were like the cartoons I had watched, but with a bonus that made them incredible. You controlled the action. Everything that happened on the screen was your own creation, a piece of art nobody else could replicate precisely, but they could watch and enjoy. Chris had what we called an “NES” (Nintendo Entertainment System), with the two best games around. They had straight-forward, clear-cut objectives. Duck Hunt consisted of shooting ducks that looked similar to white UFOs as they moved in an arc. When you shot some, you moved to the next level, and they flew faster and more often. In Super Mario, we walked along a path, jumping on our enemies. The best part was getting the fireball power-up and throwing bouncing balls of fire at the enemies. Unfortunately, they were both single-player, and since they weren’t mine, I didn’t play them very often.
Next Christmas, I had dreams of a newer, better video game system, the Sega Genesis. It was twice as good as its predecessor (16-bit instead of 8-bit) and the controller had an overwhelming 6 buttons instead of 4. I found it under the tree on Christmas morning. The first game I played, I fell in love with. It was exciting and fast-paced, appropriately titled “Sonic.” It featured a blue hedgehog with amazing speed, so fast your reflexes were tested to their limits. At times, the game moved so fast you felt as though the controller was meaningless and the next millisecond might bring on a sudden doom. Over time, I became better, and could reach the last level in just under 3 hours. This would still take me 6 days because my parents, probably feeling that it had some adverse effects, limited my game-play to 30 minutes a day. This game was much more difficult than any game I had played before. Chris also bought a Sega Genesis, and we soon were discussing it like it was the morning news. However, the enemies were still methodically placed throughout the level, and could be expected to be where they were last time. Their patterns and timing were consistent and repetitive.
Then I began renting games. One stood out because of its novel features. Named “Cyborg Justice,” the main character was a customizable machine. This was in a few other games, but the brilliant aspect of the customization was the ability to change body parts as you defeated enemies. Upon defeating other Cyborgs along the way, legs, arms, torsos, and weapons would be lying around, and whichever was the most useful to defeat the next enemy was the one I would pick up. The enemies were everything a video game player could want- they randomly appeared, were made of randomly pieced together parts, and gave a random piece of equipment to you when they were destroyed. This element gave this one game a great replay value, a term gamers use to describe how fun it is to play it from start to finish more than once.
Eventually, Chris and I parted ways, but my Genesis stayed with me. It wasn’t long before the advancing communication sector crossed paths with the gaming industry. The Sega Channel was a fat cartridge that connected to a phone jack, and all I knew was that through that line came at least 20 new games each month, and about 30 of the old games were retained. The price was of little concern to me, not only because my parents would never spend a lot on games, but because 20 rentals from Red Giraffe for a month each would have been a bizarre and unthinkable amount of money, so if it was a low enough price for my parents, it was surely a great deal. One night, on the 31st, my father’s friend had come over, and I had the uncanny ability to stay up indefinitely, as long as someone else was awake in the room. That night, since it was the end of the month, a flow of new games would stream from Denver Colorado into my home, thanks to the geniuses at Telecommunications, Inc. and Time Warner Entertainment Company. I couldn’t get enough of the games, and new ones kept coming, an infinite, seamless, on-demand supply. I didn’t get along with the only kid in my neighborhood, and elementary school was a waste of time. I learned my multiplication tables at home; I wrote the answers at school.
Suddenly it was Christmas of 4th grade. At Toys ‘R’ Us, I found the latest gaming platform, inside a glass case, with an intricate controller sticking out. It had three places to put your hands, one of them being a joystick which I had never used before. I picked it up and played a game that was to become engraved in my memory: Starfox64. It was the first truly multiplayer game, and it brought a new meaning to playing a video game. After receiving my Nintendo 64 for Christmas, and moving back to the apartments Chris lived in, I played video games more, but it usually involved my friends. With four controllers, Jeffery and James joined us in Golden Eye 007, WWF War Zone, and Starfox64. I was undeniably the best at Starfox64, James was the best at WWF War Zone, and we were all good at Golden Eye 007. The latest I stayed awake up to that age was one night, when the four of us were all lying in sleeping bags in my living room, side-by-side, talking and playing some version of FIFA, when I turned to laugh with Chris about a mistake I made, and realized at 4 A.M. that everyone else was asleep, and I was the only one still playing.
Since I moved away from those apartments, I have stopped playing single-player games. Any game where I am drawn into an artificial world and I forget the real one that I live every day, I avoid playing. My friend who lives nearby owns an XBOX, which is twice as good as my old Nintendo64, which I gave away to a younger kid. Is it more fun? No, but it looks more real, and sounds more real. The games are longer and more involved. I go to his house and play sometimes, but only when we are both playing.
For around 5 years, I have played an online game called StarCraft. Many of my friends played it off and on during those years. This is the first school year I have stopped playing it entirely, not just because none of my friends play any more, but also because I do not wish to be wrapped in a cocoon when the real world holds so many opportunities. There are degrees to everything, and I have been so close to the point of no return that I could feel it, and it’s a good feeling to be far from it.