Almost everyone I know has asked me the question "Why do you like video games so much? What is so great about them?". Or at least something along those lines. Well then, I ask you this; why do you like watching a movie or reading a book or even playing a board game?
I play games exactly for the same reasons! You say books transport you to a new world? Games transport you to a whole new world filled with action and adventure among other things. In this new world, you can be who you want, do what you wish and not have a care in the world about the consequences of your actions. Apart from that, they are great when you are frustrated with something or someone. Extremely pissed and feel like killing someone? Load your Gears of War or God of War disc and chop off some locust heads with a chainsaw or some Minotaur heads with Athena's Blades!! Just got home after spending 2 hours in the traffic and feel like ramming every car in sight? Fire up your copy of Burnout, get behind the wheel of your virtual car and wreck all the damned cars on screen so bad, they wont even sell for scrap! Sick in bed and cant do anything? Get your laptop/PC/360, fire up Braid and try to solve all those puzzles or your game of choice! There is just something about all the gore in violent games that makes you want to play it over and over again. I can go on, but you get the point.
Video games are not always what most people have in mind. All of them do not involve mindless killing, zombies and guns. Ever tried to play puzzle games like Portal? Ever tried to play any games that involve a good story? Most of the stories that are told through games far surpass those portrayed in movies or books just because you are actually "playing" the the story and in some cases deciding how the story progresses! I am not saying that books and movies have bad stories. They have some excellent stories. But they have no form of interaction. Imagine being able to talk to every character in a book and experiencing everything in the book or movie through the eyes of the hero. Being able to hear every ambient sound in a forest, talking to the Dyrads or the Elves and Dwarves! A good game has the power to immerse you completely in the world of fantasy and every time you have a fear of dying in game, your heart rate goes berserk just like it would if it were happening to you in real life. Games make you feel the same emotion you would feel if the same scene in the game happened to you in real life.
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) consist of massive worlds with 100,000 - 16,000,000 people online at any given moment. These games have their own economy, currency and everything you would expect in a real world right down to the transport system. You can interact with these people, form parties (group up with one to five people), form raids (huge parties with an excess of 20 people) and then raid dungeons, kill bosses or just get help in completing a quest you are on. Games are excellent at building communities. Games bring people from all races together and they do not care about the race, gender or ethnicity of the person playing with him. The more you interact with people from all over the world, the more you learn. I learn something new about the world everyday and yes almost all the people I have on my Xfire account (its a gaming chat client which allows us gamers to keep in touch even while we are gaming and also keeps a track of our gaming hours and what games we have played) are people I have never met but enjoy playing games with. I share a special bond with them; one that people who have never played games will not understand. We have all entered bloody battles and come out dead or alive (which is very rare for me. I'm the kind of guy who charges out and is the first one to die), saved millions of innocent people from Armageddon and just sat under a virtual tree to discuss the next attack on the evil villains of the game. I have known some of them for over 7 years now and some I've just met in my recent noobish adventures in a land called Taborea. These games involve building your character as he/she levels up. The skills, attributes and equipment you choose for him or her determine how your character will turn out. Sometimes it requires careful planning and foresight to build a character so he doesn't suck. In short they force you to use your head and strategize for every battle against a new enemy.
Action/Adventure and platformers are among the kinds of games I love to play because they are always fun! They almost always have a story line or involve killing thousands of enemies with your choice of weapon and complex combo moves if the story is missing! Hence they always entertain and never fail save for a few exceptions. Another genre of games I enjoy is RPGs (Role Playing Games). This is by far the best genre (at least for me). They are similar to MMORPGs minus the 16,000,000 people and economy. Its just you against the whole bad world.
People always think games are hard to play. I am not a great gamer. My gaming skills are average but the enjoyment you get out of playing games is unparalleled to any other form of entertainment! Every one has at least one game they play on the cellphone, PC, iPOD or any other technological device when they are bored. Well, I think it is time to expand your game collection and get some more. Trust me when you are stressed out and feel like ripping your hair out, play a game and after about one hour you will feel a lot lot better. That I guarantee!
I've had people make fun of me by saying games are for 5 year olds. To these ignorant fools I say, give a 5 year old games like F.E.A.R. and Braid. Heck, these ignorant fools should try these games themselves and I will love to see how F.E.A.R. will make them pee their pants and how Braid will make them wonder how they ever passed their undergrad if they take so long to figure out one puzzle; if they ever figure it out that is.
Hollywood often tries to make movies based on the stories from games and they ALWAYS flop. Games have anywhere between 7-20 hours of gameplay content which means that's how long it will take to finish the story. Try to compress that into a 2 hour movie; the result is a total disaster. Games are total value for money. People say games are expensive. Yes they are but they give you 7 hours of gameplay at least. Compare that to a movie DvD which costs about the same when new and its only 2 hours. If you consider the side missions in the game, the length goes up wayy up! I have spent 3 months completing a game called "The Witcher" not because it was that long but just because I did not want it to end so soon. I spent about 200+ (may be a little exaggerated but close to that) hours playing that game and completing every side quest I could find!
Aah, it was fun writing this. I can keep writing. I think I better stop. I'm going wayy off topic. I can see how I started describing why I like games and started lecturing about gaming 101. But I hope this answers your questions since no one ever listened to me when I started explaining why. =X
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO ME! (Yes, that is exactly how it is written)
