Introducing myself

Hello there Interweb. Fine day to talk about kittens and video games. First time posting and...I have no idea what I'm doing. I go by the alias GuardianZXZ and I consider myself a gamer, always have been since I've received my first Nintendo, I'm talking NES. Since then I've been growing with gaming and the gaming industry. I play First person shooters (FPS's), Role playing games (RPGs), Mass multi online RPGS, League of Legends is the only MOBA I touch. I feel like a balanced gamer. Not someone solely focused on one game, say something like Call of Duty and call myself a gamer. No, a gamer is someone who plays for the story and for the accomplishment, someone who plays with friends, and loves experience things as would reading something out of a book or an experience out of a good movie.

I'd like to share ad go over how it was that I completed my first game, only because I thought it was an amazing accomplishment, even to this day. You see...back with NES, I could never complete a game because anyone who played that early could tell you how iYou have to beat the game starting with 3 lives and 1 continue and such, varying from game to game. Trial and error was basically the only method because there were no guides or internet to read up on the section in the game you're trying to pass. Nope, you had to play it over and over and over until you succeed, and the process of doing so could take you a long time. I'm guessing that it was to give the games a replay value because video games were not treated as something seriously big, they were treated as toys, children stuff. You wont see that kind as much frustration in today's video games for a multitude of reasons. The biggest reason being a majority of gamers have access to the internet to read up walkthroughs.

The first game I completed was Megaman X on the Super Nintendo. Its thanks to Arin Hanson, also known as Egoraptor that I was able to find the words to explain why the game and that moment to beating the game was so amazing to me. In the intro stage, you learn how to play the game through the games design. You learn the rules and controls easily up until you make it to Vile, where nothing you do feels like it does anything. The feeling of helplessness is directed to you, as the player, DIRECTLY. Not through any cutscene as would a present day video game. As a kid, I felt powerless, and because I had no prior experience with any other game to draw upon, it only magnified it. As I progressed completing each stage defeating each boss without a walkthrough, I truly felt an accomplishment like nothing Ive played before.

When I finally defeated Sigma, the final boss, after hours of gameplay and countless retries, seeing his base in a fiery explosion over the coast, I couldnt read at the time, but the epilogue music in tie with the setting, made me feel like it was an empty victory, like...I've accomplished something wonderful, but it doesnt matter. It felt...reminiscent of something. The design of this music was brilliant beceause this is where the music for the story comes to make you feel unsuccessful for the plot as a whole, because I didn't know there would be future titles for Megaman X to continue the plot. Setting me up for future fights because I was "unsuccessful" in the first Megaman X title. Then come the credits and the music changes. Now I felt the victory of the game with the upbeat "make you feel successful" music. As I saw the pics of the characters I've defeated, and the defeated Zero which sacrificed himself to save me, the first words I've ever read, or at least...managed to make out for myself was, "And you, as Megaman X" with the picture of him dashing above the text, from that moment I felt a connection to the hero. I WAS Megaman X.

This amazing moment is something that is mine, and I cherish it. As a 24 year old gamer, I share stories and experiences with other people and other gamers, but when someone asks me why I still continue to game. Well...its an easy explanation. Gamers play because we can have 1000 lives, 1000 occupations, 1000 victories, 1000 losses, 1000 lessons. My answer? "People dont stop playing because they get old, people get old because they stop playing".