The Role of Video Games in My Life

A funny thing occurred to me today on the way through the living room. My roomates and I each contributed one video gaming console to the living room. A Super Nintendo , a Nintendo 64 and a Playstation. I should note that i keep an X-box 360 in my room simply because it is my baby. Maybe when I replace it once it becomes boring and obsolete will i bring it to the living bur not now.

Looking at those consoles and cartridges , playing those beeping and booping sounding games takes me back to different periods of my life. Mario was toddler, Sonic was young school boy, uhh...oh yeah then came the world of 3D and Krash bandicoot . Wow, good times one and all. Then in my early youth I discovered a game called Resident Evil 2. It was terrifying and also challenging with its endlessly furiating puzzles and monsters. The first ever horror and graphicly gory game I had ever played. I loved it! My box of games is much like a yearbook or photo album capturing moments in my life. Only these moments were somewhat a little less real. Apparently , saving the world from an alien invasion in a video game does not hold up as a notable accomplishment in life, but it meant a lot to me so rasberries to that!

After coming home from another day of the same old, same old thing there is nothing finer then shooting zombies, or dueling lightsabers, or even just dressing like a plumber and squishing turtles. It is my favourite form of escapism ( I do enough reading for homework!). Of course there are some nay sayers out there. Critical and skeptical folk who would suggest that video games are harmful must say so out of ignorance. Play it before you bash it. I will admit that the average player is missing out on a lot of exercise but thankfully there is the Wii. Have you ever played the Wii? Oh you got to play the Wii. It has encorporated physical activity into its gaming experience. The player actually has to get off the couch and make the motions for the on screen characters. Cool huh?Now we can all jump on those turtles for real! Wait,...that came out wrong.

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How do you doodle in a computer lab?

The average class is what? An hour and a half? At least mine are anyway. Of course, i have never paid full attention to everything that is discussed during class time. Don't get me wrong, I still take notes and learn a thing or two. It is just that many times I find it difficult to keep from getting bored during class. Thats when my inner artist comes out to play. My notes are covered in doodles. Mostly of the superhero comic book variety but every now and then I spice it up with something extraordinary. For example, I may put something like ...lets say a cute squirrel, in the middle of the page. Then, whenever the prof is discussing something i dont need to hear, or a fellow student asks a question that makes me roll my eyes, I return to the squirrel and add as many tiny stick men(or stick women) around the squirrel battling it like it was Squirrelzilla. Y'know, holding machine guns, throwing grenades, ninja stick people, stick people jumping from planes with parachutes and the occasional flamethrower stick person. Part of the fun is coming up with new ideas like the circus stick figure who is shot out of a canon at the squirrel. If anyone reading this has never doodled a stick figure battlezone i highly recommend that it be tried. Fair warning, if you suddenly notice that class is over and you have no idea what was discussed then you went too far with you stick figures. What about those students who have computer labs? Just go into microsoft paint ( or whichever paint program) and get creative. I know that using a mouse is trickier then using a pen or pencil, but as with everything the more you do it the better you will become. Try filling the page with all black and then again with all orange. Next use the eraser and start making designs. You will notice that when you erase the orange, black will appear underneath. This allows you to design crazy jack o lanterns without mangling a bunch of pumpkins. Enjoy!