How Video Games Saved Me

Now let me get something out of the way first, this article, opinion piece or rant or whatever you want to call it is basically a summary of how video games saved me throughout my life. More after the break.






I was always a really happy kid, yeah some days made me want to go to the nearest bar to drink myself under a table but that's just part of being human. But in the early part of my life I was the son of a diplomat so that meant moving around a lot and resulting in me not having friends and as an irritating brat I was easily bored and was very...loud to say the least. But one person was there by my side throughout this portion of my life to entertain me and that was my older sister. She and I played board games all the time like Snakes and Ladders and Chess, the latter of which I gave up on in less than an hour. But one day my dad decided to help me with my entertainment by getting me a Micro Genius...HA! thought I was going to say NES didn't you?

My family and I live in Malaysia a place with a reputation of having loads of software pirates. One such *pirated* device was the Micro Genius. The Micro Genius was essentially a Famicom clone and to my knowledge many Malaysian gamers regard the Micro Genius as their first (albeit illegally copied) video game console. I remember my sister only had 1 cartridge but this cartridge had an astounding 999 games in 1 which was an utter and downright lie because it was probably like 30 games repeated again and again. We played a whole lot and it was through video games that we got a lot closer as siblings.

Hello old friend. 

Eventually though my dad had to move to a post in Belgium so I had to say goodbye to my friends in Preschool and then my whole life was hauled off to a country that is considered by many as a place where Germany and Britain settle their fights. The worst thing was that we had to leave the Micro Genius back in Malaysia.

When I arrived in Belgium I was a 5 year old brat who had no friends, who was in a new place and who did not speak a single word of English. My first day of school my teachers had to rely on sign language to help me get through the day and  later I had to enroll in an Intensive English Language Class which I was a part of for most of my stay.

So fast forward a while later and eventually I was accustomed to Belgium and her customs (like a bar being outside my school and this massive Red Light district smack dab in the middle of the city) and I had some really good friends too so yeah my life was pretty alright and I was happy. My sister who I had relied on for being a friend had her own life of teen angst and melodrama so I had to rely on my own imagination and my box of toys to keep me entertained. My mom was a stay at home mom and my other sister was also a high school student. My dad was a representative of Malaysia and at many times he had to leave the house on official business and I was one of those kids that worshiped his  dad so seeing him off was hard on me.

But my dad despite being busy all the time and flying all over Europe on diplomatic business bought me something great for my birthday, an NES (there you go!) with Super Mario Brother 3 prepacked inside. The moment we brought that thing into the house my sister and I played the hell out of that game, we were so amazed at the graphics, the thrilling soundtrack and the awesome gameplay that came with it. I was Luigi and my sister was Mario, I chose Luigi because he was taller so I being an idiot brat though he would be stronger and cooler. The memories I had with my sister flying over the Mushroom Kingdom in our Tanooki suit is still one of the best memories I have as a kid.

As a kid I thought I was unstoppable with the power of Tanooki. 

We had some other games as well but the fact was that we didn't buy buy so many games for the NES, in fact I think I just had about 11 games for the console and about 4 of those games were bought at a garage sale. Nonetheless I remembered failing time and again in that Top Gun carrier landing sequence (yeah I had that game) and I remembered how I kept staring at the cover of Burai Fighter because as a kid it looked great and yeah I remembered blowing into the cartridge to get the game to work. Video games up to this point saved me by getting closer to my sister, it helped me cope with my dad being gone all the time and it really helped a new kid settle in a place that he still considers a huge part of him.

Look at this...wouldn't you stare at this art for hours on end?  I mean its a space man...with a gun and a shuriken taking on a space dragon.

Eventually though my dad's term was up and we had to return home to Malaysia and I had to go through the harsh process of saying goodbye to my home, my school and my friends. So back to Malaysia my family and I went and with it another long gap before I could play another game. 

So eventually I did get into mainstream gaming again with the Playstation, the PS2 and the Xbox. The best few memories I have of this time period was a game called Final Fantasy...VIII (HA! Thought I was going to say VII didn't you). I remembered how that game consumed me not just because of the gameplay but because of the story. The characters in my opinion were fleshed out and I could understand the clear fight between good and evil. It was because of this game I started to care more about the storyline, it made me want to win, it made want to defeat evil and it made me care about the characters that I played as. The strength of the plot and the characters within that story is still an essential part of any self respecting game. Also FF8 had guns...and a female protagonist that hurls her dog at her enemies. 

To this day...I have no idea how the hell this works.

Some other games during the PS1 and Xbox/PS2 era that I thought had brilliant storylines were Deus Ex, Jade Empire, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Crimson Skies.

You might be saying to yourself right now "Izzard, this was one of the best generations of gaming ever and that was all the memories you had of it?" 

My only answer to that is that I have so many great memories of this generation but the fact is that I pirated every last one of my games for the PS1, PS2 and the Xbox. So to some degree I feel a combination of remorse that I bought pirated games and that I had so many games it no longer became a question of  "How much more money do I need to get for the game" but it became a very loud statement of "What game should I play out of the hundreds that I have?"

Also at this point in my life my sister drifted away from gaming completely and our relationship has been strained due to certain and stupid mistakes that we both made against one another but know that we still love each other and I do miss our days playing Super Mario Brothers 3.

My pirated games came in these binders...

and I had many fake games. 

So here we are at the Xbox 360/PS3/Wii generation and I am back to buying original games from reputable sellers so how can this generation of small children saying "Yo *insert racial expletive here* Im going to *insert sexual insult here* and *insert your mother joke here*" be so tantamount to saving my life?

My friends.


Many of my friends who I play with on a daily basis are truly honest to good ladies and lads who I care about dearly. We laugh, we make fun of one another and we just shoot the hell out each other but at the end of the day we do it because we know the other guy on the end is just horsing around. If it were not for these individuals who on a nightly basis shoot me in the face I would be bored. Now you may think that boredom is something to laugh at but let me tell you why my Xbox Live/PSN friends are important in negating my boredom.

I have tried hard to get into a doctoral program because I love to do research and bury myself in work but when I tried to apply I fell hard on my face and I didn't take it so well. There are other individuals who ask "Why not get a job as a journalist?" and I respond with the same answer every time. In my country the hard news areas are dominated by two forces, one who loves the government and the other who loves the opposition so most of the established hard news sources feature stories about how great their side is and how the other side sleeps with the devil. I was trained to be bipartisan and not take sides no matter what so being a news journalist here to me just defies what I believe in. To the fans who are in the hard news sector of journalism in Malaysia please don't take offense at what I said you have to admit the news on both sides can devolve into pure and unbridled stupidity.

Now this may seem cliche but the fact is that my Xbox Live/PSN friends have become like a family to me, every night we would jump on, we would laugh and we will kill each other mercilessly and at the end of the day we say thank you to one another for a good game and we sign off for the night. These are people who do not judge me for how I look or who I am and they don't care if I play badly. Every night with these gamers is one more night of me being entertained and not having to worry if a guy in a suit rejects or ignores my proposal. It may seem like weakness to rely on others to be your crutch in a troubling period of your life but I know for a fact that I will pick myself up, dust myself off and jump on the train again. Also now that  I have a gaming PC this new extended family of mine has grown even larger and I hope that we will forever frag, kill, maim and teabag each other but we will do so as a family of gamers.

Every gaming night I have with my friends is one more night of pure happiness and joy for me and no man or woman in the universe can take that away from me.

Editor's Note: So recently I did apply for a job at an media entertainment company and I know not of my prospects but even if I fail miserably I will always come back to this blog and write.