Video Games - Waste of Time or Freaking Awesome

Video Games. I love em.

Sometimes it’s just fun to join in an online game, and join thousands in racing, shooting or even epic quests of nerdlike proportions. Hours fly by as we stare at a screen, moving only our fingers to control the super soldier that we are puppeting on screen. If only my sex life was as easy. Oh wait, it is, but that’s another thing entirely.

I have been playing games as long as I can remember. From jumping on enemies in Sonic the Hedgehog on the Master System to destroying whole buildings in Battlefield Bad Company 2, I am a certified gamer.

I shudder at the thought of all the skills and education I could have amassed during the many years of my life that I have spent staring at a screen, but then again, at least I wasn’t out on the streets killing hookers and shooting cops; nope, I could do all that at home, without the hefty jail sentence and overly friendly bunkmate.

At the end of the day, people do things which they enjoy. Gaming now, more than ever is a huge industry worth billions, and it is only going to get bigger. Gone are the pimply bespeckled nerds, replaced with a demographic that ranges from the age of 0-80. Mostly male though. I will never impress a female with my ability to buy full guns and kit in Counterstrike, in less than 2 seconds.

Now, one of my fondest yet most shameful memories of my time at university is the amount of Mario Kart we played. We played it for hours, every day, without fail. There were three of us, sometimes four, and nothing was more fun than screwing over your friend and winning the race. This, I think, validates games. It brings people together for a great time, in a place where nothing ultimately matters and you can kill eachother with no consequence.

As for World of Warcraft fans – That’s another thing entirely.