Hey I’m Jason, and I love exploring, not only walking around the city and learning new areas along with the experiences that they offer, but hearing stories about the experiences that others have had. Some of the best explorations I’ve made, have been in video games, not because the areas are vast, or because some of the stories are rich with creativity and information, but because video games provide a virtual experience where ideas come to life and imagination runs wild. In video games you can experience worlds where you have abilities that don’t exist in real life, and in some games you might be purposely limited, to place you in a scenario where you wouldn’t want to be, in order to scare you. As of 2015, people in different parts of the world can play with each other and enjoy the same experiences whether they work together or not. This multiplayer experience can create more immersive game play because multiple people can work as a team and find new ways to do exact same objective. When I was little, my brother (being a large part and influence in my life) showed me what video games were and the possibilities it opened up. I’ve loved video games ever since.

One of the first games I remember enjoying as a kid was Pokemon: Gold Version, an RPG (Role-Playing Game) where you capture and train small “monsters” called Pokemon. In the game I would just explore the areas and look for random Pokemon that peaked my interest, one of them being the starter Pokemon “Totodile”. In the game “Totodile” was a water based Pokemon, which meant that there were other elements that it was effective against (being fire, ground and rock types) as well as some that were effective against it (being grass types and electric types). While I played this game, my brother played the alternate Pokemon: Silver version, so when I had a question about the game, he would help me understand it better. Through this help, he showed me how although some Pokemon were weak against others, they could still take them down with the right tactics, for example when “Totodile” evolved and leveled up he could learn a new move called “Ice Beam” which being an Ice type move, could do a lot of damage to Grass types(which it was weak against) meaning that I wouldn’t be helpless if one of my opponents had Grass type Pokemon and all I had was my Feraligatr (The final evolution of Totodile). When my brother showed me new ways to play, I took it a step further and from there on, I always thought outside the box.

As I grew up, I played more games and found myself really loving the “get every achievement” type of game play and ironically, I always ended up doing challenges in the way that the game didn’t want me to play. I would abuse certain power ups or abilities, and find either pixel perfect jumps, glitch my way into certain areas or use an ability/power up that wasn’t meant for the level. One of my favorite games ever is Kirby: Squeak Squad. This particular game was shown to me by a friend back in 5th grade, who had recommended I play it. The game was about a small pink ball-like character named “Kirby”, he had an iconic ability to suck foes in and copy their powers. I invested days, maybe weeks worth of time in this one game just to obtain everything and to this day I don’t regret it because it was the one game that got me to start playing to get everything available, not to add on that the game was extremely fun. The game taught me that there is more to games then just the story they provide. Every time I unlocked something new I would test old levels and see if I could now reach new areas to check that everything was discovered. In my efforts to finish the game entirely I always made my own little achievements where I would try to beat a boss using only one power up or no power ups at all, because I wanted to see how far my ingenuity could take me.

Being a kid, I loved experimenting on different ideas and because video games were a big part of my life I experimented in those as well. I must have spent more time in video games playing around with the different worlds then actually playing through the story or objective. The game that I’ve been really hooked on this past year is a relatively controversial game called Destiny. The game is considered a Massively Multiplayer Online, First Person Shooter(with some Role-playing game aspects) or MMOFPS for short. The reason I say controversial is because the Downloadable Content (commonly referred to as DLC) could be bought with it on release, and this caused problems with gamers because it was a new idea to console games. Anyways in Destiny you are a guardian who protects the last city of humanity over seven hundred years into the future, wielding an unknown power only referred to as “The Light”, which comes from the presence of “The Traveler”. As Guardians you have to investigate and destroy threats which could wipe out humanity. Coming from games that don’t really have a “grind” I thought Destiny wouldn’t be a great game, but when I played the beta(an experimental version of a game to test issues with players) I fell in love with it and saw the potential it had and the fun that could come out of it. The game, although lacking a good story (there is even a quote that has become iconic which goes, “I don’t have time to explain, why I don’t have time to explain”), has one of the best end game experiences I have had, because after beating the story, you still have gear to collect and bosses to fight and the supers and abilities are amazing to think about. An example being, Triple jump, yes you read that right, TRIPLE Jump, as in one jump after the first two jumps. Most console players are casual gamers who play to have a good time and don’t really sit down for a prolonged period of time, and ironically Destiny is a game about the grind, where you play a long time  to “catch that carrot-on-a-stick”. I honestly consider myself somewhat of a casual gamer, but I love the grind that goes into the game, where trying to get the top weaponry takes some time and luck, but I had amazing luck, because I was able to get all the best stuff at the time with maybe a fourth of the time then most players. 

Only being 17(as of writing this) I honestly see that I’ve learned a lot about life through video games and I hope that going into adulthood doesn’t change too much about what I’ve been taught. Ever since I was in middle school, there has been an idea that has stuck with me, “you will remember what you’re doing”. This idea was something I “came up with”, and it’s more or less a way to remind myself to not do something stupid, or to take the risk in hopes of a good outcome or something funny to look at in the future. I must have made dozens of stupid ideas and made risks that I am not proud of, but looking back at my memories I believe that none of my video game experiences are losses, because of the fun and amazing times I had while playing, and from here on I hope that never changes.