Due to some circrumstances in my childhood, there was a period of time where my perspectives, opinions, tastes and cultural views differ to my other friends. Especially during the later parts of my childhood when my friends started having specific hobbies which weren’t quite as easily accessible – my own hobbies begun to differentiate themselves from the rest. While the rest of my friends were talking about the hottest anime or games, I was playing extremely antique, uncommon games or just stuck studying in general. I never did watch any anime aside from the random bits and pieces of VCDs, or if I was in luck, Cartoon Network might air one. Of cause, this changed once I had internet at home. I easily caught up with the latest episode of Naruto which was still the most common talk around the school, with some other anime to boot, including even the more uncommon titles. However, while I could easily catch up with anime, even when I had internet, I chose not to follow in their footsteps, with my hipster gaming status remaining even to this very day.
The most popular games here, especially if we are talking about interactivity with community, are definitely LAN games. Before I continue though, I think it is noteworthy to mention first that even though I had played different types of games – I can appreciate all the different genres that I had come across. However, I’m more of a single-player person, even to this day. Now, the first LAN game which had struck the fancy of countless people here was Counter-Strike. Jumping pretty late into the bandwagon, I attempted to try to keep up with all the things that they do – shortcut weaponary purchases, bots, etc… But it was just more stressful then fun. Despite all the attention about it, I just wasn’t attached to it as opposed to the other people were. Additionally, my computer was horrible back then, and I couldn’t install Counter-Strike on it, so I couldn’t even practice at home even if I want to.
Next was the very popular DotA, which I’m sure most of you should had heard of. Although you might not believe it, but I had never touch it, not even once. I knew the game is related to Warcraft III, which I played a bit offline, but anything further then that remains a blur. At this point of time, I honestly don’t really care about not entering into the same gaming direction as the rest of my friends. Some of them did introduce me but I said “no thanks”. I just wasn’t as interested despite all the constant passionate talks about it.
I wasn’t completely detached from the local gaming community however. During the time when I did not had an internet, I did missed out playing Ragnarok, an online game also circulating around for quite a long time within my school. There was a period of time where I played Gunbound by going to other people’s house, internet cafes and so on. My more memorable experience however, was the second MMORPG that became the latest fad in my school – Maple Story. I did managed to play a bit… well… using dial-up at first, so playing the game was just more stressful then is entertaining – getting KSed, my loot stolen due to the laggy connection. During the later parts of my Maple Story playthrough, our home finally had an internet access, so playing it becomes a smoother experience. Ironically, most of friends had stopped playing Maple Story by that time, and I started using my internet more for watching anime instead of online gaming. I did messed around with some random online games I found in the net in between my anime-watching – ranging from Perfect World, Tales of Pirates, Silkroad, Ran Online and so on, solely meeting and playing with friends around the world. My interest however didn’t last longer as I had thought for any of them. My most long-lasting experience was Perfect World – playing until I was about Level 70+ while the shortest-lived experience barely reaching level 10.
After a little while, games like League of Legend, Guild Wars and the likes became the common talks both around the local towns and the internet – but like a certain Triple H and Shawn Michaels, I just said “Ahh… suck it”, and stick to my offline console games.. or whatever games I had in my possession. I can appreciate the wonders of multiplayers, and if it’s a competition, I will accept it anytime (I will most probably lose though), but in the end, single-player is really the one for me.
How was your gaming life compared to me?
