Video Games: An extra life

Video games, they’ve been around for a short time, but they have grown exponentially from small beginnings to become a prominent force in marketing and entertainment industries. You may be a hard core fan of video games, might consider yourself just a casual player, or you might not even play video games at all, no matter who you are, you realize that they exist and have gain a lot of popularity in the world. No longer are videos game just a “guy’s only” market, video games have been crafted to appeal to audience of various ages and gender. I honestly believe that anyone can enjoy a video game as long as they find one that fits their interests which shouldn’t be hard with all the genres of games there are: shooting, fighting, action, adventure, puzzles, racing and role-playing the list goes on and on.

                While many look towards video games as a source of entertainment, there is one concept that many tend to overlook and that is the amount human interaction that is on a game’s user interface that allows the game to be displayed and show action. Simple commands in a video such as “press “A” to jump and “move the analog stick” to move your character may not seem like much, but the player is essentially giving life to what once was a motionless object. By playing a video game, you essential take on the role of a character where you are in control of their actions and they are prompted they should  do to make the story progress by inputted button commands that you, the player, have chosen. You control the character, you are responsible for if they live or die in the game, how far they get in the story, and how far their skills can be improved.

                I’m not attempting to say that you basically end up nurturing characters in a video game, what I mean to say is that you become them. I love “The Legend of Zelda” video games series, you become a young male who is unaware of their astonishing destiny which involves a lot of self-growth, adventuring, facing one’s fear, solving mysteries, and overall becoming stronger after countless trials in order to bring peace and defeat maleficent forces. When I play as the hero from the Zelda series, I like to disconnect myself from reality and attempt to see thing through his life in the video game because that is where all my attention is focused, it starts to feel as though I’m living a separate life from the one I’m used to now of going to school and trying not to go broke. In no way am I trying to say that I view video games as a way to escape the harsh trials that life throws on your path, what I mean to say is that video games offer the players an “extra life”. An “extra life”, a life where if only for a few hours a day, you can forget about you current life and live a life that would only appear in your dreams. You can be a pirate, ninja, assassin, hero, villain, soldier, doctor, lawyer, explorer and so much more in a video game. Video games and technology are shaping themselves in a way where it allows the user an opportunity to see and live a life that would not normally be presented to them while still maintaining a hold of what their current reality is, life is great, but lives in video games aren’t half-bad either!