Gamers Thoughts

The new BF2 game is out! How excited am I! Not that excited actually...
Gaming in my life has been as consistant as anything. When I was a kid it was (in order)

Sega Master System
Nintendo
Turbographics 16
Sega Genesis
Super Nintendo
Playstation
and then finally
PC platform games

Yet for some reason it is much less important to me now. A non-gamer might say " You're groing up " and a gamer might say " Bl@5ph3m3R!!1! ", but I just think that I don't need the escape the way I used to. IMO, My life never seemed to be bad for more than a few moments here or there, but I always relied on games and comics to get away and live a life I would want and didn't think I could have. Something that cannot be achieved so easily in the real world as hitting the on or reset button. Now though, life is so different that I am ok without it. I still enjoy it and play from week to week but it is not the obsession that it once was. For instance I once relied on it so much that I would spend weeks on end imersed in it a game up to 60 hours a week. That barely leaves time to eat, sleep, and work. Now I would be ok if it disappeared entirely. I wondered to myself, "why?" and the answer (or an answer) came. In a game like DnD a person can do anything they want but normaly will pick and develope a character that is either an interpretation of themselves or an interpretation of who they want to be. I am no different in this way I have created and developed several characters based on a combination of who I am and what I want. Most of them were Lawfull-Good Clerics of one sort or another with focuses in Healing and either Protection, Knowledge, War, or Good. My clerics tend to value traits of Wisdom and Charisma over Inteligence and Stength. Mediator, protector, and healer in purpose if not always carried out properly. (Nobody mention the gem incident. :wink:) At times towards the end of my DnD career I found myself, in character of course, speaking/acting out in what was an effort of evangelism. IMO, this was a manifestation of my own transformation over that timespan and if I still played I would probaby be known there as the nice guy and religious zealot at this point. The point I keep wandering from is that an important focus shift has taken place and because of it the life I found in-game is now, at least in a sence, very real and very reachable in reality. Life can and is as much a mystery and an adventure as I had hoped for in the way I had hoped for. I can be, in a sence, the cleric who roams the land bumping into problems and needs. Granting healing, protection, and knowledge from the God I serve. Though I don't get to carry a bow and mace the dangers and mysteries will be more and more real as I get closer and closer to them. As will be a life of effectiveness and purpose.

No doubt I love the feel of making my way accross a battlefield with the guys around me. Watching each others back and working in unison (a rarety but still). Heading to a chocke point or a control point. Or equally rewarding, piloting a blackhawk into enemy territory and having the guys on either side with gattling guns tearing into the enemy while the rest of the guys roll into position with Abrams tanks and Bradleys. That kind of gaming is still appealing to me but only when the group is together and working with each other. Which is why I got BF2 yesterday. I had time to play one round with Astro_Fiend and for a few moments we actually found each other on the battlefield. As the enemy would flank me he would intercept and likewise as we moved in to the control points. Sweet.

It will be nice to have on Friday night game night when all the guys can get on.