From the moment I gained consciousness to this current moment I’ve played video games and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I remember 5-year-old me, crying and screaming when dying to bots on Call of Duty Black ops, then asking my dad for help which he did not. Fast forward 10 years later, my infuriated little brother Ajay can’t lose the cops on GTA and bawling his eyes out, like my father I did not help him. In my 15 to 16 years of life video games have taught me things that you can’t learn from a class or just ease into, you have to experience and embrace it to truly know what it can teach.

Life can’t be experienced fully with excessive hand-holding. Like father like son, we didn’t help our son/brother instead we watched them die to bots or we screamed at the, what 5×3 over and over again. My father loved the kick your kid in the pool tactic where he’d show me something one time and expected me to know 100% of it. Video games are like that, mainly Elden Ring, the game gives a short tutorial on how to play the game and it’s gung ho all the way until the end. It was frustrating at the moment but later taught me the value of experiencing 100% of everything. As I grow older I am faced with more responsibilities and old responsibilities become harder, school gets harder, nights get longer, and stress grows taller. Those are nothing to me now, Freshman year was a bad couple of months but now it’s normal weekdays I can just get past. I couldn’t handle being told that the Aloha dance at our school was fun so I went to my first dance ever and had a blast moshing with my friends. I hate being in group chats about certain classes because all they do is share answers. If my generation was just given the answers all the time, and then thrown into an adult nature then they are doomed. The best way to live throughout life is to go through the process and experiment to find the answers instead of finding a single answer using a shortcut. For example, there were long nights when I repeatedly died to a Dark Souls boss to find the weaknesses to have the glory of defeating it or reconning a military base in Ghost Recon to find the best approach for a raid. Enjoy the Grind not the Gain.

Heres my setup.

“The Guy Who Likes Walking Will Go Further Than The Guy Who Likes The Destination“

-Sam Sulek.

Honorable mention:

During my time playing video games I have learned to appreciate the music in every aspect of video games the cinematic parts, the background music even in trailers, without music in video games the significance of the game would cease to exist unless it’s a horror game which uses more ambient sounds. For example the Soulsborne series and their boss battle music like Ludwig, the holy blade by Ryan Amon, the theme of God of War by Bear McCreary, and the theme for Far Cry 3, Further by Brian Tyler which are all listed below. I believe that video game music is very underrated and should be given more respect equivalent to the music in the cinematic industry. Music in video games has given me a deeper appreciation for the orchestra and the industry for giving a lot of thought to the music that players will enjoy.

P.S. If you want more music like this here are some artists I enjoy:

Lorne Balfe

Jack Wall

Brian Tyler

Hans Zimmer

Mick Gordon