Gaming in a Teen's World.

Essay by Lightninggt November 2005

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A few weeks ago I was on a bus, eavesdropping on a conversation between two young teenagers. Not surprisingly, one of their more popular topics is about video games. Discussing tactics and strategies to the popular strategy game, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, I could only chuckle to myself for I have also mastered that game and occasionally play a few matches with my friends when we both have time from our hectic schedules. The games throughout the last decade have defined and shaped many of the teenage boys.

It's amazing how different styles of games can demonstrate much of a person's character. Popular generalizations amongst the people I play games with are that strategy games are for the geeks, role-playing for the sophisticated, racing for the daredevils, and first-person shooting for the violent. From this list, the only thing I don't play is role-playing, due to their lack of skill and hours of training, and I guess that would make me unsophisticated.

The first modern game I got addicted to was Counter Strike, an intense shooting game considered violent at the time it came out. Nowadays, that is hardly the case. My friends and I would go to internet cafes and challenge other people there. At first, everyone was better than me, yet with some experience and practise at home, I managed to improve to an average player, then above average, then very good. Insults were sometimes thrown back and forth, yet often respect was found for a good player, and not so much for a bad one. Conversations on first-person shooting were by far the most violent, and none of the words were censored.

Racing games were also exciting, but their excitement didn't last long. The idea of going in circles for a certain amount of time...