A Digital Escape

Of the many forms of escape and hobbies I have chosen for my own refuge, my little old hobby of gaming is still undying; it remains unparalleled.

Gaming and I go back by almost 3 decades. From the early Intel Pentium PCs on Windows 95 to 98, consisting of a few MBs of RAM, and those ugly, yet sturdy CRT monitors haha. Those were the days when I started getting into gaming.

Fortunately, I had access to my father's office PC and my cousins had some "latest" tech from that time as well.

Now, in the present time, it's a different ball game. Gigabytes to Terabytes, Intel to AMD, Radeon to Nvidia, RGB, and FPS, photorealistic graphics, and demanding titles. A lot of mumbo jumbo! There are games now that take over a decade to develop, they require billions to make, and the profits are just as much in higher multiples. Alas, it has turned into a cash cow for these businesses and studios.

That's all the technical stuff, it's what you need to have or support, to experience this realm, but only those who've experienced it properly, know that the technicals and price tags mean very little in the long run.

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ᴵᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵒᵛᵉʳᵃˡˡ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵉⁿᵗ ᵃʳᵉ ᵐʸ ᵒʷⁿ ᵘⁿˡᵉˢˢ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ᵐᵉⁿᵗᶦᵒⁿᵉᵈ

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From my beloved hobbies of sports to bodybuilding, fast cars, sometimes drawing, and a bit of singing, gaming is the oldest and most rugged.

Racing behind the steering wheel of countless supercars from NFS, exploring the miniature world of the first GTA, maneuvering through the pixelated world of Prince of Persia, to shooting practice on the same map, again and again, on Virtua Cop.

The memories are still just as vivid.

If I said that I remember it as if it was just yesterday, then that would be a criminal understatement. I still remember every tiny bit of it today, that's how much I loved it.

Yes, these days I have become more competitive, I've swerved more toward the realm of First Person Shooters. And I do love the whole competitive FPS thing, but it's a newfound love. We all know that our first love even if it was a "failure", will forever remain special.

You just can't compare such online multiplayer games with the solo traveler and explorer games, that genre will remain timeless and momentous to every gamer. This genre is the true essence of gaming.

I feel like the multiplayer realm is fun only because of our friends, teammates, and the community, it makes the competitive genre stand out. Because there are real people involved in the process of enjoying this certain hobby and category.

Story-driven games, however, like the RDRs, Cyberpunk, GTA, Witcher, Elden Ring, and Skyrim, these solo experiences are nothing less than a memorable movie, series, or TV show; one where you feel as if you're the main character. Here, you may choose to be a hero, an anti-hero, or a villain, it's totally up to you. What makes the experience so unique, is that there's always a hint of our own character in every game that we play, in every mission and story.

Graphics, physics, and immersion are just bonuses, they help in making the experience more life-like.

Yet, at the end of the day, it's that one in-game digital buddy, a strange NPC, a pet, a memorable mission, a song, or an addictive tune, the accumulation of such minuscule additions and options makes these digital fantasy worlds so memorable.

It's a form of escape you will only fall in love with after you've experienced it properly. A speed run won't do you any justice.

These "video games" are the closest things some of us will ever have to being cast in a movie; living the dream, quite willingly stuck in a fantasy world. Whether it be a cowboy from the Old Wild West, a pirate from the 17th century of The Golden Age of Piracy, an Edgrerunner from the future of 2077, or a grey-haired monster hunter from the 13th century.

It's an escape like no other, one that allows you to be a part of both a fictional past and future...

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