I find myself writing this post with mixed feelings. On one hand I totally love video games and everything else around them. On the other hand I know that video games are a big part of my expenses and social life. What good have video games ever done to anyone? Why do I find myelf wondering this?

My parents had no idea when they bought an NES back in the day of course. It was meant for my sister, but something happened. A little Akiranon saw his sister play Super Mario Bros. He saw her jumping over pits and defeating enemies. He saw her being the hero that rescues the princess. He saw her… having fun. Something happened that would change my life forever at that moment in time. Everything fell into place as I picked up the controller. Not knowing what the controls were, I walked Mario straight into a pit. I did it again, and again, and again, until I started to notice that the A button made Mario jump. Could it be? What if I did this at the right time when I saw one of those pits? I still see it front of me. Mario, a pit… I walk… and… Jump! What was that? What did I do? Mario was alive and waiting for me to tell him what to do. I was in control and loving it.

Time passed and I got better at the game. My parents started noticing my sister wasn’t paying much attention to the NES anymore and that instead their son – a four-year old – was playing it and was actually getting good at it. They showed everyone how their son was able to play games so well. I still remember my grandmother being amazed as I pulled off a wonderful jump at one of those difficult pits. Everyone was happy and things wouldn’t get any better than this… I was playing games and loving it. However, as always… times are changing. New games were bought and thanks to my patience I got better at them. Mario 1, 2 and 3 were all finished without problems. I showed Donkey Kong who’s boss and popped all the balloons of Balloon Fight.

Generations came and went. The SNES days were wonderful: Games looked better than ever and being the kid with a SNES… Well, I was mister popular in school. This was the point where video games were actually beneficial to my social life, sad to say. Most importantly however, I played my first Zelda game. A game that would prove to be very important  to me later in life. A game that would allow me to meet– Not done here just yet. I was getting obsessed with video games. Before I knew it I was wearing Mario sneakers, I had a Mario backpack, a Mario mug, a remote controller Mario Kart, and even worse… Mario underwear. My life was Mario, I was Mario. During the night I would still be dreaming about rescuing that princess. Ever getting closer to the final stage where big bad Bowser would be waiting for me. Waiting for the day thay I would personally kick his green behind and be a hero.

Video games were good for everything. Originally every video game released was in English. At first the text appeared as mere gibberish to me and I didn’t even pay much mind to it. However, the more I read, the more everything seemed to fall into place. Before I knew it I had a faint idea what the video game was trying to tell me. Simple things such as “The princess is in another castle” started to make sense to me. I was actually learning another language. My parents were amazed when I was able to understand what was going on in Ocarina of Time years later.

As cheesy as it sounds, people are right when they say all good things come to an end. I don’t blame video games for this, but in middle and high school I became less social. My attention started moving onto other things. Where people would be worrying about girls, I was still worried about saving princesses. Something happened that I didn’t expect would happen. People started to become more mean to me just because… I liked video games so much? What happened to the old days where it was the coolest thing around? What happened to the times where every kid wanted to hang out with me just because I had the latest video game console? I started to think and came to just one conclusion… Video games had to go. I said goodbye to my much loved Nintendo 64 and moved on to bigger and better things… or so I thought.

Sure enough, I took hints from the other kids and became something else. I had a girlfriend, I wore the latest clothes and… Wait, if this is how it’s supposed to be… Why do I not feel content? Had video games really left such a big impression on my life? What on earth had happened to me? Why could I not be happy like those other kids? … Video games? Could I really… be so unhappy without them? It’s the thing that kept me from being one of the normal kids in the first place. With mixed feelings I asked my parents for a Gamecube. Was this the right thing to do? Would I not go on later in life and regret I even made this decission?

My parents didn’t want to pay for video games anymore and basically told me to get a job. The first job I had was pretty bad. It was delivering papers every two weeks and didn’t pay all that great, but what do you expect from someone that’s not allowed to have a full job yet? When the time finally came I applied at the local supermarket and got a real job: stocking shelves. If there’s such a thing as a golden age in anyone’s childhood, this would be mine most certainly. I worked and was able to afford any game I wanted. I was playing the latest and greatest games again and nobody could stop me. I lost my girlfriend, but I didn’t care. I was once again reunited with my favorite hobby. I made friends that were interested in gaming too and we had multiplayer sessions. I had the time of my life and as grim as things were looking before this, they shined like never before now.

The rest as they say is history. Nothing much changed after that. I still have the same friends and we still meet up at a regular basis to do gaming nights together. At the moment I have a Wii and an Xbox 360 both getting more than enough love from me. However… Being interested in video games  as I was… There was one series that always stood out to me. Only one series is a legend… and thanks to that one series I met someone I will never be able to forget about in my life. There is a forum out there called Zelda Temple. You can actually find a link to it if you search hard enough (hint: look to the right.) Anyway, I met someone on there. A really special someone that I’m going to meet in two weeks. Someone for who I am traveling to the other side of the ocean for. Someone that’s currently playing a bigger part of my life than video games have ever done. Someone that I… love.