Video Games 1

This is called "Video Games 1" because I expect to write about video games again.

I love video games. I don't mind saying that at all. They are engaging, challenging, beautiful, bonding, and all sorts of other great adjectives. I have been thinking about them recently since I've been too busy to game.

In this post, I want to talk about some games that really had a special place in my heart at a time in my life. You may get to know me a little better, and maybe you'll try some of these.

If you aren't a gamer

I wanted to take a moment before we dive in to talk to all the non-gamers out there. You're probably thinking, "why am I reading a post from Koby about video games?" Or you're thinking, "gamers are so cringe", or maybe, "video games are such a waste of time".

We all have pastimes. Maybe you're a saint, so your pastime is reading or baking, but for lots of people in America, we spend a lot of our pastimes looking at screens - particularly watching some form of entertainment (movies, TV, social media). Although I am an advocate for lower screentime in general (see my post "Simplicity") I love watching a good show every once in a while!

Essentially, video games are a form of screentime that is active, rather than passive. You're required to make stuff happen, rather than to sit there are be happened to. Again, I'm not saying movies are bad, but if you're a movie watcher (at all) you have no right to hate on gaming. Games are often very social, or have challenging puzzles, complex decision making, immense perseverance, or all of the above!

Like any entertainment medium, there is always something out there for everyone. If someone says they aren't really a reader, usually they can at least admit that there probably is a book for them and they could become a reader through this book. In the same way, there are so many kinds of video games that could be exactly what you're looking for, you just haven't looked yet.

My housemate Maggie recently became a "gamer", if you will. She used to be adamantly against them, until one family vacation tore it all down. She got hooked on Crash Bandicoot. Now it's a common occurrence to see her on the TV downstairs, locked in to a race. She even gave a presentation on it at my birthday party! (With a PowerPoint and everything... ...ok It was a presentation party 😉)

All that to say, these are just my thoughts. I'm sure a different gamer could give you a different set of reasons for why you should humor video games. I hope you'll try a game out someday (unless you're one of those no-screens-ever person, keep doing your thing bro).

Close to my heart (but not the best)

Lego Star Wars

Oh, Lego Star Wars :'). This was one of the first video games I ever played. I have a memory playing through a Mustafar level on the GameCube at my neighbors house. To be honest, it was so hard, I was so distraught that I kept dying. I also remember playing through A New Hope with Chester (my brother) on one of them big round TVs on the original Xbox. I even played this game with Kiden as a newly married couple.

Lego Star Wars is exactly what it sounds like. It's a Star Wars video game, but everything is Lego. This game is such a classic - great mechanics, great level design, hilarious animations, and it revolves around being a 2-player game! You get to destroy pretty much everything in every level - it's so dope. The feeling of getting "True Jedi" is incredible, let me tell you.

In Lego Star Wars you get to play through the 6 star wars movies. There's a few levels per movie. For example, you start out as Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi on a ship, and need to fight your way out. You will need to use your lightsabers, the force, and build a few contraptions to make your way through the level. But in other levels, you might play as Padme, or Han Solo, or even C-3PO! And the game has great replayability as there are tons of things to unlock if you go back and replay the levels (after you beaten a level, you can play it with any character).

FYI, there is a new Lego Star Wars out, but I have not played that one. I don't know if it's any good or not. I do highly recommend the OG.

Minecraft

I still remember the instant craze Minecraft was when it first came out. Actually, before that I remember watching my cousin play one of the OG releases before I even knew what Minecraft was. A few weeks/months (I don't remember) later, it was coolest thing in my 5th grade classroom. Everyone was talking about it, and after I got over "the graphics are so bad!" I realized I felt a ton of FOMO. I just had to play Minecraft.

Chester and I started playing Minecraft on the Xbox 360, and it was amazing. A video game where you could do whatever you want? That's crazy! Building a base, going mining for DIAMONDS, fighting creepers, it was all so fun. My early days of Minecraft consisted of playing with friends, doing a lot of creative mode, and just figuring stuff out. Also Minecraft parodies...

(If you never built a house out of diamond blocks in creative mode, have you even really played Minecraft?)

I switched to playing mostly on the PC because of my friend Johnmark. I discovered servers! "What do you mean I can play with my friends when they're at home?!?!". I did some research, and soon after hosted my own server for my friends. Honestly, as I write this, I'm just thinking of like a thousand different memories about Minecraft. I can't share them all here, but reader, if we have a Minecraft memory together, just know I cherish that 😊

Eventually, Minecraft faded as my obsession. I don't think I'm creative enough for it. However, over the years, Minecraft has been a game I can always come back to. It's so fun to build your own world from 0 to 100. You can express creativity in such great ways. It's a great beginner video game. When Kiden and I were dating long distance, we had (have) a Minecraft world that we played in together.

I think Minecraft deserves it's spot as one of the greatest video games ever. If you've never played, you ought to try! It's such a classic, and can fit multiple vibes.

Black Ops (II and III)

Beginnings, and Multiplayer

Call of Duty: Black Ops II was the first M rated game I played (excluding Halo, because it doesn't really count). I won it at a raffle at my dad's work party, so they had to let me play it (haha). It was through Black Ops II that I first purchased Xbox Gold (with my own money) so I could play online with random people (one of my first online gaming experiences). I was pretty bad tbh. but playing Black Ops with friends was awesome!

If you're not familiar, Black Ops II is just a game where you shoot other people, it's pretty simple. There's a few different game modes, and they're mostly team based. This is one of the OG games to play with friends. Playing "Gun Game" with setbacks on 10 is something I still love to do today, 10 years later.

A few years later, Chester and I bought an Xbox One, and we had to get the newest Black Ops. Call of Duty: Black Ops III took the series to the future, with wall running, jetpacks, and way more vibrant graphics. In this game, I got a lot more invested into the multiplayer. I was a little older, so I took it a little more seriously. I got more into the unlockables, and was desperate to max out my VMP (sub machine gun).

Overall, Black Ops (II and III) are great games. I think they are classic Call of Duty games and if you have a friend with a copy, ask them to boot it up!

Zombies

Zombies is a unique gamemode where you load into an apocalyptic map and fight wave after wave of zombies that increase in number and strength, until you eventually die. You can spin the "mystery box" to get better guns and "pack a punch" them to make them extra powerful. There's also perks to increase your player's stats. In contrast to "Multiplayer", Zombies is a collaborative gamemode where you work with other players to fight against the zombies.

Zombies has a lot more depth than it might sound like. There are many different maps, from a lava ridden town, an Austrian castle, soviet Russia, or even the Pentagon! (there's a lot more, seriously) There is a super deep lore to it (which I know nothing about) and all sorts of fun weapons you can use. Each map actually has an "Easter Egg" which is a series of steps to complete to "beat" the map.

Zombies became special to me when I was in college. Somehow, it became a routine for my housemates and I to gather in the den and play some 'bies. I have countless memories playing with my friends:

• One time we asked the neighbors to borrow an Xbox controller, bringing a Ripstick as collateral
• One time we stayed up super late trying to get all four "Wonder weapons" in Der Eisendrache, and the game completely froze right after finishing the last one - God was telling us to go to bed
• One time we played for like 5 or 6 hours straight, getting to round 40 (you can't pause the game, so we'd have special strategies to let someone go to the bathroom). We died because we wanted to be done
• We completed our first easter egg on Mob of the Dead 😌

I love Zombies.

Valorant

Brief background Ok, one game I played a lot of in later middle/high school was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO). Counter-Strike has been around since November 9th, 2000, and since I was trying to be a "PC Gamer" I decided I needed to pick up one of the classics.

In CSGO, there are two teams of 5. Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. The Terrorists try to plant a bomb, and the Counter-Terrorists try to stop them. You play two halves of 15 rounds, and it's first to 16 wins. This game requires strong teamwork, strategy, and patience.

This game was also my first introduction to "skins", which I will explain briefly: skins are now a common business model in the gaming industry. In Counter-Strike, you can buy keys/crates with real money and open them in the game to receive a random "skin", changing the look of your weapons. These skins can also be sold/traded. Most of the time, you get a lame skin that is worth $0.05, but if you are lucky, you can unbox an extremely valuable skin. It could be $20, $100, $1,000, or even $1.5 million!!! Knife skins are especially appealing, but exceedingly rare. Normally, you'd think, "wow that's so stupid". But somehow, skins start to get more and more appealing. I admit, I've probably spent like $20 unboxing stuff. I still own like a $5 - $10 AK-47 skin.

Anyways, Valorant is a game like CSGO, except you play a unique character with abilities that replace grenades and other utilities. It's got a more fun art style than CSGO, so I thought Kiden could maybe be interested. We started to play Valorant together in the summer of 2023. She had graduated from Pokémon and Lego Star Wars and was ready to play a shooter 😳. These were some great times. It was so fun to strategize together, pull off plays together, save one another, and each game was a new challenge to overcome. During these times, Kiden was the one asking me to play Valorant, can you believe that?!

After we got the hang of it, we started playing with some friends. That grew to routine (multiple times per week) 5 person groups playing together. We had so many ups and downs in these months, but it was such a great excuse to spend extra time with our friends! We'd hang out at someone's house, and everyone would go home, but we'd hop on and keep hanging out on the game 😁

Although Valorant can be tough to learn, it's so worth it for the strategizing and succeeding with your friends. There's just something about it.

Apex Legends

Ok, I'm slightly embarrassed to talk about this for some reason? I wouldn't say Apex has a special place in my heart, but I definitely was obsessed with it for a time.

A "battle royale" is a type of game where you land on an ever shrinking map and have to hunt for weapons/armor/ammo/etc and eliminate the rest of the people who are on this map with you. It's like hunger games, but you don't start with anything. Apex Legends is the first battle royale I played. In Apex, you're on a squad with 3 other people and you each play a character with special abilities ("hero shooters" are common games now, where you play as a person with abilities) to help you fight and survive to be the last team standing.

I started playing Apex before Kiden and I got married, all the way back in 2022. I had a mid PC that could kind of run it, and I would queue up a game, die immediately, and queue up again. I have no idea why I enjoyed it. I will say, the adrenaline rush of "you die, you're out" is an insane feeling. It takes a bit to not freak out when you see an enemy team. The payoff when you actually eliminate another team - or even make it to last team standing is truly powerful. I can imagine why battle royales became so popular.

Things took a pause after my last quarter of school + wedding + honeymoon + moving + starting new job, but after I built a nice PC for the first time in my life (shoutout ITX) I downloaded Apex. I started playing, and... I started getting good. I got so obsessed with Apex, trying to learn all the fancy moves, figure out what character works best for me (it's Rampart btw) and learn to use the right weapons.

Apex is the kind of game that makes you feel like you've gotta queue again, because, "you can't end on a loss", or alternatively, "gotta keep this win streak going". Gambling addicts beware.

Apex actually has a lot of random stuff you need to learn, and lots of complex inputs (many many buttons) but I learned them all. I do recommend it, but just give yourself grace at the beginning, because you'll probably die a lot.

This is one of the (many) games where I played often with friends. Apex was the reason for starting a Discord server with my friends in 2023, and we use it still today! It's expanded to a server where we post our life updates, hobbies, random pics, and lots more. Anyways, Apex "customs" are where you can run your own lobby of minigames. These games are fast paced, wildly energetic, and oftentimes hilarious. If you've got 6 people with Apex, maybe give it a try!

My absolute favorites

Terraria

Oh boy, I certainly remember the summer I was introduced to Terraria. I was visiting my brother Kyle in Athens, Georgia, and he set me up on his computer to mess around while he was at work (I promise that's not all I did while I was there). Terraria instantly got my attention. I had not found a single player game that had captivated me in the same way as this before.

Terraria (ter-rair-ia) is a pixel-art 2D sandbox game that's often compared to Minecraft. You can do whatever you want in the world. However, there's a TON of unique items, enemies, NPCs, bosses, mechanics, etc. Minecraft is great for it's elegant simplicity, but Terraria shines in its content. In Minecraft, you can tame horses and grow wheat, but in Terraria, you can mine for "crimson ore", get "Hermes Boots", and fight "The Wall of Flesh"? You can get wings and fly! You can have all sorts of pets to accompany your adventures! People often call it a "wiki game" (because there's so much depth and random stuff that greatly helps to know) but I love that. The visuals are dope, the music is fitting, it's all just so superb.

One specific thing I love is the progression. There is always something to do next - be it the next ore to mine, the next enemy to fight for a specific drop, the next boss to beat to unlock a new tier of weapons, the progression is just PERFECT.

Like I mentioned earlier, at the time I hadn't found a single player game that was really captivating for me, but Terraria was the one. I think the reason I was drawn in was the progression. As you've noticed, all of the games I have mentioned so far involve other people. I love to compete or to collaborate. I don't usually get immersed into the story of a game, or want to be on my own, but since this game had a ladder for me to climb, I had to get to the top!

Each playthrough I start, I am immediately enchanted by the next milestone to achieve. It's a hypnotic rhythm - mine an ore, craft a weapon, fight some enemies to get a better weapon, fight a boss so I can mine the next ore, and it keeps going on. I can easily dive into the wiki reading about all the drop rates and materials and mechanics. I can play for hours, stopping to work and whatever 🙄 just to get back on so I can get closer to beating the Moon Lord 😤

I HIGHLY recommend playing Terraria. It is in my top 2 favorite games. I probably will keep doing playthroughs every year or two. It is multiplayer as well, FYI 😉

Smash

Brawl

If you didn't have a Wii with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, did you even live during the late 2000s? This was an essential party game during the Wii days - you have to have played it (if not, I won't explain it because this post is already so long, so maybe google it).

I loved Brawl when I was a kid. To be honest, I really dislike the game now, but as a kid, it was everything. We played with all the items, mostly playing on "Temple". I mostly played Toon Link and Snake. Back in those days, we all thought Olimar was a joke. The Smash Orb showing up in game would totally enact chaos. It was wild.

I played Brawl on and off, but a distinct memory I have is playing it on a cruise ship when I was 13. I was in the "teens lounge" (or whatever they called it) and I was trying so hard. There was one other kid who was good, and each game we played, I would give everything I had to emerge victorious.

I fell out of love with Brawl once I realized how slow everything was. All my moves go out at micro speeds, it's like playing in slow motion (compared to the other smash games).

Ultimate

Many years passed, and during covid my friend Riley brought a Nintendo Switch over to my house. I got to experience the newest Smash title - Ultimate. I was amazed at the amount of characters, the amazing graphics, and how much more fun the game was without the items (haha). I also learned how to roll, and how to shield (game changing mechanics). After having not played for many years, I wasn't too bad 😏. A few hangouts later, I was begging Riley to bring the switch over so I could play some more Smash. Eventually, he let me borrow it?!?! I practiced with CPUs over and over again, honing in my Mr. Game & Watch.

During the first half of 2020, I really got into smash. Although Smash can be a fun chaotic party game, I wanted the competition. I wanted to hit some sweet combo, to 3-stock someone, to hit a crazy spike. We'd hang out a lot (because of online school/no school) and I’d always ask someone to 1v1 me - but over time, fewer and fewer were up for it. To some, I was taking the fun out of the game by being too competitive, but for others, I was igniting a flame.

Eventually, everyone had to separate for college, and I was left with no switch to use...

Melee

You need to watch this

But then, I realized the beauty of emulation. Instead of spending $380 (switch + video game + online subscription) just to play Ultimate, I could spend $20 for a USB gamecube controller adapter and play an older smash bros online on my computer. This new thing called "Slippi" just dropped, and since I love Smash Bros, I've got to try it!

I downloaded Slippi and got it set up, and... I was up until 4:30 am playing match after match. Super Smash Bros. Melee was what I was looking for. It's super fast, the combos feel incredible, and the depth of gameplay is unmatched in any other Smash title.

Melee was actually one of the first video games I ever played. I played through the campaign on my neighbors Gamecube (yeah, the same one I played Lego Star Wars on). I learned how to "up B"/"up special"/"recover" and get back on the stage (which is an incredibly important part of the game). Yeah, I just used the C-stick for the rest, but it was awesome. To realize this game I had played in my youth actually had a deep (and long) competitive history, I was enthralled.

"Why do people play Melee, the 20 year old Smash Bros?" Well, Melee was intentionally designed to be deeper and more technically demanding than its predecessor. It is the fastest Smash bros title, requiring quick reflexes and precise control. There's no buffer system, meaning your moves need to be frame perfect or they might not happen. It has advanced fighting and movement techniques that make the game feel buttery smooth once you get them down. It also has a way longer hit stun, meaning it's easier to combo (and to get comboed). Skilled players can put together the hypest sequences, but a single mistake could turn the whole match around. It's electric.

I love Melee a lot more than Ultimate because in Ultimate, the game is all about "neutral" - spacing, baiting, and poking your opponent, looking for an opening. And once you hit someone, you only get 1 or 2 more hits before you're back to the neutral phase. I feel like this encourages cheesy gameplay, where you spam the same moves, or throw out a thousand projectiles, or some other lame thing. Melee is all about the expression - each match is an opportunity for creative, high-risk, high-reward gameplay. Mastering a character is personal. You experiment and figure out what works, inventing new ways to play, rather than just doing what everyone else does. The gameplay feels intensely intentional, like you're truly crafting each match in real time.

I played Melee quite a bit towards the end of the summer of 2020, and stopped when I moved to college (since I had way too much stuff occupying my time).

A few years later (and some off-and-on Melee seshes) I got back into Melee, and realized I still love the game. I modified my Wii to run modded Melee and bought a CRT (one of them big TVs). Right now, Melee is one of my obsessions. I totally could play it for many hours, and I want to go to tournaments (to actually get good) but I am struggling to find the time amidst my other responsibilities. I'm using Obsidian (a whole 'nother post) to organize my life so I can keep up the hobby, so maybe in a few posts I'll be talking about my first tournament experience 🤓

If you're wondering, I play Falco.

Smash in General

Smash Bros is my favorite video game because

1. It's competitive - I love competition, and few games make you face off so directly. The gameplay is so raw, it's all about your execution
2. It's fast paced - the quick thinking, adrenaline, it's elating
3. Each game is new - a new opportunity to try a new strategy or combo

The learning curve might be a little steep at first (I've heard loads of people say "oh I just press the buttons") but it's so worth it once you know what you're doing. It feels so satisfying to "read" your opponent and pull off an amazing combo. If you lose, it's truly your fault - that actually gives me solace. Also, you can just try again (matches are really short). Whether you're destroying someone or getting owned, each match is an opportunity to learn and try again.

Also FYI I play Roy in Ultimate.

Conclusion

Ok, this is probably my longest post so far. If you've made it this far, I really appreciate it. It's lots of my own opinions and memories, so for you to read them means a lot to me.

I do want to say that this post is my opinions and memories. I like very specific types of games. There's plenty of different video game genres that I haven't even covered that others find the most joy in. Games like Skyrim, Dark Souls, Age of Empires, Zelda, Destiny, etc etc etc. If you know a gamer in your life, maybe ask them about the games that they like? You'll likely get a different answer than mine.

Also, there are a few games that I skipped in this post (future content babyyyy 😛). I didn't mention Halo, Geometry Dash, Team Fortress 2, New Super Mario Bros., and some others. Those are games I have also invested a good amount of time into, but maybe I can write about them later (or maybe not).

And please comment, I love your comments. Thanks for reading 💙