I started playing Arcade in young age. I don't know what made me to do it
or what was the compelling idea behind playing games. But I enjoyed
playing games a lot and still do. I don't consider it a bad things but
others do.
I started playing games on Atari, the first console. With the single
attack button you can do so much. Kill stuff shoot stuff. My friend had
Nintendo, the Mario brothers. Played all day and never got bored of it.
These two console were really awesome time killer. But then their era
ended.
I was happy to bought my own Sega console. Played sonic the hedgehog,
with my brother. But all these games were not simply time killers. I
seen Mario going mindlessly to save a girl, to achieve his goal he hop
madly just on a push of button. He never got tired and went on and on,
no matter what type of hurdles you put in-front of the guy. Sonic is
little more complex. When you collected enough rings you ran into some
being and loose all your collection. Like the ups and downs of life,
sonic ran and ran till he crosses check point. Discovery of these
virtual worlds also led my imagination out. I became more focused and
objective oriented due these time killers. Here many of you will
disagree with me because your child probably sitting in-front of you
playing some console and your telling him/her to get a life.
Then came something called Sinclare, a keyboard and computer type model.
You have to load magnetic tape in it to play games. Games were
entertaining as well as educational. But most of all it was my first
programing experience. It thought me how put commands and specific lines
what they mean to digital system. The loading from magnetic tape always
fascinated me and it was magical how you can load set of instruction
through magnetic tape. The screen with bars and lines during loading
always put a smile on my innocent face (I was cute back then).
Sinclare was mu first encounter with computers. Growing was fun with so
fascinating stuff. Thanks to the inventors of such console, devices and
games. Then started era of computers. This was the time when doom
PC(Personal Computers) and other first person shooter came. It was fun
hitting and killing stuff. It was violent tough but you were not killing
stuff in real. Many kids were now in home playing over PC. In virtual
worlds we were killing machines. Killing all kinds of stuff, genetically
modified killer zombies. But now our parent got concerned, they thought
too much time was spent over playing games then doing something worth
while. But i was learning, i learned to sneak in my brother's bed room
and then doing stealth attack on him. I leaned getting on high ground
gives you strategic advantage. And where to hit to make others suffer.
The perfect aiming was achieved. It made my reflexes more strong and
grate.
My PC was not gaming but it was enough 833 mghz p3 category. Then came
games like Age of Empires. You literally can control stuff in a world.
You have your subjects and you can make people kill them and destroy
enemies, with real wars. Food, wood, gold and rocks were used to built
your economy. Playing was fun because i was now able to play against
real players, My friends. We played all day long to achieve best economy
the killing each other, like similar the corporate world does to us. It
made my decisions more focused and more it made me realize i never like
to surrender. Loosing was not an option and this attitude was developed
in me through games. There was to much strategic planing involved and
you learn about histories of different civilizations. Like in commandos,
you have to look different ways to get into enemy territory. So you
plan, scout the area and gather Intel or resources.
Then came the games that you play online with a team against other
teams. Counter strike you all may have heard of it. The counter strike
made my English so good, i mainly started using English to format my
thoughts or jolting down a plan. Communication became so important and
this made my English more good. Co-op planning was at its height. I was
able to kill all terrorists but yes with a good team. Save the day by
disarming the bombs they planted. Putting all terrorist into ground. But
sometimes the arrogant sound comes, terrorists win. Countries spent
millions and months to tackle the terrorists and we did it in hours with
no special training.
So i established well enough, giving hour of hours fun and entertaining
time i spent on games, I learnt a lot. So your kids are doing the same
don't stop them but guide them what to play with and what not to.
Regards
Syed Sohaib Jamil
