Video Games and Endurance

Life is tough, and finding a career, going to school, and paying off loans, and other aspects in our day to day endeavors take up so much time and energy that to play video games would be just a waste of time. This is how many who hate video games feel, thinking that they are of no importance. But are they right in their assessment? Are video games just a time-killer that hampers the important things in life? They can be. But so can sports, watching movies, playing board games, and even exercising and working if taken to an excess. Moderation is a beautiful word and playing video games in moderation can not only be fun, but also can teach people important lessons about endurance when life gets hard. We all face challenging levels and enemies when playing games. We play Megaman X, fighting robot master after robot master, only to get to Sigma X and get wiped on the floor by him. The Ninja Gaidan games, both for the original Nintendo and the Xbox and the Playstation consoles, are merciless in their difficulty. The Dark Souls games are unforgiving, challenging players to think outside the box when defeating enemies such as the dynamic duo of Dragon Slayer Ornstien and Executioner Smough, and when withstanding the cruel blows of the Lost Sinner. In the Starcraft and the Warcraft series, players face insurmountable odds when they are swarmed by enemies. Is this any different than real life? True, we aren’t fighting monsters in a life and death battle, nor can we wield magic, and nor are we fighting aliens or zombies, but we do face insurmountable odds in life that feel impossible to overcome. Just as the player is hit in the darkness by Lost Sinner in Dark Souls II, often it feels like the darkness of life is hitting us from each and every direction. Financial problems can close in on us, like a swarm of Zerg threatening to overwhelm us. Maybe it feels like we’re about to lose our sanity, from our job or our not being employed, and we are just holding on as hard as we can to that last extra heart to keep it from going out. I remember one time in particular in which I was jobless. I spent about a year looking for a job, with nothing coming up. I was despondent. What really helped keep my sanity was an old NES game I downloaded onto my Wii. Castlevania III was a difficult game to say the least. By the time my party reached Dracula, it didn’t seem like I’d be able to beat him. He was just too darn hard. It took me numerous tries to beat his first form, only for him to take on a second and much more powerful form. By the time he reached his third form, I was fighting for dear life. Each time he handed me my heart on a platter, mocking me and my insignificant attempts. I cannot possibly enumerate the times I died, and the pain of having to start over at the beginning of the level (though thankfully not at the beginning of the game) again and again and again. Then one day, I dealt the final blow to that vampire. The credits rolled as the castle fell, and I felt a sense of newfound glory after numerous attempts. It was then that an epiphany hit me. If I could eventually slay the dark vampire lord, then I could also eventually get a job. Yes, there were some hurdles to overcome, some barriers that felt nigh impossible, but it could be done. In time I did land a job, and it felt glorious. I have Castlevania III and other video games to thank for that. Aside from being compared to an action game, life can also be thought up as an RPG. Sometimes it takes work and effort to reach a certain point. One can spend hours upon hours playing the Nintendo’s Dragon Warrior I, trying to level a character up to a suitable level to brave another territory. But that experience of fighting monsters makes your character stronger. We defeat one challenge, only to face a bigger challenge, but in the end more XP is earned. Just like in an RPG, we start out weak and frail as children, having to start out fighting slimes, but as we gain experience and turn into adults, we become warriors fighting dragons. We learn strategies in life for how to cope with problems barraging us from every direction, fortifying our defenses as though we would against an attack from an enemy army in Warcraft. We think of new ways to overcome a problem, like Dark Souls teaches us. We learn to be quick on our feet to act, but graceful, like a Ninja facing his adversaries. Sometimes we die in games, true, but we continue on. When we mentally die in life, we can choose to press our own continue button, even though going through life living each year is a level full of obstacles. Video games can teach the importance of endurance, and that we can keep going on. Truth be told, perhaps when life is hard is when it’s the best time to learn from a video game.