The True Power of Games

So my brother’s going to prison. And not one of those small-town Dukes of Hazard jails either. No, my brother’s making his way to one of those scary-ass no BS federal penitentiaries. Apparently, armed bank robbery is still frowned upon these days. Who knew. I guess the judicial system’s sense of humor hangs rather low in cases like this. Regardless, off goes my best friend; a nice little vacation in a taxpayer-funded all inclusive luxurious gray-bar hotel.

And yet, despite all the exploding chaos of tangled emotions, heartbreak, and frustrating confusion, all I can think about are the good times. And coincidentally, the good times are synonymous with PC gaming. And Bri did love him some gaming, lemme tell ya. You may have known him as Dr. Hate on Steam. You may have even played a game or two with him. I grew up playing games with him. And PC gaming, as bizarre as it sounds, was the cement between the bricks of our fraternal attachments. So much in fact, that his departure from the public sector (and my life in general), has left a deep pit where my gaming soul used to reside. The bricks are still there, but the cement has crumbled.

We had a tradition of sharing our gaming experiences together. Whether a game was good or bad, laughable or life-altering, Bri was the initial one to hear about it. The first time I opened the dungeon doors and witnessed, in astonishment, the majesty of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s sprawling landscapes, I remember thinking: I can’t wait to show this to Brian. Oh my God he’s gonna go nuts. I vividly recall walking with him on a brisk Vermont summer afternoon next to the West branch river, pointing up to Mount Mansfield through the distant faded clouds and saying, “Dude, you know how if we kept walking, we’d eventually hit Mansfield and explore it? That’s how Oblivion works. The game’s mountains in the distance? You can climb them.You have to play this game.”

A deeper connection developed through digital events like these.

A few days later he was hooked. We had to fight each other for keyboard-time on my old-ass Alienware tower. We’d purposely avoid bathroom breaks due to immediate high-jacked computer chairs and alternate loaded save games. More often than not, he won this battle. But frankly? Watching him trudge through the digital wilderness while I chugged the Mountain Dew and tossed down the Cheetos, witnessing his guttural emotions and animated responses from the game’s multiple stimuli, cheering him on during the tense arena duels: these were almost as fun as actually playing the damn game.

See, for me? PC gaming has long been a symbiotic brotherly relationship. Sure, at times Brian and I were hundreds of miles apart, but we were sharing the same medium, reminiscing from the same materials, partaking of the same art. Playing our games and expressing our verbal opinions to each other was a method of staying in touch. A way to mend the loneliness. For me and Brian, PC gaming was our baseball outings, our gradation parties, our spring breaks. PC gaming was what connected us socially and spiritually. PC gaming is what separated us from those who just. Didn’t. Get it.

PC gaming made us whole.

All those LAN death matches in Duke 3D, our cacophonous tirades from getting Mammoth tank-rushed in C&C (still bullcrap, by the way), our mutual amusement as each of us obliterated all those cocky fools in competitive Quake 1 scrims, our mixed howls of frustration and cackling glee from getting a ‘nade to the face in Ghost Recon… this is what PC gaming is truly about: the memories. The camaraderie. The unspoken and  heartfelt connections between us and our fellow kindred spirits. PC gaming is so much more than a method of simply passing the time. PC gaming is not a cup of coffee. PC gaming is not a freakin’ sitcom. It’s a passion, and a passion that’s best shared with others.

And above all else, the worst aspect for Brian, in my opinion, is the nuance that he’ll no longer share with me these gaming experiences. Not for a long time. And that, dear readers, is a tragedy.  The true power of gaming lays not within the games themselves, but rather in the potential emotional power that sits beneath them.

I’m sorry I’ve lost this from you Bri. Looks like we’ll have some catching up to do.