Playing Video Games Again

A brief summary of my video gaming:

• When I was 3, I started on NES games. From there on in, I played almost exclusively console games until I was about 14.


• A friend of mine from high school introduced me to Warcraft III, so I played that a bit. I was terrible. I more or less stopped playing games, except for Warcraft III, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. I flirted with the DC area of the high-level Melee scene, and got murdered.


• In college, I played Warcraft my first year. Found the competitive gaming scene, and a great site for competitive Warcraft.


• I didn't play for the four years following.

I mostly mention this because starting a few weeks ago, I started playing again. This has partially to do with my madly brilliant neuroscience friend (now, girlfriend ^_^), and let me say, I'm glad to be back.

You see, video games are the closest thing I have to sports, at least the role sports are usually cast in, in both participation and viewing. I'll contrast with my dad: he can go to bars and talk about why X trade was good for the Nationals, or to discuss Jordan's very brief career with the Wizards.

I don't know enough about my teams to do this, but I can talk about why I prefer watching ReMinD over Moon, or why I still play solo DH against most races. And while my dad likes to DVR games and watch them before bed, I love loading up a good replay to end the day.

But also as a player, video games give me something to work on and master. This video is a bit long, and is good apart from this specific point, but describes what I'm trying to very well:

Namely, that we enjoy doing things and getting good at them, for giggles. Like practicing your foul shots, there's a great feeling that comes from getting better at games.

Luckily for me, I feel these things about programming too. But video games have a softer learning curve (there's SO MUCH to computer science and programming) and aren't going to be my job.

With all that said, for those who don't know and love the pro scene already, here are a few videos that may illuminate. The first two are favorites: (context: in Korea, Starcraft games are televised, with many professional players. Luckily for us, the announcers learned from Latin American Soccer Announcers rather than the dry English-speaking ones. Here's an epic casting of Plague, a Zerg spell):

A similar description of the death of a Reaver (count how often they say it):

Some Pro Smash (Melee), for those who've never seen it:

Finally, a great epic game between my favorite Terran and Zerg players in the Starcraft 2 beta that has been shoutcasted. Skip around if you don't watch the whole thing (which you won't ^_^. The game starts at 3:05):