Skyler's Favorite Game

If you’re like me, you’ve been asked “What do you do for fun?” and you might say in response “I like to play video games.” To the person who asked they will think of a handful of games in their head and assume you play all of them, but to you, you have just told them something so general that you could have just said “I have been known to breath from time to time.”

A question that soon follows is “So what’s your favorite video game?” It admittedly is a simple enough question to the average so-and-so. Some schmuck on the street could answer “Call of Halo 7: Advanced Skirmish Tactics,” and if you are anything like me, you cringe at that answer.

I mean there are so many games that I have played with so many unique qualities from each that I like. With the story from a Legend of Zelda, and the unique game play design from Borderlands, and the bar setting platforming of most any Mario game, it boils down to comparing Apples and Oranges and Screwdrivers and a 1922 Buick Roadster.

Sure you can go to the game you like the most RIGHT NOW, or a game that you are most looking forward to in a franchise, or even the game you remember sinking the most hours into. That’s a chump way out though. You know that you can’t do that but by now you are probably getting sweaty and red faced thinking about how to answer this question.

So instead of picking my favorite game, I’m going to talk about the game that has impacted me the most. With the hundreds of games I’ve played and the thousands of dollars I’ve spent collecting them I have to say that the one that has impacted me the most has got to be Pokémon Red for the Gameboy. This was the first game that really sucked me into it. I can remember the times before I started playing Pokémon. I was outgoing; I rode bikes, and played outside. This game steered me down the path of staying in dark rooms and staring at screens until my eyes were bloodshot.

While it sounds like I resent Pokémon for driving me to a life of being an introvert Pokémon was actually the first thing to introduce me to a counter culture. Without Pokémon, I more than likely would not have found my way into comic books, and then dungeons and dragons, and anime, and a lot of other stuff that I now have come to cherish. It is all because I popped a little red cartridge with a dragon on it into a big grey gameboy. Without that, I can tell you that I would have most likely been a completely different person. Pokémon was the first domino that pushed me into the videogame-nerdy-tech culture that most of us find ourselves in now.

So I may not be able to file down every game I’ve played to a number one spot, but I can at least indentify the game that has impacted me the most and that’s not nothing.