When I was growing up, me and my brother would always play video games together. As the little brother, I would have to respect the chain of command, and let my older brother take player one. I'm not upset about it, it's just how things were. It wasn't all that bad being player two, sure I got the bottom half of the screen, but at least I got to use my red controller. It wasn't such a bad thing to be growing up in the age of gaming that we did, as everything that came out had some form of splitscreen multiplayer. Though, as we grew up, my brother decided to pursue other interests, like film, music, and girls. I stayed home and played my video games.
It's all part of growing up I suppose. I still love video games, and cartoons, and all of the other things that I grew up with. I think that being the little brother, and being player two affected me in other ways. As with the cartoons that I would watch. My favorite characters in those shows like Dragon Ball Z and Digimon, my favorite character would be the one who would be the "second in command". Picallo for DBZ, and Matt for Digimon. It was the same thing for video games even. My favorite character in Star Fox 64 was Falco, the cocky jackass who would criticize everything that you did, even if you were doing well. I think it's because I left the main character open for my older brother to like. It would be fair if I took the main character from under him. If I did that, I'd be copying him, and I wouldn't be cool to him. Though while my older brother was out, I would be playing video games by myself. I would be player one.
Zelda, Metroid, Shenmue, Soulcalibur, Mario Kart 64, Jet Force Gemini and many other games filled my time. I was getting better at video games. I was starting to be better than my brother. I started to beat him at video games! I think I realized that I had become too good at video games when I beat my brother at Soulcalibur II with an 18-0 record. Video games were clearly becoming my thing, and single player games were how I would spend my time.
My crowning moment was when I picked up Borderlands 2 for my PS3. I told my brother that the game had splitscreen co-op, and that it was really good. To relive the old days, I offered him the player one spot. He turned it down, and told me that it was my game, and that I should take player one. Then we began our quest for guns and blowing stuff up. It was a great moment, and a good time. I had truly become, player one.
I started to find myself associating with the main characters of these video games, among other media. I've always been second in command. I grew to like the idea of being the one in a leadership position. I liked the idea of the lone hero who had to save the world. I was doing things on my own. I was over coming these obstacles before me, and I was winning. I was becoming player one.
As gaming progressed, so did I. My skill was improving as was my leadership skills. Mass Effect's Commander Shepard became my role model, and became a way for me to take on the role of a leader. However, my favorite character to hang out with was Garrus, the ex-cop who was very skilled though didn't care much for rules. Garrus was the second in command. He had all of the tendencies of the characters that I admired back in my youth, though now I found him to be rather immature with his disrespect for the rules. As the leader, I had to keep Garrus in line, and had to show him how to do things the right way. If the player chooses to let Garrus run free, especially in Mass Effect 2, he becomes a mad dog. Commander Shepard has a huge influence on Garrus, even making him a respected officer among his own people by the final instalment of the series. As the leader, players were forced to make decisions that wouldn't please everyone, and make decisions that would affect the outcome of missions. Mass Effect might not be a realistic portrayal of being a leader, as not everyone has to save the galaxy from a race of sentient machines that could completely annihilate the entirety of existence as we know it. However, the game definitely influenced me and encouraged me to be more of a leader in my day to day. I try to teach and to lead whenever I have the opportunity to do so. I don't needlessly take control simply because I can. Only when I know what I'm doing, can I feel confident in leading. That being said, Commander Shepard doesn't necessarily know what she's doing, but still has to take the lead. I can take a page from her book, and take the reigns on certain projects and lead the team to accomplish our goal.
I think that video games can help us in this way: to teach us to be leaders. We may not always be faced with nearly impossible odds, but we can still learn to take the lead to start moving forward. We, as gamers, need to start taking control, as we've always done with the games that we play. We can't sit back and let the game play itself. We are player one, and we can beat this game called life, all we need to do is pick up the controller.
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