My first real experience was when I was 6 years old and my two older brothers Craig and Damien booted up the Playstation. As I heard the musical introduction, I opened me eyes and saw the orange diamond that was the Sony Computer Entertainment Logo. “Wow!” I exclaimed, as I was welcomed to it all. I couldn’t play since I didn’t know how to use the Playstation. Craig would soon give the console to me and I played on and on into my teens. Sonic the Hedgehog’s running, Street Fighter’s bone-crushing punches and kicks, or Team Fortress 2’s gunshots and cooperation; the videogame was my portal to worlds I would never think up on my own. Videogames offer a combination of emotional experiences no single medium can usually achieve. Happiness, sadness, challenge, learning, confusion, and many other emotions are racing through our heads thanks to a young new medium using many older media.

The phenomenon started in 1972 when German-born American inventor Ralph H. Baer made the Brown Box game console, which soon became the Magnavox Odyssey. He wasn’t the main inventor, but he was the man that helped make games into a multi-billion dollar business. Then came crazes of games like Pac-Man with the Pac-Man Fever and then came Super Mario Bros., arguably the greatest game of its time. We were all into these games and we played our hearts out and dumped our quarters out in the arcades. We were all enjoying ourselves and evolution came to us with home consoles and we could play our hearts out without spending too much.

One game I have been playing recently is “Burnout Paradise”, where you race in cars and crash your opponents into walls, pillars, and other cars to remove them from the race. As you do this, you gain speed boosts to “takedown” the other racers and eventually get 1^st place. With this kind of rule, anything can really happen with very skilled players. I remember seeing the movie “The Fast and The Furious” before this and thought it was ok with the speed and cars, but Burnout made it more exciting with crashes and slams thrown in. Burnout makes me enhance the reality with cars crashing and racing to the finish in the way Fast and Furious’ speed-centered showcase didn’t.

A second example I’ll throw out would be the game “killer7” where you play as an assassin with 7 other personalities. You’re assigned various missions in a time where there is world peace, but a new bizarre terrorist threat has come up. This was a game that made people think about large and broad topics while being exciting with the gameplay. The story is fictional saying how Japan rigged the U.S. elections to gain control, but it shows aspects of other things such as how a religious cult came to be and how it ended. The biggest topic killer7 gives is how anyone has the capacity for good and evil acts in our world as you see death, destruction and oddities every chapter. Various moral dilemmas in the game give reactions to the story or even your teammates willingness to help. For example, killing a Japanese leader in the game would end up with the U.S. destroying Japan in 2014, but letting him live lets him and the U.N. forces rally against the U.S. Do you choose your own country or do you let blood atone for blood and watch retribution occur? I felt killer7 is the video game’s view of a graphic novel (Watchmen, Sin City, etc.) with it’s blood, swearing, and mystery; not that all graphic novels are like that, but the material seemed to come from one exactly.

            So what about the other media? Let’s look at TV for this comparison. When I watch TV, I kind of feel centered on whatever topic they tell us. I feel they usually give one main emotion while videogames give out several. I’d rather choose dramatic, challenging, fun, strategic, and moral teaching role-playing games over mere dramatic soap operas any day. Watching The Young and Restless, I just kind of take whatever the show throws at me such as when a man goes crazy and takes a girl hostage with not many knowing. When I play Final Fantasy, I’m in control of what’s going on and I actually earn the next parts of the story such as when I defeat a hard sub-boss to go through the locked door to the big boss. Plus, in a soap opera, what happens is unchangeable, but playing a game 2 or 3 more times can give much different results. There are the few exceptions in TV I choose to watch and enjoy. Places like Discovery Channel or ESPN are included since it’s real life stuff that I see and learn everyday.

The videogame is still very young and I hope to keep killing zombies, unearthing conspiracies, and stacking blocks until I’m 80 years young. It’s a medium many enjoy and there’s surely a game for everyone out there: girls, oldsters, and otherwise. What I hope is that people don’t look down upon videogames and try one for themselves or get back if they have stopped playing. Nobody needs to be jumping around in a grassy field shooting fireballs at turtles, but it’s fun and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

1. An angry and humorous speech to bring excited moods out of most or to respond to an action. The baseball example qualifies since it responds and shows the emotions of the writer.

2. It shows that not much has changed and ranting is looked down upon in the web. However, you can now argue about anything to anyone and something entertaining can appear.

3. History and Comparison

4. 17th century English sect known as the “Ranters”

5. No, I think rants give entertainment and can bring out debates even.

Hook- She writes how her grandmother would have told a story from the depression to compare the times of today with it.

“I was raised on Depression stories; this was one of many told around the dinner table.” This tells us how the article can relate to the author and readers. It also can set the tone.

“Now that hard times have returned, I believe storytelling is due for a revival.” Since this is a journalistic opinion piece, here she is telling her call to action while wrapping up the story.

To be happy is to be content, delighted, or amused. I become happy over funny things, enjoyable things, or being with my friends and family. I can’t stay happy for very long times, but more I feel confident and understanding. A time I was happy was when I went out with my friend Tasha. We enjoyed each others’ company and we had fun.