Like 4.7 million other people, I tuned in to watch HBO’s broadcast of The Last of Us, the television adaption of Naughty Dog’s hit post-apocalyptic zombie game. Lots of people have written of the similarities and differences between the game and the show, and there’s really nothing more to be said about them; instead, I want to talk about how a show so rooted in the fandom of its source material can pay homage to that material without feeling lazy, condescending, or cringe. We know this feeling well (us video game fans): from Doom’s (2005) infamous first-person sequences and the lackluster storylines of something like Mortal Kombat (2021), to the corny jokes and downright disrespectful handling of their source material (I’m looking at you Super Mario Bros), video game adaptations have a horrible legacy. So, when I watched The Last of Us and got to the part where Joel and Tommy arrive to save Sarah from an infected Mrs. Adler, I was struck with a sense of reverence I’ve never felt with a video game adaptation before.

Let me explain.

After a protracted (though not unwelcome) amount of time spent with Sarah, we finally begin the climactic opening from the video game we all know and love: the one in which Sarah is rushed into Joel’s car with Tommy to ultimately meet her tragic end. As we know, The Last of Us is a third-person survival horror game—we see almost everything from behind the main character’s back. In this instance, as with the video game, Sarah is the protagonist—we follow her, shaky cam and all. Then, in a seamless transition, Sarah is thrust into the back of Joel’s truck and we (the audience) are made to view this ride through the high-octane, cramped, and terrifying first-person point-of-view. This is not Doom, either; this is natural, this makes sense, this is that heart-pumping feeling video games are meant to evoke. Unlike so many other video game adaptations that seem to try too hard to blend their cinema roots with that of their interactive source material, the team behind The Last of Us is able to make a subtle nod to video games.

Subtlety is the name of the game; it’s what all other adaptations lack. Later, we come to what sold me on the team behind HBO’s adaptation: the scene where Tommy becomes separated from Joel and Sarah. Here, divided by burning cars, the scene seems to play out as if it were designed for a video game by video game developers to give the characters a reason to split and for you, the player, to “go around” and learn the ropes. It’s so common an event that I almost expect it to happen when I’m playing a video game. In HBO’s The Last of Us, this scene made me smile, bringing forth memories of all those frustrating times I was forced to do the exact same thing Pedro Pascal was forced to do. Hell, Gabriel Luna, the actor playing Tommy in the show, even reacts silently to getting split up, as if he’s waiting for his queue to begin speaking his dialogue while the main character reacts to what just happened. It’s Joel who’s screaming for Tommy, but we don’t hear anything from Tommy until he pops into Joel’s field of view. Staged like a video game, but feeling as natural as a piece of quality cinema, I was giddy to see it all unfold.

Subtle, seamless, and without the annoying wink and nod that so many directors get wrong, the filmmakers behind HBO’s The Last of Us genuinely seem to not only care for their source material, but understand the importance of treating video games with the respect and dignity they are so often forced to live without.

The above image is pulled from one of Ellie’s flashbacks, her birthday. Ominous and haunting, foreshadowing the heartbreaking truth she will inevitably have to learn, this bloody painting of a betrayed Firefly punctuates the happy adventure Joel had just taken her on.

“Liar.”

A word which repeats itself throughout the entirety of The Last of Us Part II. A concept which, I believe, is the purest distillation of a game that exists entirely as a response to its predecessor's famed finale:

A straight-faced lie told to a scared girl. In The Last of Us, the foundation upon which Ellie is built is that of her immunity. It gives her purpose; and then that purpose is stripped from her and she has nothing left to offer the world. Now, in Part II, we find her trying to build herself upon a new foundation; but that foundation is built on a lie, it’s weak, and it will eventually crumble. And while there are many, many things propelling Part II’s story forward, the inevitability of Ellie discovering the truth lends a sort of nervous energy to the game. Eventually, you think, she will learn what actually happened, and she will begin to question, and perhaps even stop, her bloody crusade for a man who sacrificed the world for her—one little (in her eyes) insignificant girl. Only, that’s not what happens.

She discovered and confronted Joel about the truth years before the game started, and it’s as a flashback, displaced and detached from the visceral violence of the main narrative, that you watch this occur. And then, as if the lie never really mattered, the game thrusts you back to bloody Seattle. Back to the same old violence. To an Ellie who hates Joel, who wants nothing to do with him, and yet, one who seeks revenge. Why, I wondered? Why go through such lengths to avenge a man who not only betrayed her, but destroyed the very world as well? For love, you say, and that’s part of the equation, sure; but then, if love was Ellie’s true motivation, why would she abandon her pregnant girlfriend in order to get to Abby? And why would she later go on to leave her and their infant son alone for revenge?

Dina herself makes these exact points when she tells Ellie, “[Abby] doesn’t get to be more important than us.” She makes these exact points when she asks Ellie to “prove” her love by staying instead of going after Abby.

And yet, despite Ellie’s “love,” she leaves; because love isn’t the reason Ellie does what she does. And until I saw the other flashbacks between Joel and her, I didn’t realize how I’d been asking the wrong questions to begin with; because it isn’t the why of everything that concerns Ellie. She knows why Joel saved her and lied to her; and she knows why Abby tortured and killed him. What she doesn’t know is how.

How could Joel damn the world? How could Joel have lied to her? How could Abby have been so cruel (a question which repeats itself throughout as Dina asks about Tommy's past and all the horrible things he and Joel have done to people)? How can she ever, like Dina, just let it all go? And, most importantly, how could she ever forgive?

It’s in search of those answers that ultimately propels Ellie forward. For yes, there is still the inescapable rage and pain of watching the man she loved die. But when she starts her journey, she understands all the whys; but none of the hows. She is just a kid, after all. She has yet to learn any of them. And if you were to track Ellie’s journey, those are the lessons you would find for a girl whose entire persona was built on a lie. A persona now being dismantled by the truth, a truth doing all of this during a time in her life when she is already, like every teenager, feeling self-conscious and out-of-place and lost. By the beginning of her horrible crusade, all that Ellie knows about herself is the rage and the pain, because, as we find out in her final flashback with Joel, she never got the chance to learn how to forgive and how to let go.

In what I would call “The Epilogue” of Part II, Ellie finally has Abby near death. She is choking her beneath the waves; and yet, a flash of Joel prompts her to let go. In these brief seconds is encapsulated the exact reason why Part II exists: how Ellie can go from a revenge seeking monster to a penitent human.

Joel.

In Part II, the first proper scene between the pair of them is one in which Joel promises to finally teach Ellie how to play guitar. How to strum the notes on that instrument and turn off-key, awkward sounds into beautiful music.

He sings for her: "If I ever were to lose you, I'd surely lose myself." A rather obvious message, but Joel isn't a poet. He’s a weary old man—a father—one who has long learned the lessons Ellie hasn't. And though she may hate him for doing what he did, and for having lied to her about it, she is eventually willing to try to forgive him.

It’s the saddest scene in the entire game, I believe. Paralleled only by Dina helplessly begging for Ellie to stay. Because, coming poignantly at the end, it finally explains the very core of Ellie’s pain: the immense guilt and regret of never getting the chance to try to forgive Joel. She wanted him to be her father again. But Abby took that away from her. And not only that, but she had to watch as this man she loved—this man who had always managed to somehow get back up for her, his daughter—was finally bludgeoned to death in the cold ruins of a dilapidated mansion.

Throughout the game, Ellie is mourning the loss of an unfulfilled promise.

Of the what-if she’d bury in the camp cemetery.

In writing this article, I remembered how, during key moments in her life, Ellie has had little to no control over what happened to her. Riley’s death. Sam’s death. Tess’s death. Eventually Joel’s death. David and the cannibals kidnapping her in Part I. Her very immunity even took control of and dictated her life. And, most importantly of all, her surgery. She was entirely absent for a very pinnacle moment in her life. Everyone but her had a say as to how things happened. Everyone but her justified her death.

“If it were [her],” Abby says to her father. But it wasn’t. It was Ellie. And before anyone stops to ask if she is willing to die for the cure, they go ahead and do it.

Or they try to anyway.

Just before the scalpel enters her body, Joel barges in to save Ellie, killing the doctors and killing every chance she has of ever having the option of doing this again.

But what if he hadn’t?

How many innocent people would still be alive if Ellie had cured them?

It’s a question that haunts her.

It’s when she discovers the truth from Joel that she strives to take her life into her own hands—that she attempts to never again be helpless and without control over her own life. It’s what her “we’re done” really means.

Joel did more than lie and betray, he took her autonomy away. And now she wants it back. It’s why she set the terms of their conversation before she tells him “we’re done.” "If you lie to me one more time, I’m gone,” she says. “But if you tell me the truth, I'll go back to Jackson." However this conversation ends up going, she controls it. And later, when they’re back at camp, she avoids him or confronts him when he tries to protect her. “I had Seth under control,” she says. She can handle herself. She even tells him to stop controlling Jesse’s raids; because, by extension, Joel is controlling her raids. Ellie is, as with every teenager, seeking to be her own person, and she sees Joel as an obstacle to that.

But for all her want of control, she ends up watching Joel die.

The propeller for Ellie’s revenge is more than just her rage. It’s more than the fact that her father figure was tortured and murdered. It was that she had to watch him be murdered, helpless, as she has been throughout all of her life. Once again, in the most brutal way possible, with yet another person she cares about, her control was taken from her.

And it’s those relationships, along with new ones she loses throughout Part II, which reinforce her fear of helplessness. Constantly throughout this game, Ellie’s friends try to help her. And they do, but not without her making sure that it is of their own volition. She makes sure that they’re always “good.” That she isn’t inadvertently forcing them to help her or otherwise hurting them in any way. Before accepting Dina’s assistance, for instance, Ellie says she doesn’t want her to feel like she “has” to. It has to be Dina’s choice. But when Ellie learns that Dina is pregnant, it presents a burden on her, because now someone who can’t answer for themselves is a part of this equation: an unborn child.

Ellie can’t be responsible for another person’s death. Nor can she be helpless to watch them die. Even when Abby has her gun pointed at Tommy’s head, or her knife against Dina’s throat, Ellie tries to reason with her:

Abby, of course, sees the horrible irony in Ellie’s plea; and although Ellie can’t quite see it herself yet, Abby realizes the willful ignorance and blind rage that underscores Ellie’s actions. Ellie may not want to be responsible for her friends’ deaths, but she made them a part of this. She is the reason they are all there to begin with; and she is the reason her whole world will eventually come undone. And like any tantruming child unwilling to accept responsibility for their actions, Ellie, during her final confrontation with Abby, threatens Lev with the same death Abby almost gave Dina:

This action of manipulating the truth to protect herself is a pattern which repeats a number of times throughout the game. For instance, when Jesse wants to go after Tommy at the Marina instead of Abby at the Aquarium, Ellie tries to convince him the best course of action is doing the latter when she knows it’s really the former. Later, when Ellie is about to leave Dina and her son for another shot at revenge, she tells Dina that it was “up to [her]” if she was there when Ellie returns. As if to say that’d it’d be Dina’s fault, not hers.

Ellie is fabricating lies in order to justify her behavior, because that behavior is all she has now. It keeps her up at night. It keeps her from eating. The violence and the anger has become a part of her now, filling that void left behind by the immunity that propelled her through the first game. The lies she tells to get her hands around Abby’s neck, rebuild the foundation that Joel wrecked when he told her the truth. She believes she “needs” to go after Abby in order to soothe the pain inside of her.

But it’s not revenge she needs—it’s closure to that unfulfilled promise she made to Joel. And when she finally has her chance at revenge, she lets go. Because now, after everything she’s been through, Ellie understands exactly how Abby could do what she did to Joel, and how Joel could kill everyone in that hospital long ago in order to save her. Compared to someone you love, the rest of the world doesn’t matter; and by the time she has finally gotten her hands around Abby’s neck, Ellie herself has thrown an entire world away—her friends, her family, her lover and her child—and done things that keep her up at night, for just one weary old man who taught her how to play guitar.

I would be remiss not to mention Abby’s role in Ellie’s journey and the game at large. If Ellie’s story chronicles her understanding of how someone could kill and torture and damn an entire world for the love they feel; Abby’s is in learning how anyone could fight for someone other than themselves. She follows a similar path that Joel does in Part I. She begins having lost her father, and lets the tragedy of that loss control her; but by the end of the game, she is a far more humbled person, filled with humility, dignity, and kindness. It’s a switch that begins with Lev, a boy who presents the same opportunity for Abby that Ellie did for Joel: an opportunity to love again.

Going back to Abby’s "you wasted it" scene, I don’t think a younger Abby would’ve said what she did and done what she done here. In the heat of the moment, I questioned her. After all, Abby went on the same crusade as Ellie. They are here because of that crusade. And yet, she thinks she can judge Ellie? But then I took a breath, and I saw this:

Had she been the same girl she’d been at the very beginning of the game, Abby would’ve slit Dina’s throat, hobbled over to a sobbing Ellie and beaten the poor girl to death with the butt end of her blade without hesitation.

Instead, Lev tells her no.

And she walks away.

Even her warning (“Don’t ever let me see you again.”) was feigned:

It’s only when Ellie threatens Lev’s life—someone Abby loves, someone other than herself, someone kind and pure—that Abby fights. Because, like Joel’s, Abby’s journey is one of pain sutured with love. When Abby says “you wasted [your life]” she does so because now, after what she’s been through, she understands the value of life. A girl before Lev and a girl before Joel, wouldn’t have said that.

There is a very poignant and powerful moment that occurs between Abby and her lover, Owen, that I think captures and sums up not only this point, but the whole story at large:

Abby: Sorry I grew up. You should try it.

Owen: Oh yeah? How do I do that, Abby? Do I find the people who killed my parents? Cut into ’em? I can torture them until they’re crying in their own—

Owen's damnation of Abby’s actions stresses the game’s coming-of-age storyline. Though Part II is a very “mature” post-apocalyptic fiction, it is, at its core, the story of two girl’s maturation; and to view it as anything else would not only be reductive, but fail to do the narrative justice. For, as with all well-written post-apocalyptic fiction, it is not in the violence and horror that the game concerns itself, but in Ellie and Abby’s self-realization. In the questioning of such violence, and in the understanding of where that blood and gore and rage and pain sits in a person's heart—and in where exactly its place in society is.

The two girls spend the game navigating these waters. For Abby, it comes in the form of her friends questioning and regretting what they did to Joel until, finally, her guilty conscious pushes her to try to wash away the blood on her hands. For Ellie, it’s her struggle to understand how she is supposed to live her life now that Joel is gone and her immunity means nothing.

“My life would’ve fucking mattered,” she says. It’s a sentiment which haunts not only Ellie, but Abby as well. Because, as soon as Joel pulled his trigger and stole Ellie away, Abby’s father died for nothing. No cure ever was—nor ever would—be made. And now, all Abby has is revenge. And when she gets it, all Ellie is left with is that same vengeance, the very purpose of which is to give some semblance of meaning to a person’s unlawful death. Only, there is no meaning to it all. The vengeance only serves to hurt those you love; not bring justice. Both Ellie and Abby learn the hard way how revenge doesn’t make you a hero, and that their senseless violence only serves to add bodies to a growing and seemingly endless pile of corpses.

Like its characters, the medium in which The Last of Us Part II lives is maturing. It has been for some time, and as video games become more mainstream, more popular, and more varied, they begin to take on the same thematic depth as all other forms of entertainment have. And with that maturity comes not only the exciting possibilities of growth and the pleasure of those more thought provoking narratives, but the unexpected, the surprising, the uncomfortable and the stories that not only challenge our understanding of life, but make us question our beloved characters just as we often question ourselves in real life.

Below is a soft, intimate scene between Dina and Ellie. They dance. And all the boys, Ellie remarks, are looking at Dina. Because, Ellie says, she’s nothing to be jealous about. She’s not a “threat.” But Dina thinks differently: “They should be terrified of you.” Because Dina knows the strength and tenacity inside of a girl who could make the world hers if given the room to grow and the confidence to be herself. She could make beautiful music, if, as Joel says once, “[she] builds up those calluses.” And she does. And she grows. But in so doing lets her rage and her pain take control. And the haunting scene we’re left with in the end, is of her sitting in Dina and her’s now abandoned home trying to strum “If I ever were to lose you” on Joel’s guitar, only to fail because of the fingers she lost trying to choke Abby before finally letting go...

The Last of Us Part II is not a flawless experience. As beautiful as its characters are, they are trapped in a narrative too long, with messy plotting, and in a game whose mechanics are simply a means-to-an-end. But despite those faults, The Last of Us Part II manages to elucidate not only the nature of humanity, but also how we, as young adults, may build our lives, our personalities, our ideologies and philosophies on lies that, in adulthood, come crumbling down with the questions maturity brings; and how, in the end, it isn’t about what the world wants or needs, it’s about how you, as your own individual person, choose to live inside of it.

The original Xbox, on Christmas day, is where my story starts. More seasoned individuals might have a different beginning -- the NES or SNES, one of Sega’s numerous consoles, or even as old as the Atari and Magnavox Odyssey -- but while my tale doesn’t start with a console quite as legendary, it’s the same as any other. I was just a little kid, around eight years old I think, when my siblings and I began unwrapping the biggest box beneath our Christmas tree. I still remember my surprise and excitement -- it was palpable. Even though the only two games that came with the console were Madden and NBA, I was still so hyped to get my hands on the gigantic “Duke” controller and start playing.

It wasn’t until a few years later though that I fell in love with the system. My uncle, as big a nerd as I, bought me a copy of Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic (KOTOR). Before then, the only games I had to play were the two sport titles and the first Lego Star Wars. KOTOR was a window into the world of video games I had only dipped my toes in before. It was a Role Playing Game, or RPG as I learned later, and with it I could be the hero in Star Wars I couldn’t be in real, boring life. I could shoot at my foes with a duo of blasters, or string them along with carefully placed words that in retrospect, weren’t so carefully placed; because they were predetermined lines of dialogue I chose from a menu -- but only if my “persuasion” or “intimidation” feat was high enough. Dorky video games, why the hell did I ever play you? You were just a waste of time I could’ve spent studying for tests, making friends, or achieving something in my life that my parents could be proud of. Instead, all I could do was point at the screen with a smile on my face and say, “Look, I just saved the universe Mom!” My mother, who didn’t have a single clue what even a pixel was, would just nod absentmindedly before turning back to her episode of Friends.

But even when it was treated as such a small achievement, at the time I thought it was the biggest, greatest thing I had ever done; and to this day I still look back on the decisions I made, and wonder if I really did save the universe, or doom it to a fate farther down its future that I can only really imagine, because instead of making a sequel Bioware made a fucking MMO -- but that’s an aside... okay, back to the point I was trying to make. Over the years video games have been called many different names: “Dorky”, “Childish”, “Geeky” or “Nerdy”, or simply a “Waste of time”. I fell in love with a medium that most people have considered stupid and associated with archaic stigmas. “Only forty year-old loners who live in their parent’s basement play video games”, imagine how many times I’ve heard that. The value of video games has been lessened by so many people. But at some point, aren’t those people downplaying every other form of entertainment? Because movies, books, television shows, and plays really are just the same. Either way, you’re still sitting on your ass while falling into a different, perhaps more interesting world.

The only detail that separates a video game from the aforementioned is the fact that you are participating in the drama unfolding on screen. They aren’t like books or movies, where you read or watch other people as they go about their lives. Video games are a series of pixels that you interact with yourself; but while those pixels might talk, or otherwise produce sound effects that you could listen to through your cheap television’s crappy speakers; relay to you a story that some writer in a dark room had written while hopped up on seven cups of vanilla flavored coffee; video games are the ones singled out as stupid and childish. Even though all that’s different about them is the presentation.

Movies and books are passive experiences -- they have always been that way -- and while my heart may pound for a movie character the same way it does for a video game character, there’s an inherent difference between watching a scene unfold in a movie, and watching a scene take place in a video game. A video game could last two hours, just as long as a typical hollywood film, but while I watched Captain America disrupt SHIELD, I was the one who fought on the side of good. I explored a vast and foreign country or planet, solved complex problems, comforted or helped someone who needed me, or decided to pull the trigger of my gun instead of being merciful. I may watch a man commit murder on screen, but being the one to decide whether or not to kill someone in a video game has a much greater impact on my psyche. For however long afterward, I have to live with that decision; and sure, the man I killed was fake, but my heart still skipped a beat when my finger subconsciously pulled the trigger. The interactivity between me and my games is why I prefer the medium to other forms of entertainment; because while a book or movie might elicit the same emotions from me, a video game is a different beast.

A video game could alter my perception of time as the universe it creates wraps around me; within minutes, hours have unknowingly flown by. A video game might make me jump for joy or crumble to the floor laughing at a stupid ass joke some wise cracking character just laid. I might stare at the trashy television inches from my face, and sit frozen with my mouth agape at the spectacular view; or shut my eyes and just enjoy the musical score emanating from my crappy speakers -- even they couldn’t ruin the atmosphere. A video game might make me cry because now, after over forty hours of sitting on my ass and sucking up to the characters I thought were cool and ignoring the ones I thought weren’t, I have to make the decision that decides the fate of them all; and even the thought of the ones I hated have me lingering on that last button press. My heart has pounded against my chest while I’ve watched helplessly as beloved characters were shot or beaten to a pulp; and it’s lingered on its next beat as a strategically placed camera angle had me staring at the lifeless eyes of my girlfriend. She was fake, but it was nonetheless heartbreaking.

As a child, roaming the streets of Taris in Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic had me at a standstill. Here I was, warped from my cold game room upstairs, to a sci-fi world I had only dreamed about before then. I explored every facet of that city -- the rich apartment complexes, the lower slums, and even lower to the dire underground -- before becoming entangled by the story lines that seemed so numerous and complex at the time. Everyone had something to say, and I mean EVERYONE had something to say. Even if all they had to say was “Hello” or “Go away”, I still felt like I was inside a living world, one where I was important because all those NPC’s had something to say to me. On top of the attention, they all treated me as more than a lowly kid, and I guess that’s why I played games as a child; because in reality everyone just ignored me or beat me down, but when I pressed the big power button on my Xbox I finally had an escape, and not just a place I could hide either, somewhere I could fight back and make a difference.

Unlike most kids my age, I sought video games as an escapism; not a fun toy I could play with my friends whenever they came over -- if they ever came over. Don’t get me wrong, I played games for fun too -- especially Star Wars: Battlefront, my god that game was great! -- but the ones that grabbed my attention and earned my love were the long RPG’s. The games I could fall into, the ones I had to claw my way out of. Reality never enticed me as much as the fantasy on screen. Looking back at all those years, I realize that everything I love today had been festering in my brain and feeding off the video games that I played. Slowly, as if it were unavoidable, the passion I contained for video games exploded past just sitting on my couch and playing them.

I was still a kid, so at the time I didn’t quite understand how difficult it would be to make a video game, I just knew that making one was something I very much wanted to do -- even if I had no idea where to start with that process. Like, did I need a computer? Or was there some secret setting hidden within my Xbox’s green lit menus? Needless to say, there wasn’t; and I was left playing my video games with an aimless dream floating around in my head. Yet, despite the obvious possibility that it would never come to fruition, I still answered the question of what I wanted to be when I grew up with “A video game maker!” I was stubborn -- I still am. My love of playing video games fed my interest in designing them, so in school, when I was supposed to be listening to my teacher lecture us on addition and subtraction, I’d write out the ideas for the different games I had locked away in my head. Becoming a game designer at the time was my one and only goal; and while every adult told me I’d forget it and become a physics nerd, I didn’t. Both because math wasn’t my strong suit, and because physics was what dictated how painful the next blow to the gut would be.

In middle school, my escapism changed slightly. Instead of warping into a cooler universe, I was running from the horror I lived in. I’d spend a hundred hours in Persona 4 because, well, Chie was pretty cool; but also because the “Investigation Team” -- a group of confused but strong willed and independent high school students -- was almost a direct analog to my life. I wasn’t in high school yet, but the problems the Investigation Team faced on a daily basis were oddly relatable. Love, bullying, school work, family, friends, self discovery; the characters and story of that game helped me cope with all the problems I faced at school. It didn’t matter if the game itself was just a typical J-RPG with tedious grinding, heavy menus, and slow pacing -- sort of explains the high level of patience I have now, actually -- because I was only there for the wonderfully written story.

...“Written”, I never truly thought about that word until middle school. Odd now that I think about it. I remember sitting on the table during elementary school recess reading whatever new piece of fiction I had picked up from the library, yet now was when I started to think about writing. Every press of the “X” button in Persona seemed to chime a bell in my head. These characters were so cleverly written, this story so tightly wound, and this universe so well conceived; I began to envision other stories told in this world. My dream of being a game developer slowly warped until I had my eyes set on writing their tales. I knew how to write and I’ve been reading both books and subtitles for the last couple of years, so I figured it would be an easy enough thing to do.

As it turns out though, you have to have some damn good persistence to actually write a really good story. As a wimpy middle school student who preferred to run through fantasy settings rather than work on, well, anything, it was nigh impossible for me to stick with writing for too long. I’d conceive and plan out various tales, but after about ten pages I’d grow too bored to continue. It also didn’t help that my confidence level wasn’t that high. Like, was this story really as good as I thought it was? Or in reality was it just a piece of garbage? I never knew, but I always flocked toward the latter; opting to instead trash the labors of my heart than continue and have someone confirm my aching suspicions later. I still desperately wanted to write though. There were hundreds upon hundreds of various worlds, characters, and concepts floating around in my head, but I couldn’t for the love of me put them down on paper the way I wanted to. Nor could I find a great way of wrapping the story within a good set of gameplay mechanics; I was still the story writer of my games, but I also wanted a good video game to go along with it. As a result of me wanting to develop a really good set of gameplay mechanics, I began thinking about video games in a lot more critical fashion; and because of that, I started to branch out and play games that were different than my typical RPGs.

I became more conscious of the different experiences that could be had with different genres. I found joy not in just role playing games, but in fast paced first person shooters like Halo and Call of Duty. Although, with COD there was a different sort of attachment; something a lot more violent. Call of Duty, almost by necessity, is a game that never stops moving; and while I love a well written story, COD offered a great venue to relieve myself of my pent up frustrations. I suppose that’s why you get so many kids screaming profanities at you through their microphones during online matches. I never became one of those jerks though; I was far too focused on killing people. I’d move fast across the maps, shooting every enemy player who came my way, not stopping for nothing. Every perk placed on my body carefully tuned my avatar for speed; the weapons I equipped, be it an automatic rifle, shotgun, or pistol, were chosen for the situation. Eventually, after so many hours in COD, I exhausted it’s gameplay and moved on to something a bit more tactical and grand in scope: Battlefield. I played it a bit differently than I played COD; running the game on my brand new PC, I armed myself with a high precision mouse and a sniper rifle and set my crosshairs over the unsuspecting heads of my enemies. It was so much more satisfying to pull the trigger in Battlefield than Call of Duty for that very reason.

I’ve run into people who call all video games the same; and sure, if you’re coming at it from the angle of “they’re all pieces of programming you run on a computer” then you’re right, but not every video game executes that code in the same manner. There’s a different “feel” behind every game; variables change that dictate how fast or slow you’re moving through the levels, how many bullets you have to pop into your enemy before they fall to the ground, or how long you can last in a firefight before respawning and costing your team the game. In Call of Duty, I was a monster sprinting through Nuketown with my guns in hand and my knife on edge. In Battlefield, I was a different beast; crouched down close to the desert ground, hiding within brush, or perched on the roof of a building; I was the strong silent type. One eye was closed while another looked down the sights of a scope, trailing my enemies like a hawk after a mouse in the grass. Each pull of the trigger was met behind a swell of satisfaction, because I didn’t miss. At school, I hid behind my books; within Battlefield I still hid, but unlike school I could make my mark.

My personality seeps into the games I play. It’s why I spend hours stealthing my way through Deus Ex, trying my best not to kill anyone and instead be the ghost they never saw. Each video game has it’s tricks that make me tick. They all find their own special way of getting under my skin; well developed characters, brilliant storytelling, artwork, musical score, stellar gameplay. Whatever it is, if it’s good it’ll grab me. I may spend a hundred hours in an RPG because of the characters, or I may spend a hundred hours in Battlefield because of the tactical and satisfying combat. Every game has a lustful quality to it, even the bad ones like Earth Defense Force -- but I mean, seriously(!) who the hell enjoys those “games”?!

Middle school was a branching path for me in terms of my interests, both virtually and in reality. There were the various genres of video games I strayed into as I found new ways of escaping my day to day life; and then there were the ever changing goals I set for myself. While physics is a stable and fun business, for me it was a lost cause; I wasn’t that great at math, and watching The Science Channel just seemed so much more enriching than sitting in musty college classrooms while some old dude lectured me on quantum mechanics. Previously I wanted to make video games, now I wanted to write their tales. Yet, as middle school went farther and farther along I started to experiment with another avenue available to me.

You see, when you love video games as much as I, it’s almost inevitable before you find someplace with as much insanity, stupidity, and passion for the medium as you do. I shopped around when I was in elementary school, stealing cheat codes or reading walkthroughs off of Gamespot.com, but I never stopped to read too far into the site’s web pages. As far as reviews got I just sort of looked at the final score and went “Yep, that’s good enough.” I was around early enough to see and hear about Jeff Gerstmann and his exploits, but I didn’t follow him to Giantbomb.com until middle school -- which is really the most appropriate time to fall into that disgusting pit of idiocy. It was inevitable really, that I would find a website that harbored the same feelings and opinions as I did about video games. They (Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, Vinny Caravella, Brad Shoemaker, Drew Scanlon, and Patrick Klepek) were raw, joyful, entertaining, and even informative -- so long as you didn’t think about “Vinco” science too hard. It wasn’t too long before I realized how deeply my love of video game journalism ran.

Video games and writing. There really isn’t a better combo for someone like me. After all, my greatest form of escapism wrapped within my greatest form of self expression. Absolute beauty -- straight up destiny, son! Instead of focusing solely on tall tales, I extended my reach and put my sights on writing the short and sweet articles and reviews I read on Gamespot and Giantbomb. Although, aside from one or two terribly written reviews, I never did post much on their forums. Strong, silent type remember? I thought I wasn’t good enough to posted anything, and at the time I wasn’t. Even though every episode of the Bombcast or Hotspot had told me that posting everything I wrote was the best possible way of breaking into the industry, I never took them up on their offer. That’s to my detriment, I guess. Now I’m a seventeen year old writer without much to show for it aside from a bedroom ridden with loose papers and crumpled ideas. High school opens your eyes to a lot of things, I guess.

I was a fourteen year old freshman without many friends. I had a few, but only after the first year of high school did I feel really integrated within my class. I knew the people I wanted to hang out with, and the ones I wanted to stay away from. I was comfortable within my little nest of weirdos who loved anime way too much and played far, far too much Pokemon -- note to self: write an article on how much you hate Pokemon. I branched out of course; talked to the few I sat beside in class, gave a glowing speech here or there in front of thirty other students, made a fool of myself because why the hell not? I tried my best to live the “high school life”, even if I didn’t start going out with friends until senior year...

As I wrote more and more, I learned how to best express my opinions. A short three month dip into “professional” video game journalism had me learning at an accelerated pace as the editor in-chief of the small, very non-profit, website I wrote for edited my work. I took his suggestions in stride, bearing the full brunt of his critique of my work. When I quit three months after joining, I profited not from money but experience. Various things like what words I should be using, how best to express my opinion (either with facts or examples), and how grammar is used properly. I also became more perceptive of both the flaws and strengths of the games I played. Not only did I begin picking them apart for their strengths and weaknesses, but I started realizing how even the tiniest aspect can impact the entire video game as a whole. Story, music, art, the damn menus, whatever it is, however weak or strong an aspect it is, the feel of the game can change based on that one, terribly tiny detail. As an amateur video game critic, understanding how to review games in such a critical fashion was a skill I treasured.

As high school progressed forward, I began to think a lot more. Mostly stupid, frivolous thoughts on how I was going to slay the dragon that I’d conjured up in my head to speed past Pre-Cal, but there were a handful of more reasonable ideas floating around in my noggin. How was I going to live the rest of my life? That one popped up quite a bit; because I’m not much for school and if I were to live my ideal life, it would be one where I sat on the porch writing story after story while playing a few video games along the way. But living out ideal lives isn’t easy, and with senior year coming to a close I’m at a loss for what to do. After all, I’m a deadbeat with a low ass GPA and not much talent except for writing -- writing about video games, writing their stories, or even writing corny young adult novels -- and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to muster a passion for anything but writing; and I guess I have video games to thank for that.

This childish hobby I spent hour upon hour enjoying has influenced me to this point. Video games offered the escape I sought during my younger years, the venue for all my pent up frustrations after a too long day at school, and the guidance that I needed. But after so many years of playing around with them, what do I have to show for it? Pixels are all that await me whenever I turn on my now aging computer; they may be bundled up and framed into a picture or model, but they are just pixels in the end; and when you really start to think about it, all I ever did was move them around a virtual environment. So if video games are so simple, why did they ever grab my attention? Well, that’s an easy enough question to answer.

Zachary Pierce, a gunslinger turned jedi. His dashing good looks and sharp tongue swooned any man, woman, or alien who had the pleasure to meet him. Not even the Sith had stood a chance against his combat techniques; armed with a duo of pistols, his trigger finger would fire round after round while his mind would conjure up a magical energy called the force. He’d suck the life out of his foes, electrocute their hearts to a grinding halt, and pound them to the hard floor with a twitch of his finger. His demeanor was always at an all time high, ever trustworthy, spirited, but firm whenever tragedy struck. He was the perfect leader, and an icon to the dying age of jedi. His companions would charge into battle at his side, and without a fault in their step, follow behind him wherever he went, through whatever would happen.

Taylor Hero, the new kid in town living with the uncle and little cousin he hasn’t met in years, was a sarcastic optimist of a teenager who never shied away from a fight. His first day at school was met with awe as he snapped at his pretentious homeroom teacher, Mr. Morooka (or, more aptly, “King Moron”), and took his seat next to Chie Satonaka with a smug look on his face. She was his first friend, and she was shortly followed by many more; and even though Taylor knew he’d be leaving in a year, he formed bonds so tight that even the mere thought of having to leave was enough to make him cry. But it was nothing compared to the train ride back home. Filled with blissful remorse he spent the entire journey home reliving the year he'd spent in Inaba. From the funny and interesting, to the frightening and somber, and all the way to the straight up bizarre; but there wasn't a single moment he would trade away.

Adrian Shepard, the sole survivor who could infiltrate just about any facility. His witty character charmed human and alien alike -- which caused quite a stir amongst his crew members. Crew members who were one part human alliance, and another part “filthy” alien scum. Relationships were strained in the early days, but some battles are forgotten in the midst of war. A ship as fine as the Normandy, flown by a pilot as sarcastically brilliant as Joker, wasn’t just made for sightseeing. Everyone aboard the Normandy knew death and destruction awaited them, but Shepard, the legend living amongst the stars, brought back from the dead once, thought to never return thrice over, was unmoving; his attitude toward the impossible was an inspiration to his crew. Some were young, docile creatures taking their first steps out of home fleet, others were veterans, experimented on, beaten on, created for a single purpose, or born too independent to be locked behind rules and regulations, his crew was as much apart of him as he was to himself. In the end, Shepard saved the universe, at the cost of his very life.

Then there’s me. Seared into my brain, the face of every life I’ve taken. Because a sniper does nothing but look. My eye is trained forever on the battlefield, trailing after my victim. They might hide, they might sprint into a maze of cover, fly through a shrapnel filled sky, or fire rockets at me from their “safe” spot miles away; but I never miss. The bullet will fall through the air, puncture the skull of my enemy, and before they even spawn again, I would send another flying their way.

I live and breath by the lives of the virtual avatars I create and control. Calling a video game a simple arrangement of pixels, a “waste of time”, or a childish hobby is barely even an argument against playing them. I may toss hundreds into the pool of a billion dollar industry like a fool, but money isn’t an object when you take into account the emotional impact a video game can have on a person. I started off as a lonely kid seeking an escape within video games, evolved from that to a designer, then I became a writer after realizing that what I loved most about video games was the story. Even though I don’t quite know where I’m heading from here -- whether I’m going to become a journalist, or run backwards towards my dream of writing stories -- I know where my heart lies. One day, I may wake up and forget what I’ve experienced as a “gamer”, but by then I hope I have a pretty good reason for it; because they’ve taught me so much and helped shape who I am today, that the idea of forgetting all of it would make me swoon. And I don’t think I would ever want to wake up again.