People of all ages play video games. I hate to break it to you sticklers, but they’re not just for kids, and I hate to break it to you pros, but they’re not just for hardcore gamers.

Before the evolution and popularization of online gaming, this wasn’t something too many people thought or cared about. You played your own game and no one else imposed upon it. But now that we gamers have become more social creatures, seeking the company of others in-game has become the best and the worst part of playing online.

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I love to win.

The smug sense of superiority I get when I overcome my opponents simply cannot be matched sometimes. It’s amusing to me to know that I have conquered friends, family, and strangers. It’s a license to brag. For a few shining moments, I am revered as something magical. Unstoppable. Truly the greatest.

That is, until the next round when a bullet sets up camp in my character’s head.

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Hello, I’m Mercedes, and I don’t finish video games.

That’s not to say I don’t play them. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy them. But I can’t not put them down. There’s always that final push of the start button, the pause that lasts for days, weeks, and sometimes years. It’s a bad habit, to say the least, but I’m on the path to recovery.

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So I’m chugging through Gears of War, gunning down Locust left and right, lighting paths in the streets to avoid being eaten alive by the Kryll. I’m having a good old time and then suddenly I pause the game. It is then, sitting at the pause menu, that I am struck with a realization.

Some of my most favorite games have little or no sense of humor.
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I can enjoy a good single player game as much as the next gamer. In fact, being by myself can sometimes be cathartic. But only sometimes.

Having an added interactive personality or two to spice up the time you spend with your favorite pixels? Why, who could resist? Friends, and people in general, make gaming multidimensional. They point out things you may have missed, spend joyous hours entertaining you, share the journey of your characters from one point to another, and make you feel like not so much of a geeky gamer freak because hey – you’ve got friends who play too, so spending twenty hours a week or more on an activity atypical to most people in society isn’t quite so lonely an affair.

My personal favorite? Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions on Ventrilo during PvP combat.

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I like to try to get to know my competition. Get into their heads, figure out their personalities–size up the competition if you will. It’s an important pre-game ritual. I’ll look over gamercards, avatars, character choices, and most importantly, their names. Sometimes, I find genuinely creative and interesting names.

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