After receiving my first TL ban the other day (not gonna be a blog that whines about that, the ban was justified) I began to think about "firsts". You know firsts, the first time you did something, and why you still remember it.
The first game I can remember myself playing more than once was WarCraft 1, I was probably around 6-7 at the time and I used to play it with my best friend. Basically we would play "no rush 40 min" and then just bombard each other with water elements and the red ones which we referred to as "demons". When ever we tried to play against his father he would beat the shit out of us (not literally, in game). Me and my friend trying to beat his father in WC1 literally made our friendship, a friendship which grew through a passion for gaming (And other stuff)
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After our WC1 days came the era of Doom. Doom 1 was pretty god damn awesome, and who can forget the graphics, we valliantly fought our way through the game using IDDQD a couple of times (A LOT). This was my first experience with FPS games, and i loved it. Me and my friend had so much fun and gaming became our way of interacting.
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The first interaction i had with the Danish school system really tested our friendship. Where as I was and still am by far the smarter one of him and I (booksmart), he was mediocre to say best. But even though I loved school (at least for the first couple of years) he didn't seem to do so. We did however still have our major passion in common, gaming. Red Alert was our smash hit love and we dived in to it head first. Tanya, killing of an entire enemy base with her "one touch kill bomb" (would probably be IMBA in SC2 LOL), or the Soviet tesla coils zapping the shit out of everything, it was a match made in heaven.
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Games he and I have played together, WC1, WC3 and TFT, SC, SC:BW, Diablo, Diablo Hellfire, Transport tycoon, Theme Hospital, Rollercoaster tycoon, Counter Strike, Half Life, Starwars jedi academy, Starwars version of RTS (don't remember name), Duke Nukem, Quake 2, Quake 3 Red Alert 2, Red Alert 2 Yuri's revenge, C&C Generals, C&C Generals Zero Hour, Battlefield 1942, Ski Free (yes the one with the wolf) plus lot of PlayStation 1&2 games and a lot of older games whose name I wasn't able to look up on the interwebs.
And now I associate most of my firsts with the games I played when they happened.
First family death: SC:BW and diablo (ironic?)
First real girlfriend: Warcraft 3 and TFT
First christmas I can remember: WC1
First time I was at the hospital: RA1
First time I smashed out my teeth (yes it has happened more than once): Duke Nukem
Last summer I moved away from our little home town, even though he and I didn't attend the same school after 9th grade, we still got together, not as much and not like back in the days, but now I lived in Aarhus and he lived back in Herning. Even though it's only 1½ hour by bus or train, it changed everything, sure playing online can make up for it, but he and I will never have the same experience as we did slaughtering sith's in Jedi Academy, or the same anger when we died AGAIN while trying to beat the computer in SC:BW. Now I live with my girlfriend, for the first time, and currently the name of the game is Starcraft 2, whether or not I will remember it in 15 years, only time will tell. And pretty soon is going to be a new first, when my best friend goes to Afghanistan, it will be the first time I am genuinely afraid of losing a friend.
TL:DR: Games create friendship and memories.