This is a post on how I think Competitive Gaming has really changed gaming for me. I dislike a lot of games just because there is no real Competitive side of some games. Since the release of Halo:Reach I kind of have been thinking about this. Yes I was a fan boy of HALO at one time, but really I just see the game as another HALO game now. Yes I am aware of MLG for Halo, but I am talking about maybe just seeing other gamers that don't care about MLG or leagues or anything.. my question is How can you play this game just playing in public servers?
To understand what I am talking about, I think you need to know just a little bit about me. I am 24 years old, I live in Las Vegas Nevada for a good 13 or 14 years now, I have played basketball, football and also paintball in a very competitive way all my life. When I was 18 I had some back problems, started having a lot of pain and finally went to the doctors to find out how bad my back really was. At 18 I received news that I have the back of a 60 year old man. This is how the doctor explained it to me. I couldn't have surgery to fix this problem, because surgery just would have made it worse, and still will if I did it today. I wont go into mass detail on what I have, but its genetic my father has it and he never knew till I went to the doctors.
Before I was a gamer I was a competitor at anything I saw it like a gladiator fighting for his life, I LOVED IT. Playing basketball just in a gym, playing pick up games I used to try to play like a monster. Well at 18 this was before I went to the doctors for my back. I used to play basketball with a scout that scouted for colleges. He also worked for some BIG names in the NBA, just to name one Shaquille O'Neal was one of his guys. In fact he brought him into the gym once, very nice guy and humble it seemed. My point is after playing basketball with this scout for a very long time, he finally said "Marc, I can get you into a pretty good college to play basketball if you wanted." OF COURSE who wouldn't do this? Well that is when I went to the doctors and found out all the above about my back. SO the dream was SHUT DOWN! Doctors said if I took to hard of a hit in my back, I could go paralyzed.
So after all that, I started to play counter-strike a friend said hey try this game out. So I did, well if anyone has played the game in a league level you understand that pubbing (playing in a public server) just is not enough to satisfy the competitive monster when you play Counter-Strike. Finally I found out about mIRC, and scrimming and what you could do. 5v5 leagues CAL, CEVO, so on and so on. Well I got pretty good at it. Played in CAL-Main, which is a very good league. Finally made it to CAL-Invite and got some sponsors played on a great team named Eximus. Traveled for free, got free redbulls just because of this team, and free computer parts. Almost anything you needed they would help with. I loved it, but the fire for the game kind of burned out after 6-7 long years of playing. I moved on , tried to play on my xbox with friends games like COD4, and MW2. I mean the games had its fun moments but at the same time I cant forget the competitive side I had, so I moved on again. I have had a xbox360 for a long time. I have used it maybe a total of 100 times. I mean really that is nothing. I cant play games like Halo single player, or Halo online just "pubbing". If I ever got back into Halo or COD4, or MW2 anything like that. I would have to find a league and all of that. That is why I finally came to SC2, every game 1v1 feeds the competitive monster inside of me. Its a game of real skill that you have to out think your enemy, a game of CHESS if you will.
Now, I said all of this to ask the question, is this the way a lot of gamers feel? I haven't even finished the single player mod of sc2, just because I cant take not having the competitive side of the game vs a real person. Has the competitive side of it changed the way you game? I mean I can remember a time I would sit in front of SEGA or Dreamcast or something like this, just to play single player games and not care about online games? If a game now a days doesn't have a online feature or competitive side to it I wont even touch it. Just wondering if I am the only gamer that thinks this way. Let me know with a post.
This was an OLD post I did, so if there is grammar errors and stuff dont hate lol, I didnt feel like reading over it again because I know what it says
-Seize