Determination: Essays About Video Games and Us | Page 43

Not to mention that I acted essentially like a deity in the game . I cheated with codes to stockpile resources that normally would have taken hours of gameplay to collect ; I sped up time so that little soldiers could be mass-produced as if barracks were toothpaste factories ; I sent them into battle only to see them cut down and decay into digital skeletons before melting into the screen . In the midst of this excitement , history began to coalesce in my mind as a distinct phenomenon , a construction created through the click of a mouse and the movement of a cursor . It was rooted , primarily , in the belief that human agency is the paver of all paths to the future , which I begrudgingly admit was influenced however slightly by the supreme agency I wielded as a godlike figure in Age of Empires II .
By the time we left England for Johannesburg in 2007 , I still played Age of Empires II assiduously , gobbling up sequels and expansion packs as if I had been rationed on them my whole life . Sometimes in my spare time , I hung out with my friend Frasier at his house , just a bike ride down the street . Most days we had no plan and would just waste the hours away playing Xbox 360 . My family ’ s frequent travelling gave me many memories , but the constant variable of hanging out with friends , new or old , gave me a sense of stability I held close as a kid .
Frasier ’ s room was musty . It smelt of fuzz and dust , and had a low ceiling that looked higher than it actually was . Light streamed in through thin horizontal windows near the top of one wall . Once the television was flickered to life we ’ d spend entire days playing games together . One day we soon grew tired of head-shotting each other in ... I think it was Call of Duty ... and he mentioned trying out a new game , except it was single player . I thought , ‘ Single player ? The hell is this nonsense ?’ Turned out being a spectator for a change wasn ’ t too bad . It gave me time to think , to stretch my cramped legs ( because playing video games for long enough can make you suffer from severe pins-and-needles ). Besides Frasier and I would hand the controller off to each other whenever one of us died onscreen in a typically unflattering , stupid manner .
At first I thought Assassin ’ s Creed was okay . It was fun and interesting , the story was compelling , but the actions and controls were clumsy and blocky . It lacked dynamism , a fluidity that makes gameplay easily and subconsciously enjoyable . But the world - a fictional recreation of the Crusade-era Levant - was engrossing . Unlike Age of Empires , Assassin ’ s Creed did not make me , the player , an overlord . Instead I was a character with personality , an arrogant but later stoic man known as Altair , who sported a bleached arabesque