Life as a Gamer
One of the fondest memories of my childhood was when I used to visit my aunt, it was not about family getting together or the food, but it was about getting the opportunity to play the new video game on my cousin’s new computer. He had just bought a new CD by Rockstar games Grand Theft Auto II. The rush of getting into random vehicles and just driving off anywhere was one to enjoy, not that it had great graphics, or it had any gripping storyline to it like the recent version of the GTA, which made it the most sold video game of all time in 2013. Then, I got my computer, which my father would say was for his work, but it ended up being my source of entertainment for countless hours, which I got rightfully scolded for too. The advancement in the games was prolific with video games broadening their horizon into multiple genres like a first-person shooter, strategic games, and sports games. FIFA became an instant favorite of mine then as I have been a big football fan, and the first FIFA game I ever played was FIFA 98, which only had international teams but gave you the chance to play with players like Ronaldo (Brazilian), Zidane and Michael Owen. And from there, FIFA took off to new heights with new editions coming in every year with new squads and features.
My first taste of online gaming came when I discovered a gaming zone had opened up near my school and charged Thirty INR per hour. They had a variety of games for people to engage in. Naturally, it was filled with my schoolmates any time I would pass by it, and FPS games like counter strike became the talk of the school. The set consisted of two teams: Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists, to kill all the players of the opposing team to win. So, typically, the gaming zone was divided into two halves, one for the terrorist group and another for the counter-terrorist team. There were other pc games like FIFA, Need for Speed: Most wanted, but these could not play over LAN at that time.
Later, I somehow convinced my parents to buy me the then-latest Sony PlayStation 3, which had popular games like God of War, FIFA 14, Call of Duty, etc. The online multiplayer gaming experience was much better on the Ps 3 than on the PC, in my opinion, as previously our internet provider too would provide less speed and inconsistent connectivity. I hooked onto playing FIFA and Call of Duty for hours because of their recent upgrades in their offline as well as online features. Both the franchises of EA sports and Activision started releasing new versions of their games, which were must-haves then.
Much recently, when I was in a hostel for two years, I was without a console or my PC, which introduced me to a new platform for gaming, which was mobile gaming with games like Clash of Clans, Player’s Unknown Battleground (PUBG) and Call of Duty Mobile. From these three, I felt that COD mobile was the best for me as many of my friends in my hostel would be playing this game too.
FEATURES
There were certain features to each game that made me get involved more into the game which are listed as below:
1. Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike GO
- In Counter-Strike, Maps like de_dust and de_assault would become instant favorites with the earlier map having to plant/defuse the bomb and the later to hold/rescue the hostages.
- For Counter-Terrorists (CT), my preferred gun used always to be the Maverick (M4A1) assault rifle, and for Terrorists (T), it used to be either AK-47 or Krieg 552(also known as SG 552).
- In CS: GO, Maps like Nuke, Inferno, and Dust 2 were a lot of fun to play.
- New guns in CS: GO, such as AUG, which was also known as Bull-pup in CS, became my go-to weapon along with the classic AK-47 and M4A4 assault rifles.
2. FIFA
- From their version of FIFA 14, EA sports started a new online multiplayer feature called Ultimate Team (FUT), which gained instant popularity.
- It’s a feature that lets you make your team based on the player cards that you collect over time from the packs that will provide/bought.
- These packs may consist of any type of player from low rating to high, and these senior rated players collected from rare player packs which will provide you to have the star players like Messi, Ronaldo or Neymar in your squad.
- Collecting these rare player packs will help in improving your squad and thus giving you a better chance to win against opposition players that you would face online.
- Other features like Seasons, in which you select a team of your choice and face players online within your division, and as you win, you get promoted to higher divisions and win the title.
3. Call of Duty (PS4 and Mobile)
- There have been a lot of different versions of Call of Duty, and I have been lucky to play almost all of those. There’s just something about sitting on your chair and killing some Nazis, flying planes, destroying tanks.
- Each Call of Duty had its own set of storylines for the campaign, but as new versions were released, each had some advanced online features along with it, which made it a complete package.
- Some of my memorable maps that were a treat to play in were Nuke town from Black Ops, Terminal and Highrise from Modern Warfare 2, Fringe from Black Ops 3.
- Later some of these maps featured on Call of Duty Mobile, and it sent a wave of nostalgia in me, which made it even more enjoyable playing it the second time.
- Call of Duty Mobile came out with a new feature of Battle Royale which is similar to that of PUBG or Fortnite where a player or a team (4 players max) are dropped on to the map with a total of 100 players to fight it out and the last team surviving is termed as the winner.
- These featured some different guns as well with each update, for example, a new map of Rust and 1v1 duels along with a limited-time feature of warfare.
4. Grand Theft Auto 5
- If you like to do a variety of missions like heists or races to make money or just drive around and hit people, then this game is for you. The amount of things that you can do in this game is beyond anything, you could be just driving around the town, and you won’t even realize that it’s 6 a.m. outside and that your parents are about to wake up.
- In GTA Online, you can create your character, make him wear almost anything you can think of while making various modifications to your vehicle.
- You can buy various properties from the drug businesses that you can own, but you will have to fight off other cartels trying to steal your business from time to time.
- You can make friends with other players that are in the same lobby, drive around with them, or complete various missions.
So it depends on your liking and what gaming setup is available to you. If you have a PC and like First Person Shooting games, then you might want to start with Counter-Strike. If you have a PS4 and are a football fan just like me, then look nowhere else and buy FIFA right now. Or if you prefer to gun down some enemy troops with rifles and snipers, then you should go for Call of Duty, which is also available on Google play store.
