Thursday, November 22, 2007
Turn to page 263
I wonder how many of you used to read those adventure quest books when you were younger? You know, the ones where at the end of each page, either they tell you to continue on to a particular page, or they actually give you a choice on which page you want to go:
Example... you meet a fire breathing dragon. What do you wish to do?
You decide to use the magical staff given to you earlier by the dwarf - turn to page 263 (only to be fried to crisp because the dragon feels threatened)
You decide to talk to it - turn to page 17 (you realize that the dragon can talk and it's voiced by Sean Connery! You proceed to have some english tea and scones with him)
Ok, the above examples are pretty lame, but you get my drift. I used to read some of those when I was younger. Come to think of it, I used to cheat a bit too. I would read ahead of both choices. If one option brought my early demise, I would just back track. Don't ask me how I managed to do it, but i vaguely remembered that it had something to do with using all my 10 fingers as bookmarks. I doubt I can pull such a stunt again considering how stiff my digits are these days.
Doesn't life remind you of such game books? Personally, I do believe that everyone has a certain destiny laid out for them. But your destiny can be changed and it is dependent on the choices that you make. And each choice, no matter how big or small, has a certain consequence, and that decides what kind of life you will ultimately be leading. Everyone knows the ending: everyone ends up dead. It's just a matter of how the ending is like: is it early but blissful? is it in the most unfortunate of situations? is it long and suffering? is it sudden but accomplished?
And seriously, sometimes the most minute of decisions do make a difference. What if you have chosen to wake up extra early today to go to work? By that small change, you took the earlier train and met the guy of your dreams? What if you decided to feel more positive about your job and did it with more gusto? Perhaps the customer you served will be so impressed, he will offer you a job in his company because of your good attitude. Won't you be motivated as well?
Playing Hellgate also reinforced another thing about life. Unlike other games that i played, Hellgate saves your game real time. Which means that, you cannot save your game before any major battle. And you can't reload. If you screw up, means you really screw up. That is life too isn't it? There's no save port, there is no reload. Everything is done real time. If you screw up, sometimes you really lose that chance. Or you seriously have to redo the whole quest. So you really lost that ultimate +100 damage elemental sword in battle... you can't get it back. And if you want to get it back, you really have to start all over again, if the opportunity is there. At times like these, you will be frustrated and you will regret and think: why didn't I make more effort to fight harder? Or why wasn't I more careful? And like I said, there is no reload in life.
So there, life is not about how soon you get there, but how you get there. It's the journey, not the ending that counts. See, who says games are a waste of time?
Example... you meet a fire breathing dragon. What do you wish to do?
You decide to use the magical staff given to you earlier by the dwarf - turn to page 263 (only to be fried to crisp because the dragon feels threatened)
You decide to talk to it - turn to page 17 (you realize that the dragon can talk and it's voiced by Sean Connery! You proceed to have some english tea and scones with him)
Ok, the above examples are pretty lame, but you get my drift. I used to read some of those when I was younger. Come to think of it, I used to cheat a bit too. I would read ahead of both choices. If one option brought my early demise, I would just back track. Don't ask me how I managed to do it, but i vaguely remembered that it had something to do with using all my 10 fingers as bookmarks. I doubt I can pull such a stunt again considering how stiff my digits are these days.
Doesn't life remind you of such game books? Personally, I do believe that everyone has a certain destiny laid out for them. But your destiny can be changed and it is dependent on the choices that you make. And each choice, no matter how big or small, has a certain consequence, and that decides what kind of life you will ultimately be leading. Everyone knows the ending: everyone ends up dead. It's just a matter of how the ending is like: is it early but blissful? is it in the most unfortunate of situations? is it long and suffering? is it sudden but accomplished?
And seriously, sometimes the most minute of decisions do make a difference. What if you have chosen to wake up extra early today to go to work? By that small change, you took the earlier train and met the guy of your dreams? What if you decided to feel more positive about your job and did it with more gusto? Perhaps the customer you served will be so impressed, he will offer you a job in his company because of your good attitude. Won't you be motivated as well?
Playing Hellgate also reinforced another thing about life. Unlike other games that i played, Hellgate saves your game real time. Which means that, you cannot save your game before any major battle. And you can't reload. If you screw up, means you really screw up. That is life too isn't it? There's no save port, there is no reload. Everything is done real time. If you screw up, sometimes you really lose that chance. Or you seriously have to redo the whole quest. So you really lost that ultimate +100 damage elemental sword in battle... you can't get it back. And if you want to get it back, you really have to start all over again, if the opportunity is there. At times like these, you will be frustrated and you will regret and think: why didn't I make more effort to fight harder? Or why wasn't I more careful? And like I said, there is no reload in life.
So there, life is not about how soon you get there, but how you get there. It's the journey, not the ending that counts. See, who says games are a waste of time?
# posted by Xallista @ 10:30 PM 
