Shitty 1st Draft

How It All Began…

Reading has had such a love-hate relationship with me. From my young days in elementary school to now, my feelings have flip-flopped about reading. Some of my earliest and greatest memories of reading come from being at my first school, Taft Elementary in Cincinnati, Ohio. I can’t remember what grade I was in, maybe first or second, but I remember having to see alone with a teacher and reading paragraphs out of a book out-loud. I found reading very easy. I was told that I was on an eighth grade reading level at this time, which made me happy. I was one of the few children in my grade that tested this high, which was great to me. However, I felt alone because a lot of my classmates chose to goof off and not do work, so being considered “smart” isolated me a bit.

I started to enjoy reading when it came to video games at a young age. I remember playing systems such as the Sega Genesis and Playstation 2 with my brothers. It’s funny that I say “with my brothers” because I hated sharing the game with them and wish I could have had it to myself. Nevertheless, when we got stuck or wanted more things to do on a game, we turned to strategy guides. Two of my biggest memories would be from the games “Mortal Kombat: Trilogy” and “God of War.” Mortal Kombat is a fighting game about a tournament to decide the best fighter in the world and ultimately becomes a struggle between the Earthrealm and Outerworld. The game was filled with blood and gore, and being not even a teenager yet, I should not have been allowed to play. Anyway, the characters fought until someone’s health meter was empty, and then you could perform a fatality (a cool way to kill the enemy). These were virtually impossible to figure out on your own because of a complex combination of button-pressing required. To satisfy my gaming experience, I picked up a strategy guide and in no time I was electrocuting people to death with Raiden, for example.

Another game that led me to read was God of War. This game was based on Greek mythology and featured many gods and goddesses, such as Zeus, Ares, Athena, and Hades. The main character, Kratos, is on a mission to kill the Ares (the God of War). Along his journey he faces difficult enemies and puzzles, many of which I had troubles against. So again, a strategy guide was used. This showed me the tricks to the puzzles that I could not solve on my own; ways to defeat the different types of enemies; places to find hidden treasures and easter eggs; and strategies to pass certain levels of the game. No longer did the Hydra smash me, and Ares was no match.