Even though I am not a huge video
gamer now, there is one game that has always had my heart. Mario Party. I love
the challenges and the fact that you can play your friends. Although, when I
was younger my favorite part of the game wasn’t winning, it was my character.
While
my brother and our friends would fight over who would be Mario or Luigi, I
always chose Princess Peach. The reason? I thought she looked like me. Princess
Peach became my avatar in the video game world. Like myself, she has blonde hair
and loves pink. When I played Mario Party as Princess Peach against all of the
boys it was amazing. Having many guy friends, I always got laughed at when I
would pick Princess Peach because she's a girl, but after I started winning, the laughs stopped.
Princess Peach represented me virtually, she could beat all the boys and she
always kept her hair perfect (I tried, but failed).
As I got older, Princess Peach
remains my go-to character; I don’t think I would be comfortable playing with
any other character in the game. For people who play games such as World of
Warcraft, their avatars represent who they are or want to be in the virtual
world. The avatars become an extension of the person playing and as a result,
can sometimes seem real. Second Life is another example, you can pick any
avatar you want that you think represents you. Avatars allow people to be
someone else in the virtual world for a little while. They allow people to be
creative and do things that they may not be able to in the real world. While it
is important to maintain open channels of creativity, it is even more important
to balance it with the real world. One of the issues with games such as World
of Warcraft is that the virtual world starts to consume all of a gamers time thus becoming immersed in the virtual reality world. The balance of real world priorities and video gaming is hard to do for some gamers who relate to their avatar so much that they choose to just remain in virtual reality mode and dismiss real world priorities and responsibilities.
In
the end, whenever I play Mario Party, Princess Peach will always be the
reminder of my youth, when I used to beat all the boys. Everyone should try
playing a game with an avatar, and if you want to play Mario Party, let me
know. I’m down for a challenge.
