gamesmanship

a friend of mine introduced me to a game called halo:reach last
november. he invited me over several times during the thanksgiving
break to play on his system, and i fell in love with the game. in
january, i bought my own system, an xbox 360, and purchased my own
copy of the game. in january i also blew out my knee again and hung up
my soccer shoes, so this game has given me an arena to work out my
need for competition while not doing my tortured knee any more damage.

often i play alone, though the team function is my favorite. i join up
with other players from all over the world and we, for the ten minutes
or so it takes to complete one match, are a team. there are also times
when i join up with my brother or my friend and we play as a team.
there are other times i play with a group of people whom i've never
met, but through games played together, we have become a sort of
online tribe. we chat while we play, and though i don't think we are
friends in the traditional sense, we do share a certain sense of
kinship.

last night i was playing with this online tribe of mine, and it
occurred to me that even here, in the make believe world of this game,
where i could say anything, be anyone, i still look for the same
characteristics in those i would call friend or team mate as i do of
those i would be friends with in the real world. loyalty, class,
honor, and a sense of duty to the team are important to me, it seems,
no matter what the platform or scenario. more than a few players have
been deleted or blocked because they did not meet my standards.
elitist? snob? possibly, but i believe even in this game, how you
behave speaks volumes as to who you are.

there's no reason for this. it was just something i thought was interesting.

ghost