If there is one thing I’ve learned despite what many people believe, video games can be a healthy part of your life in college. I’m a guy that naturally likes to relax and play video games, but in trying to change, I may have overcorrected a bit.
In my freshman year of college, all of my time was divided into three categories: studying, running and working at the mountain. Though my final grade in economics would suggest otherwise, I worked really hard with little time to relax with a good game. In fact, I made a point to leave all of my gaming consoles at home so I would not get distracted. I thought I was being mature, and in a way I was, but I was also trying to take the responsibility of knowing when to and when not to play video games.
This year, I chose to go without games again, thinking my increased schedule would keep me even further from relaxing with an eight-hour Skyrim marathon. So far I’ve been fine, but a few days ago something happened that made me reconsider. On my iPad, I found the game Chrono Trigger, an old Super Nintendo game I had downloaded two years ago but rarely played. Given that I had a few hours to kill (something that rarely happens), I decided to play for a bit. Within 15 minutes, I remembered what I was missing.
First off, the game is amazing, pulling me into a deep story filled with time travel, giant dinosaurs and talking frogs. The combat was quick and responsive, making every successful hit satisfying. Most of my free time was spent hanging out with other people, so it was a great change of pace to entertain myself in a way that only video games can allow. I felt the stress of my day-to-day routine ease up as I used my brain not for statistics homework, but for helping my friend Robot get back to the future so we could save the world.
Granted, video games are not just a singular experience. Since the second week of school, several friends and I have played “Till Dawn,” a new survival-horror game for the Play Station 4. While only one of us is playing it, the rest of us are engaged in the experience together: laughing at inside jokes, forcing our friend to make incredibly bad decisions in the game and speculating on what will happen next. We’ve all grown invested in the ending, and it’s brought us all closer as a group.
It goes without saying that school should always come first. It’s the main reason you’re here. But, amidst all of the chaos of college life, sometimes it pays to kick back, boot up your old GameCube and play some Super Mario Sunshine.
Kevin Bradley is a Contributing Writer for The Bona Venture.
His email is bradlekp14@bonaventure.edu
