Should have written earlier...

April 22, 2008

But I was busy playing Civilization. Civ 4 Beyond the Sword, to be exact. I just love exploring the world, and making discoveries and building my cities. I don't enjoy the wars so much, because I find them frustrating when the game cheats. Yes, it does. Still, I have enjoyed the various iterations of this game for about 20 years now. Did you have a computer 20 years ago??? I did. Of course my mom was a computer programmer at the time, programming satellites and the like, and proofing the code of other engineers and programmers on the projects.

I enjoy computer games. Heck, I enjoy games. Still computer games can have a gajillion pieces, and you don't have to keep track of them, the computer does that for you. There's not much picking up after yourself either, with the exception of maybe a disk, a rule book and a box. There are some games that I wish I had better versions of, like Mah Jong, which we used to have a very good and versatile one, but it was for an AMIGA, and I'm just not using that computer any more.

I like to play the massively multiplayer games as well, and have played several different ones. I'm not really good at them, and I don't like player vs player combat (because I'm not very good at them). Still, I have a good time, even (mostly) when I'm getting lost in the dungeons (which is inevitable). I like the social aspects of the games, but there are a lot of people that hide behind the anonymity and use it as an excuse to behave badly. I have made occasional in-game friends, and even met Ron (my husband) while playing on-line.

I think games - whether on the computer or not - can help us deal with and learn about history, and social issues. They teach us strategy and taking turns. They also help us practice having fun even when we loose, and winning gracefully. Oh, and taking over the world... mwahh ha ha ha ha.