When it comes to video games, I'm a pro. Some games I'm a pro at because I've been playing them forever, and other games I'm a pro at because I've read the books that are created to tell you every little detail of the game. I love gaming manuals and for a long time in my life, I refused to play any game without the manual to go along with it. The game that started my love for this was a game I'm am still incredibly obsessed with.
Zelda. Easily one of the best games ever created. On my own list of favorite games, it can be matched only with my love of Super Mario and Donkey Kong. It's one of those games where you have free range and although there is a set path you must complete to beat the game, you can do it in any order you would like.
I've been playing different Zelda games since I was about 12 years old, the first one being Zelda and the Ocarina of Time. When my sister first bought the game for the Nintendo 64, I was fascinated with it, but since I strictly played classic games like Mario where you can only run in one direction, the free range game play threw me off and I settled for watching her play.
About a month after having the game and not being able to make it past the first level without an intense amount of difficulty, my sister decided to buy the game play book, the manual that tells you every secret of the game and exactly how to beat each section of the game with ease. This began my ultimate love for Zelda as I became what my sister deemed as "the reader".
As "the reader", I would sit and watch my sister play for hours, reading the book to her as she went so she would no longer have to question what she was doing in the game. Some say it's cheating, but I don't care. Reading all about the games inner-workings and the little intricacies of each level was incredible to me. Due to my photographic memory, I began to memorize everything about the book. I would read ahead when she wasn't playing and find out what the future held for my sister.
The only thing was, I wouldn't play the game. I didn't want to. It would take me away from reading the book. But as my sister grew older, she stopped playing as much and to me, reading the book began to seem useless. I had already memorized everything it had to say, so perhaps it was finally time for me to start playing the game. The first time I played the game, I was probably about 15 years old. I had the book sitting next to me, but I can remember never having to open the book because I never ran into a single area in which I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.
I fell in love with the game because I was so perfect at it. I knew the game better than my sister did because I had read the book. At this point, I felt my brain was the book. I knew everything it had to say and I didn't need it anymore.
And this was what started my love for gaming books. I wouldn't play a game after that without having read the book for it first. The following Zelda games that were created, were bought with the books specifically because my parent's could tell how much I loved the books. My father would constantly call me a cheater, but I didn't want the books to help me with the game, I wanted it for the extra information, the pictures, the stories and character descriptions that you couldn't get specifically from playing the game. I'm a girl that loves details and that's exactly what the books provided me with.
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