September 25th, 2015 by Kurt "Chet" Christel
Everyone always has the story of that one game that was “there for them”. You were dealing with a difficult breakup and that fantasy game let you go to another world. School was getting tough and your only way to see your friends is some late night shooter matches. Your boss was being a jerk to you and the fighting game gave you the retribution you craved. Depression set in and you didn’t know what to do but you were super engrossed in story of the latest JRPG. Games can mean a lot to you when they’re your only escape. It just so happens that on more than one occasion, racing games have defined my life, possibly even saved it.
Okay, saving my life is a bit of an exaggeration. But change it, these games did. I was a weird kid, especially as a teenager, and my Xbox helped me through a lot of things. Did you know as a teenager I wasn’t really all that into music? I don’t think I ever bought a CD until I was in high school. For you Gen Z readers, a CD is this round disc thing that has music on it and you buy it in a store. I know, right? Well, a couple of friends showed me a few bands and eventually I chose your average teenager stuff like Green Day and blink-182. But then I got home and realized, I didn’t even own anything to really listen to a CD with. My family had an old “portable” CD player that could not actually be moved while listening to it, and the other choice was to play/rip the CD on my Xbox and watch the cool visualizer (remember those?) as my shiny new Linkin Park CD played on loop. Then racing games came in and made things more interesting.
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Posted in Articles Tagged with: burnout paradise, forza, forza horizon, forza horizon 2, mad dash racing, most wanted, need for speed, need for speed most wanted, not video games, project gotham racing, racing, videogames, xboxone