Every once in a while I’d like to talk about something completely unrelated to Bandung. Something that is… not serious, like movies, video games, magazines, comic books, hobbies, cars, whatever. Something relaxing. And why not? It’s not like every time I make a post like that a puppy is shot somewhere, hahaha. Just think of it as a ‘break’ for everything Bandung in this Blog. I’ll be including that kind of posts in the Intermezzo category.

On the first post of the Intermezzo category I would like to talk about my (not-so-hidden) hobby and passion: video games.

I have been gaming since the old days of yore, ever since the times of Atari and Nintendo Entertainment System (come to think of it, Nintendo used to have an official representative here in Indonesia, a fact that I only just realized recently and shocked me quite a bit.) I still remember playing the original Mario or Legend of Zelda when I was in the elementary school. Good times.

Nowadays video games have transformed into a form of entertainment that requires a good deal of investment money. Building a capable PC not only requires a good understanding of technical know-how but also sufficient funds. Even experiencing the full value of console systems such as PS3 or Xbox360 requires a hefty investments of not only buying the systems and all of the accompanying peripherals themselves (plus games), but also a High-Definition Television so that you can enjoy their full graphical fidelity.

The expensive nature of video-games has led to an unfortunate side-effect in Indonesia (and many other parts of the world too, I suppose): rampant piracy. Typical original DVD games for PC and Xbox360, for example, costs around 300.000 to 600.000 Rupiahs, while the pirated counterparts costs only 30.000 per DVD. The price difference is just extremely staggering, especially for Indonesians in general, making pirated products a very alluring choice to pick. It’s unfortunate and I am not calling the ‘correct’ thing to do, although in all honesty I too am victim of such circumstances.

Not too long ago, I bought an Xbox360 Jasper Go Pro Edition for about 4 million Rupiahs. It’s modded so that it can play pirated game DVDs, just like every other video game consoles sold in Indonesia—except for PS3, since it is a very formidable console that still cannot be cracked… yet. I’ve bought numerous games for it such as Mass Effect 2, Gears of Wars, Lost Odyssey, and quite a number of others. Nowadays, playing video games has become a relatively routine activity for my every spare time… it’s quite relaxing, and some games are just so great in creating their make-believe world I can’t help but to be drawn to them.

I still feel kind of bad about the whole piracy issue though. Maybe someday……

Tags: games, Intermezzo, leisure, playstation, video games, xbox
Categories: Intermezzo

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 8:51 AM and is filed under Intermezzo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.