What are the things that bring a family closer? Well holidays, food, and gaming of course! Ever since I was a young gamer I’ve always had my cousins play games with me every weekend. We were all very competitive and took gaming very serious… as if it was our lives on the line, because as a kid you dont really have alot of responsibilities so you’ve got to live for something. Why not gaming?

The most important part was to win and gain bragging rights for the week until the next time we played. I remember the big game for us was Goldeneye. We all had a Nintendo 64 and trained after school. We would each bring our controllers to the house our family would gather in. Sometimes we would be so loud while playing that we would get yelled at by every adult in the house on the same night. we would have so much fun that when it was time to go home we would fight to stay a little while longer. The games we would play were always close and we each had our glory days of being the best gamer.

Now we are all grown up and don’t get to see each other as much. One of my cousins moved to the Dominican Republic and another moved to Jersey. I miss those days and I thank gaming for giving us such good times like playing Goldeneye and Super Smash Brothers in my house. I could never forget the trash talking we did to each other, but it was all in good fun because at the end of the game we were still family. These are memories that will last forever. Things in life can change but as long as you still have the good memories in mind you will always have them with you wherever you go.

Even though I can’t game with my first cousins as much I still get to influence my other side of the family to play games (I have a really BIG family). I got my uncle to start playing Halo 2 more often and recently my second cousin returned from overseas and just finished his 4 years serving as a Marine. It’s nice that I get to spend time with him after not seeing him for so long. Whenever I go to his house I bring my wireless 360 controller and own him on Halo 2.. but I have to admit he is pretty good at Blazing Angels.