My favourite game

My eyes needed a breather but it took a huge effort to pry myself away from my keyboard. When I finally did, brow wet with perspiration and heartbeat measuring at a million beats per second, my memories brought me back to the day I had earned the right to own my favourite game, Rome Total War.

The tension was written all over my mother's face. Weeks earlier, she had promised me anything I wished for if I was able to ace my final examinations. Determined to hold her to her word, I studied harder than I ever had. When the fateful day came, she opened my result slip expecting the worst. However, within seconds, an expression I had never seen before lit up her face. The usual Cs and Ds had been replaced by 3As and one B - a marked improvement. I had never seen her genuinely happy buying me a pc-game. I guess I must have really deserved it. I must say that Rome Total War was the first game that I had earned through hard work.

The mission here is to capture all the cities on the map by any means neccessary. I will also have to manage vast cities and engage in gigantic battles against all kinds of enemies with the aid of my advisors.Allies also protect me from my enemies and trade goods and weapons with me to get more money in our quest to round up more soldiers to expand our army. However, I also have to make sure that someday, I would be able to turn on my own allies and capture their settlement. That requires quite a fair bit of scheming and I have to shamelessly admit that I am pretty good at it. However, capturing all their bases and rule over the empire is no easy task and I am still learning as I go along. See! Who says such fun is not educational.

After playing for weeks, I realise that it is the best game I have ever played in my entire life! Supported by a very updated computer, the graphics come alive on screen - totally transporting my mind back to those days and away from the comfort of my own home. It rouses up an interest in me to study history. I wonder if events those days were anything like what I experience on screen. Not only that, my parents take comfort that I am not out on the streets being influenced by the delinquents we read about in the papers these days. I am glad that they can see a silver lining in the cloud.