Video Games Are the Highest Art Form: An Open Letter To My Father and Hideo Kojima

I am a lifelong gamer, y’all. I was four years old when my father brought home a Commodore 64 home computer. Four. I been playing games since floppy disks was popping! When that Batman game loaded up, with the blue and pink costume, my whole life changed. It was a Spring in 1986, I was the first person around my way with a home computer, and video games changed how I would see the world. My father is no longer with us, but I can see just how ahead of the curve he was in exposing my brothers and I to interactive digital media. Just so y’all know, the Metal Gear franchise is my favorite. Point blank, the homie Hideo Kojima is a freaking genius. If you ain’t on the wave, get a boogie board or some water wings. During Reaganomics and the end of the real-life Cold War, Metal Gear dropped the flamest political mixtape ever for the Nintendo Entertainment System. At this point in my life, I was speed running Contra and copping whistles to World-8 in Mario Bros before lunch. My little brother walked into his school like a boss that next year. He applied all the amazing ideas he had grabbed from Metal Gear Solid. The game changed the way he saw the world… and then 9/11 happened. I was ready for a challenge. I did everything in my power for the guap to get that game. The moment I had it in my hands, I blew into the cartridge out of sheer habit. Even though it was brand spanking new. My young mind was blown. The game was literally a novel about nuclear proliferation. It took me months to…