Playing Call Of Duty During the Pandemic Days

During the pandemic, I found myself gaming again. Like a lot of people, it started with trying to reconnect with friends, with fun, with some version of normal. I was coaching wrestling at Denver West with Rocco DePaolo, Justin Gaethje, and Josh Imeraj, and we'd hop into Call of Duty: Warzone lobbies with some of the kids we coached. Spoiler: we’d get smoked.

It felt good to be social and do something normal.

Rocco Depaolo

It was fun at first, trash talk, bad strategy, lots of "Leroy Jenkins" level strategy. However, eventually I started playing solo. I played until I would win my first game I told myself and then I would quit it. To my surprise, I actually started winning… more than just a few times. I wasn’t great, but I got better, and like anything you spend time on, it became a habit.

I thought this was cool

I also noticed something else: I was getting frustrated. Not just in-the-moment frustration, but actual competitiveness. The trash talk I heard from other players was aggravating. I had to shut them up. I’d think about strategies, loadouts, timings. I was searching for the best loadouts. I was learning about camping, spawncampers, all the lingo I missed out on in high school. I started to understand why e-sports were a thing: it’s thrilling, fast, high-stakes, and you feel like you're always this close to being great.

But I also realized: I didn’t want to spend time getting good at this.

I would've been angry too

My now wife roasted me for calling it “COD” (I deserved it). I tried to balance gaming with quick workouts between matches pushups, squats, anything to feel like I wasn’t wasting time but the evening fun started fading. The guys went back to work and so did I. The dopamine hit wore off, and I felt myself craving something more productive. I tried getting back into it but the spark is gone.

Around the same time, I got into a game series I’d always wanted to play: Batman: Arkham. I’m a massive Batman fan, and until I was gifted an Xbox One S, the last system I owned was a PlayStation 2. I missed the Arkham series when it came out and I was absolutely blown away by the story. Once I beat the series, I didn't have a desire to play anything else.

Bob Mazooka: Fun Time Action Hour For Kids t-shirt

Buy Now

The last game I got seriously into? GTA: San Andreas… and any football game I could get my hands on. Sports games were always in rotation with my friends.

Going further back, it was the original PlayStation. Then Nintendo 64. And before that, I’d sneak onto my parents’ Sega Genesis. The deal was: I had to do X amount of pushups and sit-ups to earn game time. In retrospect, kind of brilliant parenting.

Warzone, though, was my first real foray into online gaming and the toxicity that comes with it. I quickly learned to mute everyone unless I was playing with friends. The kids we coached? They demolished us. They made us look like dads trying to figure out how the remote works. I wasn't a gamer anymore. I was obsolete.

The online play had cross-console play. PC gamers were on a whole different level too. It was like watching people play a different game entirely quicker, sharper, and terrifyingly good. I learned fast: console gamers are casuals, and PC gamers are like modifying demi-gods with keyboards as their instrument of punishment for us mere mortals.

But nothing compares to the most obsessed I’ve ever been with a game: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on PlayStation. The game probably doesn't stand up now, but at the time I was obsessed with Harry Potter anything. I was anxiously awaiting my Hogwarts letter in 2001 just like every other millenial.

"It's so realistic" - me in 2001

The Playstation was a big boy's game system. It had delicate discs and you had to handle them correctly. I also didn’t even own a memory card yet. I stayed up all night one time because I got super far into Harry Potter and couldn’t save. Starting over was not an option. My mom came in, told me to turn off the TV. I left the console on all night and dary and thought about it through the school day. I came home, the game was still running, and I beat it that night.

It was the first game I ever beat solo. I had bragging rights and I could tell everyone. Nobody cared. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was technically my first full play-through, but that was a shared win with my Uncle James. Any hard part I couldn't get past was completed by him. Harry Potter was mine alone.

Looking back, I laugh. I lost sleep over a game. I obsessed. And while Warzone reawakened a little of that in me, I also saw the difference between indulging nostalgia and letting it take over.

I think what I love about gaming is the shared community, camaraderie, and genuine fun and laughs. What I don't miss is getting too into it and forgetting that it's just a game.

I gave my parents the Xbox, it's their little entertainment system and I feel that it's only right after years of stealing their cd's, playing their Sega, and eating their food.

Probably my proudest win