Those Were the Days is a weekly article in which Gamervision employees share video game-related memories. If you’ve got a story of your own to share, please do so! We love hearing from the community.

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Before I wrote for Gamervision I worked at a LAN Center named Cyber-Stop, and we occasionally ran overnight parties where about a dozen kids would pay to game all night. Sadly, I couldn’t just lock the door and leave them, I needed to watch them, usually after working an eight hour shift. One time I decided to bring in my new gaming PC to play on, and spent the night played Medieval: Total War II.

After working for nearly 16 hours straight I snapped, and took it out on the game. Medieval works like a large-scale Risk, and the Pope called me to join the Crusades. I denied, and was reprimanded. After wandering around my army I found a small battalion of troops from Rome, and when I clicked on them I saw that it was The Pope and a small group of soldiers. I decided enough was enough, and attacked with my four hundred soldiers. 

I slaughtered the small force, spilling anointed blood on the battlefield. A new Pope was named and I was excommunicated, but I surrounded Rome, pounded the walls until it fell, and sacked the city. This process repeated several times until, over the course of a few hundred in-game years, I had killed eight Popes. I closed my eyes and imagined the process repeating itself, with the black smoke pouring into the sky above the Vatican and a new Pontiff named, promising not to make the same mistakes before being struck down by annoyed, overtired blades.

It wasn’t out of religious hatred, it wasn’t out of anger, it was out of boredom, and history was wounded irreparably because of it. That was until a new Pope entered, and immediately proposed a treaty with my people for peace. I killed so many servants of the Catholic Church that they realized the only way to continue life was to pretend that none of it happened, and look to the future.

And, again, I burnt Rome to the ground. I was so damn tired.

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