RIP ASUS ROG GL551J-kun

11/21/2015 – 8/6/2018

It was a cold November day when I installed my pirated copy of Fallout 4 on my old laptop to no success. I realized that I needed to upgrade to the PC Master race, and so I ordered what was to become my best friend for almost three years.

It was a happy day when I ran Fallout 4 on you for the first time. And for a playtime of four days and sixteen hours, we lived in the wasteland together, answering calls of settlements that needed our help. We joined the railroad and freed synths together. And we built a haven for all vault dwellers emerging from their homes.

I proctored exams with you at my side, paired with my iPad and Dark_Sage’s Vita and 3DS. We indifferently sat together as students’ hopes and dreams were being crushed by difficult math problems and smiled.

We were together when I first started dieting, emulating the Wii Fit to major success. It didn’t work then, but I’m doing much better now on my current attempt. Maybe it’s best I did this one alone.

We went through struggles together, as my OCD personality refused to let me delete anything, even games I had completed and would never run again, off of my hard drive. We debated long and hard about what to uninstall and what torrents to stop seeding until we could fit the 80GB monster that was Final Fantasy XV.

But I got confident and was certain I could treat you like any other possession I owned, not a trusted friend. I dropped you on my big toe so hard I thought I would lose my toenail. You retaliated, pushing the power cord into the power jack so hard that it moved inside its case. Any attempts I made to move it back where it was was futile, and when I took it to the shop to get replaced altogether, you pushed back by shorting out the battery. I tried to get by on the broken shreds of friendship we once had by running it with the new power jack without the battery, but it was only a matter of time. Less than a month after the fix, you decided suicide was the final solution to end our deteriorated bond, and shorted out the motherboard entirely.

But I will never forget the memories we shared, of all the games we played, the characters we loved, the journeys we followed, the cutscenes we watched, and the horrible shitstorms we were forced to grind through.

We played MMOs together.

We played games that no one else liked together.

We played games that no one else liked but we thought were fine together.

We cried together.

We laughed together.

We enjoyed the latest that gaming had to offer.

We played old classics that we had missed when we were younger.

We read text-heavy visual novels lasting fifty hours or more.

We enjoyed games that had seemingly no reading at all.

We played cult classics by famous creators known for unique games.

We played indie masterpieces that were even better than AAA releases.

We started a Twitch channel and learned how to speedrun the only open world Atelier game.

But our journey ends here during the famous boy band RPG, Final Fantasy XV.

 

Once my wedding in November is over, have put a down payment on a new house to raise a family in next spring, and gotten past all the debt that will incur (funny how even with a full-time job and a frugal lifestyle I have no money) I will be getting a new gaming rig, but I will never forget the memories I have created with you, ASUS ROG GL551J-kun. You were my first gaming laptop and will always be in my heart.