How Mega Man unknowingly prepared me for a career in broadcast journalism

Slide, jump, life lost, reset.

Have you picked up a Mega Man game as an adult?

That’s a more loaded question than you might think.

The frustration of figuring out the simplistic patterns brings equal satisfaction when you perfect the moves and see that boss explode on the screen.

Mega Man was one of my favorite games to play when I was growing up.

On every map, you create a new strategy while also perfectly timing your decision-making.

One shot too many and you hear the dreaded death cry of our favorite cyborg-giant gun-handed…boy.

Going through an ice stage? Better prepare for longer slides insane jumps and stationary deathcicles lined up to send you back to the checkpoint without mercy.

I recently picked up a few legacy collections and some of the X games.

The temptation of looking up boss orders on Google is something young Eddie didn’t have to deal with.

I will admit I do at least look up the first boss so that I can get into a rhythm.

That being said the first fight where you pick a map(not the initial boss in all the games that is super easy) and the last fight are always the hardest in these games.

Different maps bring exciting/sickening puzzles to figure out.

There are a lot of these games and I want to beat them all as efficiently as possible at this point in my life, so forgive me if I ask for a little help.

I’m not Mega man… I’m only human.

Looking back at it I think this game taught me a lot of things that I’ve used to become a functioning man-child and successful journalist.

The lessons are obvious but important. You only have so many lives before you have to start over.

You need to have the right balance of aggression and patience.

If you are too aggressive as Mega Man you will fall off the map, make mistakes and quit.

If you are too patient you won’t push forward enough, get bored and eventually quit.

Let’s start there in this Mega Man reporter Venn diagram.

To make it to a top-five market as a reporter I had to have patience but I also needed to know when it was time to push through.

I started with no power-ups and my only weapon was a love for people and an interest in writing.

I beat my first boss when I… got a job from my first boss in tv.

I was getting paid to turn the nob on the teleprompter as the anchors read.

Like Mega Man, I needed to figure out the different anchors’ patterns to win them over.

Some would read slow or skip words and ad-lib.

There’s a sweet spot when it comes to putting those words where you’re giving the anchor the best chance not to mess up.

After a while I found it, and from there I earned my next power-up.

Friendship… I had earned the respect of the people I worked with and that slid those silver doors open for me.

I started going out with photographers and reporters on my days off and studying their moves.

Like Mega Man, I figured out their patterns and what made them successful and ultimately added that to my skill set.

When you play these games after that initial boss, the tempo is pretty similar across the board.

You get to pick maps and you want to earn the powers that will help you most in the next battle.

Planning is key, and I used that when picking my second on-air job.

This is a funny comparison because my first on-air job was my only offer, and paid me less than I was making bartending and working as a photographer.

Like the first map you play though, you have to do it to make the other bosses easier.

So I dived in and played the roleI of reporter, producer, photographer, editor, desk person… you get the point.

I was a one-man machine running on a depleted health bar with no bolts to buy extra lives or upgrades.

I pushed hard, picked my shots, and eventually broke through.

There is nothing more satisfying than beating a boss when your health bar is beeping at you with one hit left.

Mega Man taught me that when you’re at your lowest you can do some of the most incredible things imaginable.

A survival instinct mixed with the motivation to succeed and the patience to figure out a strategy is literary how I got where I am.

I’ve been on my last dollar more times than I can count.

I’ve wanted to quit, told myself I’m not good enough, and proven myself wrong every time.

A big reason I am that was is because of that tough little bastard in the blue suit.

As long as you don’t fall into a pit and die, you can always reset.

I’m 30 years old attempting to write about video games for the first time— after 10 years working as a traditional television reporter.

But this time my arsenal is a lot more developed than when I first hit start on my career.

Slide, jump, life lost….slide, jump, slide, jump….beat that boss… next level.