Gaming Made Me

Inspired by this set of articles:
Simon Parkin – Gaming Made Me/

I suppose there’s a few defining moments:

My 8th Birthday, Finding a nes hidden under my parents bed was what birthed me into a life of video games for sure. Mario, Duck hunt, MacDonald land and yoshis cookie were played plenty, but I don’t think I really appreciated games until I was about 10 and my brother was old enough to play. Passing the pad on his megadrive through sonic, the lion king and Rock’n'Roll racing was a joy I can really recall from my early childhood, oblivious to anything happening in the rest of the house. This sort of faded over time as the megadrive became older and we didn’t have the latest kit (The Purchase of a 32x was, in hindsight, a bit of a bad point)

Fast forwards to my brothers 13th Birthday (And a 16 year old me), and an N64 appeared in our house. Far past the launch of this console, it was Wrestlemania 2000 and Perfect dark that became a nightly obsession for us, as multiplayer gaming really came to the fore. A problematic Cart caused us issues when we upgraded to WWF/E No mercy, meaning we would loose saved progress at gradually shorter and shorter intervals, but we persevered, and were richly rewarded, eventually getting a fixed version. This era cumulated in the Day one purchase of Both the GBA and Gamecube, although the gamecube didn’t really usurp the N64 whilst I was still at home.

I’d say from that point on, I was all in, and have been ever since. Notably university and the availability of friends and time really helped to expand on my playing of games, and also the financial independence to not have to rely on birthdays and christmas to get new games. Smash brothers & Mario Kart Double Dash were very much a part of this, spending many many hours playing both until the small hours of the morning. Infact, some of the best memories i have were patiently waiting to play smash brothers on a huge TV after a social meeting of TolkSoc…

So in essence: Wrestling and Perft Dark Gave me the Taste; Smash Brothers and Mario Kart Hooked me in.

A whole night to myself

Well I wanted to play a lot of games today. I’ve got bio-shock to be getting on with, skate to finally finish, and the rest of the list of shame to contend with. Unfortunately, all I seemed to want to do is play endlessly on TTR. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some TTR, it just seems that on a night where I had the house to myself, I should have used the time to play some of those more involving games that I don’t often get to enjoy.

Gaming: Post rockband (G:PR) has seen much of my evenings in with anniedele playing said game, as we slowly work through improving our instruments and learning the ropes. This has almost entirely used up all free time I had to play any other game, which has caused me some issues. I know there are games coming out that I’m gonna want straight away, but I don’t want to get them when I still have so much at my finger tips. I guess that it comes with the territory of the gamer, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. And my keen sense of a bargain means that things like the orange box for fifteen pound coins are very hard to pass up, which only adds to my list of games I really should play before I buy any more. Next month, I won’t buy any more….