My Gaming History

My love of games was sparked by a very simple rule of life: My older brother had something so I wanted it.

My introduction to video games involved no actual playing of them for about a year but instead 5 year old me had to sit quietly and watch my brother play on the Playstation One and while his preference was mostly sports and racing games it was sitting there, not actually touching the game (unless he left the room for a moment) that started my love of the series like Tomb Raider and Metal Gear Solid simply because I found these strange cubic attempts at people so engaging even when just watching.

I've never quite panicked so much
as when this whale started chasing me. 

Eventually I was granted permission that I could use my brother’s consoles, usually when he wasn't there to stop me and filled my time with bits and pieces of various games just moving characters and seeing what I could do until I found Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. Being fairly young, story lines in games like Metal Gear were easily lost on me but I found Sonic easier to engage with and suddenly found myself with a story to follow with levels carrying me to the next step and a thing to work towards. It was probably at this point where the hook really sunk in. 

             

By seven I’d only had my brother’s console to play on but by 2001 by parents realised games tended to keep me quiet and distract me from drawing artwork on the walls, so come Christmas I was gifted my first Gameboy colour and Pokémon Yellow. Pokémon is without a doubt responsible for taking up massive chunks of my life, in the twelve years from 2001 to now and across ten games I've clocked up over 3000 hours of playtime. Despite it rarely changing the game formula the Pokémon series I never fail to enjoy but when I’m asked as I have been many times why I like it so much it’s the one game I don’t actually have an answer for, I just do and it has been the sole reasoning behind me buying consoles twice now, recently with the 3DS and in back in 2004.

After years of opportunistic playtime in 2004 I brought my first gaming console: The Nintendo Gamecube. I put up with a lot of mockery from friends for it but I loved this console, it was small and easy to carry which was handy when I had to move around a lot, Pokémon Colosseum was exclusive to it but more importantly it was mine to play with when I wished. With my Pokémon addiction happily sated I began collecting more games for my new console and found Metroid, Zelda, Resident evil and loads of titles that I love and follow still.

So by 2010 I've amassed every updated handheld console Nintendo has released up to the DS and when you line them up they look like an evolutionary chain. My playable consoles were the PS2 until I took a tumble down some stairs while moving it (I didn't break an arm but I managed to break the console) and the Xbox 360. Over these years my biggest interest in games became story and characters, RPGs were my usual pass time allowing me to imagine and try to create my own individual character within worlds, so Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Dragon age etc.  

I think the thing I love most about games is their potential for interactive storytelling, particularly ones with decision making mechanics. Games engage me more than films since I have a part to play rather than just being along for the ride. I thought that the Mass Effect series did it well, presenting interesting and likable characters and providing reasoning for why you’d want to help them. For me it made the world seem bigger than just the main quest line but as it’s my favorite game I could just be completely bias.

I already tried to sum up best I could but I feel like I could trail on forever on games I've played and games I liked and there would never be a natural stopping point so instead I’ll just slam the breaks right about here.