Anyone who has hung out with me for more than 30 minutes has probably been regaled with an animated delivery of me talking about one of my hobbies. My wife says I get wild eyed and a silly smile and I wave my hands all around in the air in my excitement of telling my friends (read: ANYONE) my latest story.
Lucky, if you get to hear about my photography experiences. Not so lucky, if you have to hear about my video game experiences! :D My wife Vanessa has learned second hand about World of Warcraft and other games, enough that she could likely be an author on one of the strategy guides. She is so patient and lets me tell her although I do catch the occasional eye roll!
Think about this; I must have one of the most impressive video game resumes available. Born in 1981, I had the original Nintendo by age 5, soon to follow with hand-me-down systems like the Coleco-Vision, Atari (various models) and Intelivision (with the rollerball paddles!)
Later, my brother and I got the original 20 lb Gameboy, a Super NES (which the Super Mario World commercial BLEW our little minds with its 16 bit glory!) followed, of course, by the Nintendo 64 (I LOVE YOU GOLDENEYE GAME CARTRIDGE! I must have logged 100s of hours in multiplayer with my brother, back when I could actually beat him at shooters!)
Enter the world of PlayStation, to which the Final Fantasy series moved. Later in 1999 my friends got PlayStation 2 with TimeSplitters. The loading times were HORRIBLE, but the extras and play control were great. :)(See!? I'm smiling excitedly just talking about this!). I have since owned at least 3 PlayStation 2s in various conditions.
For a brief time in colleage I played on the GameBoy Advance, but console systems were moving ahead much faster than handhelds.
After college in 2003, I discovered how much fun Ebay and Half.com, in coordination with the best videogame review site (
www.metcritic.com) to purchase ALL of the old systems I never had and now had money to buy! WHEEEE!! As the system race stabilized for a few years, there were TONS of amazing games I had never tried.
So, I bought a GameCube and since about 30 games, got an Xbox and the Halo serios (also a sweet DVD player).
As a birthday present in 2008 I got my Gameboy DS, which helped pass all those hours when we weren't sleeping on our Honeymoon flight to Hawaii!
Concurrently, in 2003, the first purchase I made with my first corporate paycheck was a new computer. The 2nd generation Dell XPS, which came in a MONSTER sized case. It was the top of the line computer for it's day. Enter the alternate life of MMOs. I've played Star Wars Galaxies (before it was ruined), Final Fantasy XI and later found my addiction with World of Warcraft; also called Vanessa's bane-of-existence!
I also have beta tested 4-5 games including LOTRs online, Dransik (later Ashen Empires), League of Legends (which is still one of my favorites), StarCraft 2 and other smaller games like Maple Story, Mytheon, etc.
My latest system additions have been my PlayStation 3 and my Nintendo Wii. I have some games for both that I play solo and online, but I find that my "pwning" skills do not quite match the 11-14 year olds that DESTROY me at games like Call of Duty. It is embarrassing when they taunt me at the end of the round with their headsets about how many times they killed, "Snuggler". O_o I guess I had my day in the sun with pre-pubescent reflexes and must now accept that the kids are faster than me!
Wow. Video games are like old girlfriends or songs you love. You might not remember all the details, but I bet you never forget the feeling of being so excited about something. (Go ahead, laugh. I know there are a few other nerds out there who know what I'm talking about!)
So, I have played a majority of top games over the last 24 years of my life. Too bad I can't earn a paycheck with THAT resume!
