Wednesday, May 16, 2012

My gaming history and inspiration


In this post I will talk about my favorite games of all time. They will range from titles that I find particularly awesome to cherished childhood games. Overall each one has affected me in a personal way that grew my appreciation for video games. The list is in order of which I played first.

1. Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World



This was actually the first game cartridge I have ever owned. My parents bought this for me when I was four or five years old and it came bundled with an SNES. The reason I loved it so much is simple - It's Mario and it has all of them in one cartridge! It didn't take much experience in gaming to know that this series was incredibly entertaining. I played it so much that every level just became second nature to me. This game planted the seeds that would eventually make video games into my favorite hobby and something more in the future.

 2. Sonic the Hedgehog



I never owned the game or even a Sega system but I did play this a lot at other people's houses. Mostly I appreciated this game because I loved watching the cartoon. I enjoyed the fast paced gameplay that gave me an adrenaline rush as I tried to avoid obstacles or kill enemies with perfect precision. I remember it taking half a Saturday to beat the game because there no save points and if I lost all my lives I had to start over from the very beginning. The music was great too especially the green hill stage whose theme will always bring warm feelings to my heart when I listen to it.

3. Robocop Vs. Terminator



This is one of the very first games I can recall having a "nerdgasm" for. It was two of my favorite sci-fi movie characters combined into one package. Also it was one of the first mature games that I played at a not so mature age. The story was a serious one that I became extremely excited about because I love fighting for a great cause in my video game stories. After this point I began to notice that I mostly enjoyed games with a great story.

4. Total Carnage



The quote on the box cover says it all, "Prepare to face massive resistance!" After reading that I knew that this was going to be a war game to end all war games. One of the first real time multiplayer games that I had too. This was the type of game I would invite a buddy over and we would engorge on complete bloody mayhem and Cheetos together. Things go boom, bad guys get killed, and fists bumped...this game rocked!

5. Poke'mon - Red Version



This was the very first RPG I ever played, it may not be like the traditional ones of high fantasy but its gameplay was just the same. I got this one Christmas Morning along with a Gameboy Color and jammed on it all day long. I originally asked for it because I was a fan of the TV show but I stayed for the awesome game. Building and raising a party to be the best in the land had never been so much fun and tactical to me at that point. For the first time in a video game I started to think more about strategy than just speeding and mashing my way through a level and I began to like this way of gaming too.

6. Starcraft



I first experienced this game at my cousin's house when I was still in elementary school. When he was teaching me how to play it seemed like the most intense war game in the world. Bunkers filled with marines were being overrun by little alien insects, jets were flying high above shooting down spaceships,  and nukes were going off somewhere in the distance. It was the first RTS I ever played and I cherish this game so much because it reminded me of a time when I was a little boy playing with plastic army men. I used to line up two armies of plastic soldiers, organized by their weapon, facing opposite sides on the floor. Then I would imagine them clashing together at the center as I would strategically command both armies. Occasionally I would throw in my Godzilla toy and the two armies would unite against the bigger threat but that is a whole different story for another time. Now after I experienced Starcraft for the first time I constantly craved to play it again because at the time I did not have a pc. However, when I finally got a chance to own the game I played the hell out of it. The story was fantastic and will forever be my one of my favorites, I even bought three of the Starcraft novels because I was so intrigued by the lore. As for the multiplayer I wasn't really good at it but I was the best player amongst my group of friends and we would often play 3v3 matches after school.

7. Halo



Any chance I got I would always choose to play this game because I never owned the original Xbox and I only got to play it at my best friend's house. I love games that allow to fight against aliens and defend humanity so a sci -first person shooter along with an epic story like Halo was more than enough to win me over. However what set this apart from all the other first person shooters is that I read all the novelizations of Halo before actually playing the entire single player campaign. So I had all this extra knowledge of the lore that helped build a bigger appreciation for the characters and raise the stakes of what was going on in the overall story. At this point I began to realize that games were more than just a quick past time, they were huge works of art created with a passionate imagination.

8. Resident Evil



This series is one of my main inspirations for wanting a career in video games. I absolutely love it! The story was incredible and complex. The puzzles were fun and exciting. The characters were likeable and strong. Managing limited amounts of health and ammo was fun especially after narrowly surviving each encounter. The enemies were absolutely frightening too! My heart pounded each and every single time I would put the disc into my Gamecube and play it during the middle of the night with all the lights turned off. This series was also the first one that I put forth a lot of effort into searching, collecting, and playing all of its sequels, prequels, and spin off's. This was finally it, video games were not just games to me anymore they had become a passion in life now.

All of these games have helped spawn my passion for video games. I realized that if I enjoyed playing them so much why don't I consider a career in making them. Sure it's not as easy as it sounds but my love of games has become a strong enough foundation to endure all the obstacles I have or will come across. Of course I've played other games too and I enjoy them as well. However, these games have personally encouraged me to follow this path in life.