Let's Talk About Video Games · 9:38pm Sep 19th, 2017
Have I already done this? I feel like at some point I made a blog about Ponky's brief history with video games. If that's the case, consider this a sequel. If that never happened, then, um... indulge me now, I guess.
I like to say that "I wasn't allowed to play video games as a kid" because it makes people feel bad for me, but it's not entirely true. We didn't have a home console growing up, and I definitely began existing too late for arcades to be part of my childhood. I don't remember ever begging my mom for a console, but I do remember being floored by the likes of the N64, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 at my friends' homes growing up. With them, I (very lightly) dabbled in such memorable games as Super Mario 64, multiplayer Donkey Kong 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Super Mario Sunshine, and MX vs ATV. Funny enough, it's often the music I remember most of all.
I have wonderful glimpse-like memories of all those games at various friends' homes. Good times. At my own home, though, when I asked my mom if we could get a GameCube or a PlayStation 2, she always said no. I had plenty of games to play on the computer, she would remind me. I don't remember her ever saying that games would "rot my brain" or anything like that, but she definitely had me on a "timer"; like, I could only spend so much time on a computer game before I had to go... I dunno, play outside?
But you have to understand, the "computer games" I had were limited at best. I remember lots of educational games, mostly... JumpStart and stuff like that. But I did have a handful of games on CD-ROM that will stick with me forever: Toy Story from Disney Interactive, Marvel's Spider-Man, LEGO Island 1 and 2, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It's funny... I freaking loved that Grinch game, even though looking back now it was TERRIBLE. I never beat it, and I always thought that's because I wasn't good enough... but in reality, it's because the game wasn't good enough.
You just don't think about that kind of stuff as a kid, y'know? I guess you just have lower expectations when you're young. I'm sure you all have similar experiences. Like, now that I'm thinking about it, I remember I had a Game Boy Advance at one point. Ha! I totally forgot! You know, the clamshell kind with the huge cartridges that went in the bottom? I had, like, a SpongeBob game, I think... and something called Tak? Jeez, it's been a long time.
Maybe the truth is not that I wasn't allowed to play video games, but I didn't really like the video games I had. I mean, I obsessed over those Spider-Man and LEGO Island CD-ROM games, to the point that I played them over and over and over again, but those are both very specific games that unknowingly shaped how I feel about ALL OTHER VIDEO GAMES FOREVER. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
As I type, I'm remembering more "glimpses"... other games that I played briefly, or saw other people play, that left lasting impressions on me. Like Age of Empires and Bomberman and... I dunno, some Batman thing. One really specific memory I have is being over at the house of a friend's friend. You know what I'm talking about... like, I don't even remember whose house it was, but for whatever reason I was spending time with one of my friends who took us both to a third party's house. And that third guy was playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I remember the image so clearly: an elf in a green hat, "HUH!"ing and "HYAH!"ing at terrifying screechy zombie-things in a dismal, decrepit town square. Then he ran away, got on a horse, and used some carrots to gallop faster. That's all I saw. It was, like, forty seconds of gameplay, if that. And I'll never, ever forget it.
Two more important bits of my history with video games. My dad's advertising company did all the advertising for Hollywood Video and Game Crazy before the internet strangled those businesses into oblivion. When Game Crazy went under, they gave my dad a PlayStation 3 and a couple free games. He didn't want anything to do with it, so he put it in some side-room and let it gather dust.
My parents are divorced and they live in different states, so at the time I only got to visit my dad, like, maybe twice a year. And I played the ever-loving POOPY out of that PS3. Mini Ninjas, Ratchet and Clank, Arkham City... I drowned myself in a nonstop binge of video game goodness for a couple of weekends a year. I have great memories of that.
My mom also eventually got us a Wii, but... I don't know if you can really call that "gaming". The Wii was super fun and provided my family with many wonderful memories. But they're all of bowling and golf and tennis and fitness and... no real "video games", you know? Maybe that's a cop-out, but... I still feel like I can say my family never had a video game console. At least not one I was allowed to play real video games on.
So it's not so much that I didn't like video games. I was just taught in a very passive-aggressive way that video games were unimportant, even wasteful or harmful. Even though I have these amazing memories of them as a kid, the overall feeling that I gathered from my family was that video games were bad. And as I got older, that really solidified in my mind. By the time I was 20 and a missionary in Italy, I was literally accusing other missionaries of sinning for liking video games.
Isn't that INSANE? Like, isn't that absolutely freaking CRAZY!? I'm glad I can look back now and call that for what it is. Because let's get to the good part.
I haven't even told you about two of those "glimpses" I got at my friends' houses as a kid... because they were more than just glimpses. They were the first two video games I ever truly loved. Even my admiration for LEGO Island pales in comparison to the passion with which I adore these two games. And I'm willing to bet that, unlike How the Grinch Stole Christmas, many of you may agree.
Spider-Man 2 on the PS2 that I played at my friend Jake's house, and Assassin's Creed II that I played at my friend Clayton's. Those, my friends, were the first truly great video games that I ever played.
And I loved them so much because they were... extensions of what LEGO Island 2 and PC Spider-Man were trying to do. Do you know what I mean? All of these early games that are important to me have a common thread: third person open world action-adventure. Those are the games I love. I often wonder if I was predisposed to prefer that genre, or if these great initial experiences were what exalted it in my mind.
I have a really hard time enjoying any other kind of video game. I've tried really, really hard. When I came home from Italy, I acted upon the suggestions of many wonderful friends, not the least of which is our own resident lemur, to give video games another shot... because, remember, by that point I had outgrown my childish wonder of video games and convinced myself they were downright sinful. Still, I had lots of free time in 2016 in particular, and I played the first Witcher game on a trusted friend's recommendation. And I don't know, it just... fit right in with what I loved. It reminded me that video games aren't bad at all. In fact...
I played The Witcher all the way through. I absolutely loved it. But my computer wasn't powerful enough to handle anything else in that style... so I upgraded. For my birthday, I splurged and bought a PS4 (because of my good experiences with both Jake's PS2 and Game Crazy's free PS3). For the first time, in late 2016 -- just about a year ago, in fact -- I owned my own console. Now I was cookin' with gas.
I'd been watching Game Grumps like a crack addict since I'd come home from Italy in 2015, and the one game they played that really, deeply spoke to me was Bloodborne, of all things. Something about it was so magical. I was drawn to the atmosphere and the art design and the gameplay mechanics and the cryptic lore. It was the first game I bought for my own PS4, and GOD I HATED IT. It was so freaking hard! I would try, and die, and try again, and die again, and lose all my blood echoes, and get angry, and try again, and get killed even earlier, and shout and scream and slap the couch and nearly rip my controller to pieces. And the next day I would do it all over again.
And after a week or so of coming back to the game (and coming back and coming back), I realized that I didn't hate it at all. I actually LOVED IT. My boy Rutherford and I took to the streets of Old and New Yharnam alike, sawing beasts to bloody, ragdolly pulp and viscerally attacking fellow hunters like the monsters we all were. Blood Starved Beast? More like Blood Starved Byetch! HaHAAA! Y'all Cthulhu motherbuckers can suck my blunderbuss! Paleblood, here I come! YEEEAAAHH!
GOD, I love Bloodborne! And now, one year later, as the breeze of autumn chills the night and I breathe in the air of a season prepared for its own temporary death, I can't help but go back to the game smiling and shivering with fear. Skirts tells me Majora's Mask did a similar thing to him; it was so moving, so important, that the Floridian autumn always reminds him of his first days obsessing over the game.
Eventually I got to play remakes of both Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time on a graciously donated Nintendo 3DS. I'm glad I finally got those experiences, to see the games that touched so many lives and inspired generations of video games to come. It was weird to exit the Temple of Time as adult Link and wander the future ruins of Hyrule Castle Town where a bunch of ReDeads moped and screamed. I had this flashback to the first time I ever saw the game as a child that really rocked me, putting it into context like that.
This is far less organized than I meant it to be. I just get going and can't stop, jumping from one thought to another. All I'm trying to say is, over the last year or so I've given video games their due chance. I've played a lot of titles, but I've really only loved games in that narrow genre: fantastical third-person action oriented open world adventures. Even though I greatly enjoyed first person games like the Bioshock trilogy and Skyrim (which doesn't really benefit form its third-person option, imo), and even had moments of fun with retro side-scrollers like Cave Story and Shovel Knight, I can't quite figure out how to enjoy them the way I enjoy Bloodborne. I guess everyone has their preferences.
I could go on for another hundred paragraphs about how much fun I've had over the last few months with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on my beloved Switch, but... I think I'll close this off for now. All I really wanted to do here was share with you this simple thought: I was wrong about video games. I thought that, because of my mom's general disapproval, they were somehow evil and wasteful. Quite contrarily, I've discovered them to be among the greatest accomplishments of humankind. Good video games can provide a truly astounding experience, blending numerous art forms -- visual, technical, musical, literary -- in an interactive medium that tells unique stories in unforgettably personal ways.
I'm so glad I gave video games another chance. I just started a new Bloodborne playthrough with a hunter named Yelhsa... and I can't freaking beat Father Gascoigne, lulz. Jeez, I forgot how hard this game is. But I'll keep playing through the fall, because there's a feeling beyond the anger and fear that this game rattles in my ribcage... one of the most real and palpable senses of accomplishment that I've found in this industrial, hoop-jumping world I'm stuck in. And that, my friends, is worth dying for... over and over and over again.
Thanks for reading. Please, share with me your video gaming histories in the comments or in your own blogs. All in all, this is still a new love for me, and I'd especially be interested to hear from people who prefer FPS, strategy, or retro games above the likes of The Last of Us or Breath of the Wild. Are your preferences influenced by the first games you played like mine were? I never played Halo or Call of Duty, so FPS games often frustrate or bore me. I know the same can be said by others of the games I love, and that diversity in preference fascinates me to no end.
Hope to hear from you, Wonderfolk,
Ponky
I only got into video games properly, as in a home console, around 1997. Literally only because I was bullied at school for not having a console, as at the time I only had a Gameboy/Gameboy colour (Pokemon was my jam!).
One of my favorite gaming history moments was when I was still a kid and my mother and I went to Tescos (Big old shopping center, like Walmart) and there was a stand with all the new hot PlayStation releases on it. I saw that 'Crash Bash' was on there, and remember really wanting it, like, really wanting it. So, as my mother went off with the trolley, I stood there holding the game case 'reading it' over and over with that child-like mindset of 'if I look at it hard enough, my mother will buy it'.
Eventually, my mother had wondered off far enough to actually lose me and I remember panicking and feeling the need to cry because I had no idea where she had gone, all I did was cling to that game and slowly wander about looking for her. After about five minutes and an in-store announce ment I was reunited with her, and I can't remember one hundred percent how, but I was allowed to get the game. Think I had to share with my siblings as a result, though.
Another is getting my first ever console that was for me and me alone and not my siblings (our first PS1 and PS2 had been before I eventually took them as my own consoles). The Nintendo Gamecube. I remember opening it up in the early 2000's along with a copy of Mario Kart Double Dash which I still think is the best Mario Kart game to date. Having my two best mates round for the night, and repeatedly thrashing them at it, despite one of them having the game and console a year before I had it.
I have many more, but it would make this reply waaaay to long.
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This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted. Thank you for sharing this!
What do you think sets that Mario Kart apart from the others?
Tesco is UK, right?
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No problem!
As for the others, Tesco is UK yeah, and honestly? I think only DD is the best game. Simply because of it's double characters usage and multiplayer fun as you could have two players being the driver and item user against NPCs and against other racers. I am majorly biased, though, as this was my first proper Mario Kart game.
Mario Kart sets itself above the others due to its characters, gameplay, and design in general. Mario Kart 8 was the last Mario Kart I owned and loved it because I could play as Isabelle from Animal Crossing. Mario Kart is good because it implements other characters from its other IPS like Link and Isabelle etc.
Though, in my honest opinion, I prefer Crash Team Racing over any racing game. It was my first racer game and my first Crash game truth be told, was also the only game both my mother and father played. CTR has a massive place in my heart as it opened the doors to one of my all-time favorite games, Crash Bandicoot 2 (was given the first Crash a year later).
As long as we're sharing:
I guess I'm lucky with video games. My parents are both from the arcade/Atari generation. They bought an NES when I was tiny, and I pretty much grew up around it. To this day, both my parents play video games. Even my grandmother (on my dad's side, at least) played them. I might be the only person in the world whose granny beat the original Legend of Zelda, both quests, without dying a single time.
I have to admit I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with games, sometimes going for years without playing much. I adore the Zelda games, including Breath of the Wild, which I've been obsessing over for months now. Outside of that, a lot of my favorite games are old SNES rpgs, like Final Fantasy VI, the Secret of Mana, the Illusion of Gaia, and especially Chrono Trigger (which might be my favorite game ever, though BOTW gives it a run for its money). Aside from the Zelda games and a few of the Pokemon games (Sun/Moon was a lot of fun) I have fairly limited experience when it comes to newer games. I've been considering getting a PS4 lately and broadening my horizons, but between rent (which is pretty extortionate in my neck of the woods) and too many other interests/hobbies for my free time as it is, I haven't really gotten around to it.
I was potty trained for a Nintendo. I kid you not.
But the very first game that truly stole me was the first Sonic.
From there, I've been a gamer for life. I've been a few years behind due to always getting the systems as they reach the last stages of their life, but I still play.
Something about getting lost in a good one, you know?
~Skeeter The Lurker
Yoooooooooooo
That's my name! But not me, sadly. Lived on the other side of the US all my life, and I've never played Assassin's Creed II, nor would I ever play it on a console. Ew.
As far as what I like, if it's got a solid single-player experience, I'll probably play it. Shooter, RPG, Action/Adventure, Strategy, whatever. For multiplayer, though, I tend to prefer turn-based games. My reaction time ain't so hot, so I like those sorts of games for giving me time to think things over. Card games are definitely my favorite; Magic: the Gathering has kind of taken hold of me and not let go.
Man, I remember Lego Island 2. Looking back, that game was trippy as hell. Am I hallucinating, or was part of that game set in medieval times?
I played a bunch of stuff around that time, including IL2: Sturmovik, on a computer that really couldn't handle such games. I think I got about 0.5 frames a second on that flight simulator, but damn it if I didn't love it still.
Then I got into Mechwarrior and Halo, and I was lost forever.
Very intriguing stories :)
my first was some knock of cartridge unit that I played a lot, then I got my Gamecube, then an xbox, 360 and now I own a one. I love fps, rts and some rpgs. I have found memories of playing battlefront with my little bro and then playing online with friends and earning rather funny stories that happened in the course of several sessions.
My first game was Halo 3 when I was like ten, before that I always watched my brothers play, but I never wanted to actually play. I've always enjoyed rpgs and some shooters, mostly fallout and overwatch lately.
One of my favorite memories was playing halo 2 with my brother and my mom and her almost getting ran over by a jeep. Also a pretty terrifying memory because of her screaming bloody murder.
That's quite the adventure you took us on.
Growing up, we had a TI-99 personal computer. The kind that had cartridges with spreadsheet software that saved on a casette tape. It also had Munchman, which was a knockoff of Pac-Man.
Only mom was allowed to play it. She banned us all from video games after she stayed up the entire night playing it, and was still playing it when we got home from school. She had gotten to level 99 which had invisible walls and then got eaten by ghosts after she ate all the dots. So we put saran wrap over the TV screen and drew the walls in with sharpie and she played all night again and finally beat level 99 and it started over at level 1. She was so mad.
She swore that if we got a Nintendo, she'd throw it away. I had played Silkworm (side scrolling shooter, where a helicopter teams up with a jumping jeep) and Super Mario Bros. at a friend's house a few times. Well... a year or two later, grandma and grandpa bought us a Super Nintendo for christmas! It was like... christmas!
Then mom and dad gave us fifteen minutes per week of "nintendo time" that we were allowed to play. Every year we got straight As in school (as in... every single class was an A, not even one B), we got another fifteen minutes.
What that taught us is to work together, because then we could play as much nintendo as we wanted while mom and dad were both at work. Super Mario World, UN Squadron, Tetris Attack, Star Fox, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Mario Kart. All good games.
But nothing compared to when the N64 came out. Ocarina of Time is still one of my favorite video games ever. Easily. GoldenEye got me into first person shooters, but OOT just... it's something else. It's another world. The combat system was so simple, so elegant, but it just felt like you were swinging the sword! Never did play Majora's Mask, though...
Thanks for sharing!
Moved this essay to a blog, lol
My gaming experience is kind of weird, since I was limited to pretty much to a PC and Nintendo for most of my childhood. My first game I ever played was Sonic 2 (one of my most favorites of all time to this day) on my older brother's Sega Genesis. Then, he left for college, leaving me with a PC only. The games I played on PC were a bunch of silly, awful games like Blues Clues tie-ins that I adored as a kid. More respectably, I played a bunch of Microsoft Flight Simulator, starting with the 2000 version. That's a big part of how I got interested in aviation, which led to me getting my Private Pilot's license a couple of years ago. I also loved Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and 3.
Then, in quick succession, I got a Gamecube and a Game Boy Advance. I LOVED both of those consoles dearly. But the Gamecube is the one that brings back the best memories. I played games like Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Party, Mario Kart Double Dash, Melee, Luigi's Mansion, Lego Star Wars I&II, Four Swords Adventure, and The Wind Waker with my brothers all the time. The two games I loved the most, though, were Animal Crossing and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. I spent far too many hours fishing for Red Snappers and the elusive Barred Knifejaw in Animal Crossing, and way too much time just exploring the world of Paper Mario and never beating it.
We got a Wii as well, but I didn't have as much interest in it, and really didn't play video games as much from 2007-2011.
In 2011, I got a barebones computer for my birthday, with no graphics card and a dual-core CPU. It was enough to browse the internet, barely. My older brother (the one previously mentioned) gave me his old, but still beefy graphics card, which enabled me to play some games. I bought and fell in love with the first 3 Assassin's Creed games, Counter-Strike: Source, Garry's Mod, Portal, and Half Life 2. Playing those multiplayer games I made a bunch of internet friends (some of whom used those weird pony cartoon avatars), which eventually led me here. My only other option was to play retro games, like every single Half-Life game and add-on, Star Wars KOTOR, and so on.
I was pretty stuck with those kinds of games for a while because of the limitations of my computer (and my teenage wallet). So, starting in 2013, I slowly made myself a Frankenstein's monster of a computer starting with that awful pre-built computer. Today, I've completely replaced that computer, one piece at a time. I finished the job this year by replacing the tiny case that was falling apart.
I have great respect for you for going back and playing the original Witcher, because I loved it too! I hope you got to play the Witcher 2 and 3 (or are planning to play them)! Since you liked the original so much, and if you haven't already, I'd definitely recommend playing the 2nd Witcher before the 3rd because of the continuing story. I started on the Witcher #1 in the fall of 2016, and just played #3 over the summer (haven't played the DLCs yet). I'd also recommend reading the books if you're a fan of the story.
It's awesome to hear your revitalized love for video games. You've got a ton to catch up on! I kind of envy you for that, but there's still lots I haven't played either.
Yes!
Yes!
...You got all of forty seconds of OoT, and what had to go in those seconds was the ReDeads?
...
Anyway. I grew up console-less for the first bit of my life too, more or less. What I did have was a Windows 95 PC with a bunch of lovely games from the likes of LucasArts and Humongous Entertainment, pixel-art point and click adventures and that type of stuff. My dad also had an old Commodore 64, which was perfect for getting bodied by old, superhard 8-bit stuff that predated the NES.
What really defined my childhood though was DK64. I had a cousin, about four hours away, who loaded it up for me every time I came to visit and just let me wander around Jungle Japes for hours. I'm absolutely sure I just walked in circles and did nothing productive, because I have memories of reaching almost every important thing there and nope-nope-noping out or even calling him to rescue me. Accidentally wander to the rainy area with the giant beavers by Cranky's hut? Bad news, get out. Accidentally wander out of the level entrance? I'm lost, help. Discover the boss portal and wander inside? Get completely flattened and not even realize that throwing the barrels did damage, or that this was the boss that would supposedly let me move on to the next level despite basically being told that in the tutorial. I basically got the idea that going in caves was a big no-no because nothing good ever happened in them, except the minecart which was (and still is) the best thing ever but I could never find because it requires a tiny bit of actual platforming and two timed sequences to reach.
Eventually, he upgraded to a better console and just gave me the N64, along with DK64 and some other stuff. Paper Mario? He left a savefile on that sitting at the start of chapter 5, and I just picked up there and played it. Didn't get the early story, didn't get anything, just started right in the middle of the game, and chapter five is still my favorite to this day. Super Smash Bros? Played it for hours with my brother, never realizing there was a team battle mode and trying to team up purely through diplomacy (with poor, but entertaining results). Other stuff, like Mario Kart, Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time. Of all of those, I think Banjo was the first I actually beat, which is ironic because playing them now it's probably the hardest. OoT? Crippling fear of ReDeads due to the Royal Family's Tomb. Basically couldn't do the Shadow Temple. Paper Mario? Stuck on the hedge maze in chapter 6. DK64? DK64...
It probably took me at least a year to figure out how to leave Jungle Japes and kill the boss, or even that I was supposed to in the first place. Or maybe less. Time feels so long when you're that young. And I played that game to death... and I came this close to beating it... and ultimately, after much tears and hardship, couldn't get the last key because I couldn't find the Nintendo Coin. I asked my cousin. He said it was in the DK arcade (y'know, the retro barrel-throwing Jumpman one) in Frantic Factory... the one I couldn't beat because I was bad. I ground that minigame forever, and eventually all my controllers broke doing something else and I had to give up.
Probably ten years later, I pirated the game and tried playing it on an emulator, figuring I'd be better at games than I was back then and could do it ezpz. My laptop screen died halfway through Angry Aztec, before I even reached that stupid arcade. Rip my dreams. Anyway, I eventually did beat the thing when it launched on Wii U Virtual Console like... in 2015? Longest it's ever taken me to beat a game, bar some other early childhood stuff I never, ever beat period and probably never will.
Since then, I've played a ton of other stuff, but the only game that's been that definitive of an experience for me is Fire Emblem Awakening. Currently I'm sinking all my time into Splatoon 2, with occasional bouts of Project M or Age of Empires 2.
Thanks for writing this, and inviting everyone to comment. Hearing (and sharing) about gaming histories makes for so many fun blasts from the past. Stay awesome!
My mother was very skeptical of video games, but my father and sister both wore her down when I expressed an interest in them... sort of. She refused to get me a console, but she was willing to compromise on a Game Boy. And I mean a Game Boy, full stop. Not a DS, 3 or otherwise. Not an Advance, a Color, or even a Pocket; those all came later. I mean a chunky, pale gray, two-color (black and vaguely green,) could survive a bombing Game Boy. And with it was Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, a platformer that gave me hours of entertainment.
I wouldn't get an actual console until the N64, when my mother would be satisfied that I wouldn't be completely obsessed with them. Before that came The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (which I've honestly never beaten,) Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (which I have,) Mario's Picross (numbers and logic and something resembling art; it was everything I could ask for,) Wario Land II, Pokémon Blue (and later Silver, Sapphire, Platinum, White, Moon...) and others I'm no doubt forgetting, and that was before the later generations of Nintendo portables.
CD-ROMs were more acceptable, since some of them were ostensibly educational, including Bill Nye the Science Guy: Stop the Rock!, an FMV understated adventure/science playground. Heck, I learned where babies come from from an edutainment CD-ROM. The PC was also where I played the first two Civilization games and experienced the surreal joy of Gandhi threatening me with nuclear weapons. Also the first two Warcraft games, though my sister was always a lot better at them than I ever was.
The N64 gave me the whole Rare collect-a-thon platformer trilogy (Banjo-Kazooie, DK64, and Banjo-Tooie,) Paper Mario, Mario Kart 64, Ocarina of Time, Super Smash Bros., and that destroyer of palms and friendships, the original Mario Party. The Gamecube offered Melee, Luigi's Mansion, Paper Mario: the Thousand-Year Door, Kirby Air Ride (oh my god, Kirby Air Ride is such a fun game,) the first two Metroid Primes, a very fun third-party racer/brawler called Cel Damage, and Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, the only game I've ever played that was too big for one disk. It is... interesting. As in "an edgy homunculus, a Defector from Decadence who fights with guns that are also brass instruments, and a 12-year old Trixie fight a Frankensteinian god-collage by assembling winning poker hands" interesting. And the Wii did have some actual games on it, including No More Heroes, a classic example of Suda 51's eccentricity/highly marketable insanity, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, which are easily some of the most beautiful games ever made.
Yeah, I was and am a staunch brand loyalist. Other controllers never felt right in my hands. And again, I'm sure I'm forgetting at least half of the games I enjoyed. Sadly, I've fallen behind in terms of consoles; never got a WiiU and likely won't be getting a Switch. Steam's been my go-to game resource lately, with Civ V, The Binding of Isaac, Undertale, and a few others, but I just don't have the time or inclination to do much gaming these days. Though I do still play Smash for Wii U at a friend's place almost every Saturday and still hold my own quite nicely.
4672990
If you can save up for even a PS4 Slim, I have found the PS4 to be a delightful inclusion to my home.
I'm glad you liked the old Zelda games and Breath of the Wild. My brother-in-law loves the more linear games from the past several years and didn't really care of BotW, which is crazy to me because it seems like such an empirically good game.
Amazing about your grandma. Simply amazing. I can't even imagine that. Thank you for sharing!
4673002
Tell me more about that Sonic game. What exactly made you love it? I've never been able to understand the appeal of Sonic, and I'd really appreciate you trying to explain. For you specifically, what made Sonic so special?
Also, great to see Aku back in your avatar, for the time being.
4673008
I agree with you wholeheartedly about the solid single-player experience thing. The only exclusively online game I ever truly enjoyed was For Honor, and even that too frustrating much faster than I would have liked.
Tell me more about the "Ew" in your comment. I'm still pretty new to the video game world, and I don't understand the superiority of computer gaming. Could you enlighten me in your own experience? What makes playing on a PC better than a console?
4673102
Yes, LEGO Island 2 did have a medieval island! The idea was that Pepper, the main character, was traveling to many different LEGO Islands through portals to retrieve the missing pages of the Instruction Book (or something like that). So awesome.
Tell me more about your first experiences with Halo, if you wouldn't mind. What do you remember about the game that really called to you? What made it special?
4673115
Right!? It's amazing to me that video games carry with them so much more than the game itself. Much like music, they allow for external memories to forever attach to them. I'm loving the response I'm getting on this blog and all the memories people are sharing. Thanks for popping in!
4673117
Memories with friends and family seem to be a common theme among these stories. Makes me sad I didn't really have anything like that as a child. Thank you for sharing!
4673238
That's amazing. It's absolutely insane to me that so many of these stories involve peoples' parents playing video games with them. I'm genuinely envious!
What do you think it is about the shooters you're playing that excites or interests you? I'd love to know a bit more.
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Thanks for joining the conversation, Hap. Always awesome to have you.
That is a hilarious and amazing story about your mom and Munchman. Haha! I've written this in other comments, but it absolutely blows my mind to think of parents enjoying video games. Mine were always so above them, it seemed. I get a fuzzy feeling when I envision Momma Hap playing with her kids watching over her shoulder. Even the disappointment at the end is a funny and lasting memory. Lucky you.
I'm glad you talked a bit about why OoT was so different a game, that it felt like you were actually swinging the sword. Having not played Ocarina of time as a child, I was honestly a bit "meh" about the game when I played it this year as a 23 year old. Sure, it's impressive in its scope and design, and I can clearly see why it was so pioneering in its time, but I'm really sad I didn't get to experience it as a child. Having played games like Bloodborne and even For Honor before OoT, the fighting mechanic in OoT felt so simple that it didn't even occur to me that at one time it was revolutionary. Thank you for bringing that to my mind. I'm always so happy to hear about what makes games special to others.
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And what an essay it was. Thank you, Props!
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I love the Blue Clues detail. It's funny when games like that or my Grinch game hold such a special place in our memories, isn't it? I wish I could be as entertained by simple games as I was as a kid. Life would be more fun.
The GameCube was really something special, wasn't it? Technically speaking, at least according to Wikipedia, Nintendo didn't feel like the system was much of a success, probably because of the PlayStation 2's outrageous reception and that the N64 had sold better. Even so, I have great memories with my friends' GameCubes. I'm glad you mentioned Luigi's Mansion, that game was the bomb!
I love the story of your Frankenstein computer upgrading piece by piece. That's something I didn't even know was possible before 2014. I had no idea people could buy their own computer parts and assemble their own machines. It's such a foreign idea to me even now, having grown up exclusively with Microsoft PCs and Apple Macbooks. My father-in-law is a huge gamer and has several computers that he's built in his basement, though, so I've gotten a closer look over the last year. What an amazing world!
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For many, many games, the precision of a mouse and keyboard is far greater than anything a console controller can offer. On top of that, computers, even laptops, are just so much more powerful than a console. They can handle larger demands that consoles can't. In order to make do, consoles often have to restrict how the game loads various scenes or locks out the framerate at very low values. For me, though, it's mostly about the controls. I've tried to play a couple RPG and action/adventure types on consoles, and I tend to greatly prefer mouse and keyboard.
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Yeah, the ReDead thing is pretty sad, now that I think about it. Still, it says something about the quality of the game in its time if even something as dismal as that moment could leave lasting memories. It was unlike anything else.
Wow, what a wonderful and detailed tale of DK64. I only ever got to play the multiplayer bit at my friends' houses, where you shoot fruit at each other from weird guns. The music that plays during that mode is still stuck in my head fifteen years later. I catch myself humming it on a regular basis.
I love the idea of a game taking so many years to "beat"... something really memorable and formative about that. It must have been frustrating, but also really satisfying when you finally beat the game on the Wii U port. Thank you so much for sharing that, I am fascinated by the relationships people have with games. Even though the game is the same for so many people, the experience each player has is dramatically and delightfully different.
You a couple of great quotes here that really exemplify what I'm loving about games.
"Time feels so long when you're that young." I couldn't agree more. It feels like I played LEGO Island 2 for years, and the Grinch for even longer, but in all reality... it was probably just the months following the Christmas when I got the games. Ha!
"I basically got the idea that going in caves was a big no-no because nothing good ever happened in them." Yeah, it's funny that as a kid, games aren't that different from real life. You use the logic you've gathered in life and apply it to games, even though the games actually function by a logic all of their own. Unfortunately, I think that might be part of the reason that fewer games are fun as I get older, because it's harder and harder to surprise me. They can feel rote and required rather than fun.
"Didn't get the early story, didn't get anything, just started right in the middle of the game, and chapter five is still my favorite to this day." This really captures everything I'm fascinated by in early video games. Or, I guess, video games in early life. It was our moments and our experiences with the games that mattered most, not necessarily how the game was designed to be played. Now that I'm older, it would kill me to play a game out of order, but that experience you had as a child shaped your preference forever. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing.
I basically grew up on video games and around games in general. My parents played Dungeons and Dragons and are major fantasy/sci-fi fans, so there was always a strong element of enjoying fiction and games in the house.
I first played games on a 286 computer running some form of DOS I don't even recall. My dad had gotten it as a graduation gift from college and my parents bought a couple of floppy disks (good ol' 5.25" floppies!) with games on it, with stuff like Zork, some crazy rogue-like game before rogue-likes were even considered a thing, some platformers, and so on. We also had Ultima III: Exodus, and that shaped a LOT of what I was to expect out of RPGs in the coming years.
I was 7 when I got my first gaming console for myself. That Christmas my parents gave me a Sega Genesis - it'd just come out here that year, and I was given a pile of games to go along with it. Sonic the Hedgehog remains one of my favorite platforming series to date, despite how many missteps the series has made over the years. I also had games like Shining in the Darkness and Shining Force, both games that left a strong impression on me. By far my favorite game on the Genesis was Phantasy Star IV, and it's still my favorite console RPG ever.
Going onwards, I played a mix of computer and console games. Stuff like Final Fantasy (FF9 is one of my favorite games of all time) and various Legend of Zelda games. The Metroid series is amazing - I first played it with Metroid II: The Return of Samus on a Gameboy I got as a gift. I also played a lot of games like Baldur's Gate, Eye of the Beholder, and later Ultima games.
Today, I still favor RPGs primarily. I'm currently playing Tales of Berseria, FF9, and another run-through of Baldur's Gate. Somewhere along the way I picked up a strong love of modding games, and I've done it - a LOT - to various games. Skyrim instances with 200 mods, Stellaris with 50+, and Baldur's Gate is my perennial favorite to mod. I'm not a big fan of shooters, but I still enjoy the hell out of Overwatch and Destiny 2, and speaking of Blizzard games... I think the only one I don't play is World of Warcraft. I spend and have spent a ton of time on both Starcrafts, the original Warcraft games, and right now in Heroes of the Storm.
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Fantastic comment, Fan. Funny that you finish with "I'm a brand loyalist" considering your name. Ha!
I cannot believe you mentioned "Bill Nye the Science Guy: Stop the Rock!" I completely forgot about that game. My mom actually let me rent it from the library when I was a little kid, and I have such fond memories. Because I had to return it to the library after a few days, I didn't actually get to beat it. The meteor kept killing me because I spent too much time just wandering the laboratory and experiencing the mini-games/lessons. So much fun. Thanks for such a happy reminder.
I know almost nothing about Smash except that I suck at it. I'm hoping they eventually come out with a new one for the Switch. Since it's the first Nintendo console I've ever owned, I'm sure it's something I'll spend time with.
Why don't you think you'll get a Switch? Is it just because of the lack of free time?
And I know what you mean about controllers. I can't for the life of me feel comfortable with an XBox controller in my hands. The PlayStation, for me, is by far the most comfortable and familiar-feelings, although I've got to say... if I could play every game in the world with the Switch's Joy-Con, I would do it. I freaking love those things.
4673606
That is so interesting. I'm sure you're objectively correct, but in all of my experience, I've always had crappy computers that couldn't handle anything, so the console seems so advanced and capable to me. Also, I can't stand using WASD to move around. If I don't have a joystick under my thumb, I'm screaming at the character to do what I'm telling you to do, JEEZ! Ha.
That makes sense, though. I guess when precision matters, a mouse is clearly the best option. I've never been much for shooters, though, and I still don't understand why framerates matter. It seems to me that gameplay and mechanics are so much more important that performance, but maybe I'm wrong.
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The Aku comes, the Aku goes, but he will _always_ make a magnificent return.
As for Sonic... It could be for a wide variety of reason. How it played, how it looked, the lore (yes, oddly enough) of the world itself...
Either that or because it's the very first game I can clearly recall. Or all of the above.
~Skeeter The Lurker
4673615
Great comment, thank you so much for joining.
I've got a couple of questions, if you don't mind going into more detail. I love that you point out how much your first RPG shaped your "expectations" for future games in the genre. What exactly makes a good RPG, in your opinion? What did Ultima III: Exodus do that became important to you?
It's so nice for me to hear about parents that supported playing games. I'm slowly learning that good games have much more in common with novels than mindless TV shows, for example.
Tell me a bit more about your experience with Sonic, if you don't mind. I've asked elsewhere, but I'm just totally fascinated by peoples' interest in that game. Can you remember what made you enjoy the game, your very first experiences with it? What was special about it? I never got to experience Sonic myself, and when I see the games I'm just so baffled that it's popular. I'd love for someone to help me understand.
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That's funny. I vastly prefer WASD to a joystick. I guess if you have had crummy computers make up the entirety of your computer gaming experience, then that totally makes sense. Still funny.
As for framerate, I totally agree with you that gameplay and mechanics (and story) matter much more than graphics. However, when I can play the same game on console and PC and have a much smoother, cleaner experience on PC, I'll take PC in a heartbeat. And for some games, a low framerate can definitely impact gameplay. Movement becomes a lot choppier, the controls don't feel as smooth, and so on.
4673630
That's super true. I'll have to try playing a beefy game on a beefier PC someday. You can still hook up a controller to a computer, can't you?
4673631
Yes, you can. I think there might be a (free) program you need depending on the controller, but I wouldn't know since it's not something I've done.
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4673641
IIRC, you need something to sync your commands to the keypresses. Some games have an option for straight up joystick control. You choose an action, then move your joystick, button, trigger, the game remembers that command. Other ones you have to use an external command for, say, syncing up-stick = "W", and so on.
My own games ... I started off with a PS2 for the longest time, and was limited to 1 hour and weekends only. Still sitting around in my house, and works most of the time. Got a whole bunch of games donated to me by an uncle who jailbroke it (shhh), but the only games I really played early on were racing games. I was, and still am, a bit incompetent at multitasking. Most fighters, the joystick movements and combos were too much to remember (besides Smash, in which I like to play range spam). RPGs, never really cared for them to be honest. Real Time Strategy? I can barely move and mine at the same time, how could I possibly keep p with the 10 other minigames? I'm fine with watching the legends, thank you very much. Found Battlefront 2, that was amazing. Later got a Wii and an Xbox360. For Mario Kart, Smash Brawl, and Halo. Didn't really use them much compared to how long I stuck with the PS2.
Sometime later, my brother found TF2, and I decided to follow him. That lasted for a few years. Played casual most of the time because my twitch shooting was never really all that good. My brother jumped from game to game almost every year, though its often times more of a rotation. He RPs a lot more than I do, and therefore liked the character making and questing. Even multiplayer ones where everything was barebones and player fabricated.
Me? I found an ad one day about a tank MMO, and that was what hooked me to this day. Same, simplistic movement as shooters and racers, yet more forgiving shooting. And I could bounce some shots!.
I wish I could say I have as interesting a story to tell as you Ponky but truth be told, I don't. My parents never had anything against games so I have had a near limitless access to videogames ever since I was old enough to understand how to play them (partially because I didn't need restriction as I spent just as much time outside playing in the forest). In fact a lot of my earliest games were actually supplied by my parents, especially by my mom's ex who enjoyed playing computergames himself. They often gave me pc games as presents or sometimes even just as surprise gifts and when they noticed I liked a certain game they would buy more games of that series or similar games to it the next time. That way I explored a lot of different kinds of games and game genres and for instance found out that racing games were not my kind of games unless they had intricate level editors. It wasn't until I started third grade and met my now lifelong friend Patrik who were very much into games that I really (like Really with big R) got into playing videogames. He showed me lots of non-Swedish games that I might have never played otherwise and he showed me the wonders of Steam through which I came to the conclusion that I really don't like online games because there's always ALWAYS someone way better than you out there that just have to kill you a billion times to prove it. The best game-related memory I have though is this; I remember Patrik just showing up at my doorstep and tells me about this fun little indie game he had found made by some Swedish dude, this whilst he (mostly) figuratively drags me out the door to his house to show it to me. I played it for a bit at his house and though I might not have realized it at the time I promptly fell in love with the game and got my dad to buy it for me, I think it was the very next day actually. I booted the game up and just wandered around in it's epic world in total glee until night fell and I quickly dug a hole in the side of a dirt-hill to survive. Now that little game will soon have become the most sold game of all time. and I still play it. I really enjoy playing first person games, did it even before I played Minecraft, and I've always liked to play open-endedly creative fantasy games as a kid such as LEGO and roleplaying so I'm not surprised that my favorite game genres today is creative games such as Minecraft and Terraria and first person open world RPG's such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. In fact I'm actually combining the two in a project called Minecraft Middle-Earth where we are re-creating the world of Tolkien's legendarium in Minecraft (at a scale of 1:100). That's my story and I'm sorry if it isn't that interesting.
I personally think the ReDead were pretty terrifying monsters, especially when you're playing as young Link. Trying to walk on that narrow little platform, when out of the corner of your eyes you catch a glimpse of a shambling, rotten corpse, making its way toward you, painfully slowly yet inexorable. Before you can pull out a weapon or play the sun song, there's that scream and you're frozen in terror, watching the creature amble right up to you, just knowing that it's going to jump up onto your shoulders in a sudden burst of energy and skullfuck your pitiful little health meter.
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Bad graphics can undercut a story, too. A skillful storyteller will use graphical details, sounds, and everything else to tell the story. I've played games that were "meh" until I got a better computer. Suddenly, the fictional world was so much richer! OMG there's vegetation here! Look at these ruins! What's this etching? Is this why the thing happens in the next chapter?
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It was my first real experience with Space Opera, outside of Star Wars. And goddamn did I love Star Wars as a kid.
It was bright and colourful, with (at the time) amazing landscapes, with a fast paced story that kept me hooked as a kid, all while serving to shuttle you around various gorgeous places. The game starts you off in the dark, cramped corridors of a spaceship in the middle of being boarded by swarms of bright, gaudy aliens. You get to your drop-pod in the nick of time to watch your ship scream overhead, wreathed in fire and plasma. You crash on this mysterious ring construct, to find it perfectly habitable, members of the Covenant still hot on your tail. From there it's a whistle-stop tour of the ring, as you move from idyllic river basin, to desert plains, to arctic canyons, to alien ships themselves as you try to find survivors, survive yourself, and organise some sort of resistance. You even uncover something that manages to be both a bigger threat and more horrifying than a group of pious, technologically superior aliens on a religious, genocidal crusade against your entire race.
All while what is quite possibly the best soundtrack in all of video games ever (and that's not hyperbole) plays over your speakers.
In case you can't tell, I still love the original Halo to death. Hell, I love Halo 1-3. Reach was nice, and ODST was actually pretty incredible. It took the series in a completely different direction, but I really liked it. Instead of being a power-armoured badass at the centre of the action, you play as just a normal, unaugmented human soldier man, in the occupied ruins of New Mombasa. Seperated from your squad, and knocked unconscious for god knows how long by an incident when dropping in to the city, you explore the city in the dead of night, dodging enemy patrols, looking for what happened to your friends, and above all not being an unstoppable juggernaut of cool space fighting stuff. The mood was somber, the pace gentle, and it had (yet another) amazing soundtrack to match it.
I'm not that enthused with what 343 did with the series after they took over, but Halo:CE through to Halo:Reach will always hold a special spot in my heart.
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Ultimate III, and the Ultima series as a whole, was very open-worldy, became very detailed worlds as things went on, and tended to avoid the "climactic final battle" thing by having different ways of finishing the quest. You could also customize the characters, and later had an interesting method (via questions!) of determining your class. As the whole Ultima series followed one character, the Avatar, there were also a bunch of recurring characters throughout the series as well.
The series wasn't perfect, but it was very big on it's own form of morality, called the Eight Virtues, that the Avatar was meant to be the embodiment of. They were a major theme in games 4-6 and still referenced and important in 7 and 9 (although 9 was an awful game).
Good games, even ones that don't, on the surface, have much of a story, can still tell a heck of a story just through what you see and do. Environmental storytelling is seriously a thing.
Games like Mario are about precise platforming, ultimately. Sonic, on the other hand, is about momentum. The whole of the game (and all the good games in the series) is about continuously moving and jumping and progressing. The levels tend to be huge with multiple different paths you can take, as little as two and as many as six, and the paths often cross. It's a very fluid experience, running and jumping and spinning your way through the levels. It also helps, in the second game onward, that if you complete all the bonus stages you can unlock Super Sonic, which is faster, jumpier, and invulnerable, making repeated playthroughs silly and, in some ways, harder as you try to maintain a path.
The other part of it is Dr. Robotnik (or, as he's known in later games, Doctor Eggman). All the enemies are animals in machines that you free by breaking them, and fighting the boss, usually a machine Robotnik is piloting, is just silly as heck. They're wacky mad science machines that make no sense but can be both difficult and rewarding to fight as you learn their patterns and figure out any puzzles associated with them. The later bosses can sometimes be really hard, but also a ton of fun to beat. Like a 20-foot tall machine that looks like Robotnik that has spike hands and flies and stomps around. It's silly! But hard and fun.
Video games have literally saved my life. I was driving my mom's van down Provo Canyon when it started snowing. It was already kind of icy so I was worried. When suddenly the van lost traction on a curve and started skidding towards the railing. AT THAT MOMENT I had a flash of recollection of the exact same thing happening in Test Drive Unlimited, and for that moment I felt like friggin' Neo in the Matrix: "I know how to fix this". And I whipped the steering wheel while ramping up the gas to execute a poor, but ultimately lifesaving powerslide.
So yeah, as far as I'm concerned video games are all right.
4673748 I know, right? The developers were pure evil with them.
The first place you normally encounter them is the Royal Family's Tomb, which you'll very likely wander into as Young Link right after beating the first dungeon. The room where you fight them is filled with giant steaming green pits of acid that scream nope, and you have a choice between running through that and fighting the ReDeads which are creepy and moan and you kind of want gone. And you're a confidant little kid with your health meter newly expanded to four hearts and you just trashed the first boss and you have a Slingshot and you're a pro at this game and clearly invincible and are gonna mess them up with your Kokiri Sword and oh wait no why can't you move they're moaning louder and they're coming and then it jumps on your back and starts biting your head off with an attack that does just enough damage for you to survive in critical condition, and then you can make it away if you run for your life and aren't too busy being in shock from that but odds are you'll either freeze or start chopping at them with your sword. And if you do that? They've got too much HP to die before they hump you again and you die in those caves, sad and alone, and wake up all the way back in your bed at the start of the game and are too traumatized to play anymore.
As if that's not enough, eventually you'll probably find out that there are more of them later in the game, and the one weapon that can actually fight them is in that room where they first killed you and you really, really don't want to go back there. And you'll probably never figure out, either, that the acid pits in that room do next to no damage and give you a ton of invincibility frames that prevent the ReDeads from freezing, and by walking through those you can do that entire room for free. It's pure evil.
Incidentally, one other thing to note about the ReDeads is that the 3ds remake makes them less scary. The lighting is better in areas where they show up and the textures are higher-definition, so you can see what they are rather than just murky, blurry oh-no-that's-a-corpse panic. You also see them before you hear them, usually. And hearing them without seeing them is the worst part.
ReDeads in The Wind Waker are just as bad, but for completely different reasons. They don't moan, they don't look like disturbing corpses, or anything. They just sit there, pretending to be statues, kind of like Armos... and they blend in to the backgrounds really well, so they're hard to see unless you're looking for them... but when they do wake up and freeze you, which they can do from a very long way away, their faces are terrifying. Seriously, screw ReDeads.
4673611 After reading through all the other comments here, I kind of want to keep talking, because DK64 is hardly the only game I have an interesting history with.
Elementary school, early 2000s: when riding the school bus, having a Game Boy Advance made you hot stuff. Like, the person everyone wanted to be friends with. It didn't matter whether you shared it or not, but if you did, you would be well on your way to being the most popular kid in school. I didn't have one- I had a friend with one, and I constantly begged him to let me play Yoshi's Island- but I wanted one, very badly, and eventually spent a looong time saving up my allowance and gift money and other stuff and bought one for myself right as fourth grade was starting. It came with a carrying case and Super Mario Bros. 3. And I felt fantastic.
Now, in fourth grade, I had this classmate who really liked Pokemon. In fact, she probably had an unhealthy obsession with it... or maybe just a really active imagination. In fact, today we'd probably be best friends. But back then, I'd be sitting around and watching her randomly break out singing the Pokemon theme song, and I was like, "Wow, this is weird. What's doing that to her?"
I decided I wanted nothing to do with it... or, I felt that way in my head, but actually acted quite the opposite. I decided I really didn't like Pokemon, so I went home, loaded up Smash 64 every day, and put myself in a fight vs three Jigglypuff CPUs with items set to Hammers only and destroyed them, over and over and over. I made some silly animations in Powerpoint of smashing them in elaborate traps that actually got me a ton of popularity. I'm pretty sure I even drew cartoons of blowing them up (some of which I still have). It's kind of funny in hindsight, but moreso when the realization comes in that I had made a very naive mistake: I knew so little about Pokemon, I thought Pikachu and Jigglypuff were the only ones out there, because Smash Bros. Oh, and Squirtle, Charmander and Bulbasaur, but those kind of maybe half-existed in my mind and I didn't really care. And then, all those wonderful friends of mine from the school bus got together (I'm pretty sure it was a birthday party, or something) and bought me Pokemon Leafgreen as a prank.
It's probably the best prank I've ever had pulled on me. I was in denial for the rest of that get-together, to the point where my friends just 'borrowed' my GBA and started a file themselves, and caught a bunch of Weedles and Rattatas and started naming them after themselves. Eventually, the party ended, my curiosity got the better of me, and I tried it... and my small, simple mind got blown and I fell in love with the game and played it for hundreds of hours. But I still didn't make friends with that one girl.
Looking back, that's actually a surprisingly similar story to how a lot of people came to like ponies, which is why it shouldn't be surprising at all that I'm here now. Oh well. Good times.
I have even more, too, if you care to listen.
4673591
I kinda like action games or rpgs because I don't, I dunno, think about my limitations. A bit of escapism you know? It's not about the killing and blood spilling.
I have some medical issues, so playing as a character that can jump and flip around kinda helps me experience something I can't in real life.
4673617
The Bill Nye game was actually the first time I used an Internet walkthrough. That last puzzle was surprisingly killer.
And sadly, I just don't have enough time that isn't taken up by work, horsewords, or YouTube to justify a Switch. I only have two games on my 3DS and I've barely touched one of them.
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It's interesting that you point out that you didn't feel very talented at TF2, but you kept playing it because you had someone to play it with. I think that's another thing I love about video games... they can be such a fun and unique way to spend time with people we want to be around. Thanks for reminding me of that.
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I actually really liked your story, ryttyr. I'm fascinated by tales of people growing up with video games, because in my experience it was such a limited thing. I also love that your friend introduced you to Minecraft before it exploded into every corner of the earth. I've still never played Minecraft, mostly because I've had bad experiences with its fans, but if you like it then I guess it can't possibly be that bad.
4673768
Very cool. I'm glad you included the soundtracks. I love reading about these kinds of experiences, the origins of that which is important to us. Thanks for taking the time to write this out, Plum. It's exactly what I wanted.
4673810
Fantastic responses, thank you so much. I love what you said about a good RPG and I totally agree. I wish I could find more RPGs that satisfy me, because I love the idea of them but often find myself bored by the ones that are popular or available.
And a mighty thank you to your Sonic recollections as well. That really helped me understand. It is interesting that Sonic allows for so many paths. I guess I have always been a neurotic person, and the idea of doing something wrong prevents me from enjoying something so fast. Ha! But again, thank you for describing your experience to me and helping me understand.