Friday, June 3, 2011

Here we go....


Welcome, welcome beautiful people of the internet to my little experiment. My name is Eddy and this is my first blog ever. This is something I've been wanting to get started for a while now, and what better time to start a blog about video games when they are now considered art, or something, and now that E3 is approaching right around the corner. Sure I may not be attending the event, but I'll be updating on everything I hear about in this blog to put my skills to the test. Maybe this blog will take me places maybe it won't, I don't know, it all depends on fate and how much work I put into this blog.

As for my history with video games, well, it's a long one but also a bit shallow. My first interaction with a video game system was back in '97 when I was just 5 years old. My dad told me he bought an Atari 2600 from a garage sale and that when we got home, he would plug it in so that we could try it out. Me and my brother, Leo, were excited as fuck. At the time I would see on TV how dynamic and crazy those 3D graphics were for the PlayStation and for the Nintendo 64. I couldn't wait to get home and fight robots and blow up stuff with missiles. When we got home my father plugged the system in and then, disappointingly, watched the 8-bit graphics flash on the screen. Me and my brother would play for a year barely comprehending anything going on the screen. The only thing I remembered liking about the system was that horrible port of Pac-Man, with those screeching noises that I'm not sure how both my brother and I endured. It wasn't until one year later I was introduced to real gaming when my dad bought me a freaking Nintendo 64. It's probably one of the kindest thing, (other than giving me birth), that my dad has ever done. Hours and hours I would invest myself playing the crap out of Banjo Kazooie, I wasn't a 100% completionist, but man, did I ever wanted to kick Gruntilda's butt.

From those days on I spent my childhood playing Nintendo 64, spend the rest of my young teenage years playing Gamecube and from that point on I became a Nintendo fan boy. Whatever Nintendo was doing back then, they were doing it right and they kept me hooked. We got the Wii 1 year later after it's launch because of financial reasons, but when we got it, the hype went down. It was fun playing Metroid, Zelda and Super Mario but my hunger for gaming didn't felt satisfied. This is when I started reading up on the latest in video game news. It is where I noticed that Nintendo, unfortunately, was forgetting about their fans. Either that or they forgot their fans grew up. At first, like many gamers, I felt a bit sadden by the fact they abandoned us, but later on I got over it. It is an business after all and businesses tend to like money and yachts.

It wasn't until the Christmas of 09 that my dad, his the bomb, seriously, he bought me everything I ever wanted, despite the fact I'm a horrible son. My father on that Christmas, got me an Xbox 360, a system where I could play new, mature, better looking games. Have I become a Microsoft fan boy? Not really, I'm not stupid, I'm not much of a loyalist anymore, and despite what I said earlier, I still appreciate some of the stuff Nintendo and other companies decided to do with their hardcore games on the Wii. But it wasn't until I got an Xbox 360 that I noticed how much value video games can have in the artistic world and that there is such a huge community of gamers out there on the internet. Sure, I've never been alone, I've always had good friends during my scholar years, but it was nice knowing that people out there wanted to talk about stuff I liked too.

So this brings us up to date. I've played many types of games from shooters to puzzles, from indies to triple A titles and from consoles to simple flash games. But I've also played so much crap it's not even funny, so much money wasted, sooooo much. But if it weren't for the bad games, I wouldn't appreciate as much the experiences I went through with the good games. I've comprehended Passage, I experienced the drama of Liberty City, I learned a lot about myself through Commander Shepard, I survived the capital wasteland, I was struck in awe fighting the Colossus and I cried my ass off to the ending of Metal Gear Solid 4 (which by the way, last 2 games mentioned where borrowed from friends). I regret only wanting Nintendo systems which has limited my experience with gaming in my early years. I can't thank my father enough for introducing me to what I personally considered the best type of media out there. Because if it weren't for him this blog would be about poodles...or something stupid. I am aware that I still have a ton to learn about video games and how to analyze them. And finally, (sorry, I know I'm just dragging it on, right now) I hope for the best to the industry, and that the developers out there making games are giving it their all to make this a better media than it already is. 

Thank you for reading and I hope you stick around to watch, as this little experiments unfolds into something horrible...or good, who knows, we'll both have to find out.

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