A Gamer With A Pen

My most fondest memory of my gaming history is playing with the original Game Boy released in 1989. I would play it for three to four hours a day with my face being only a few inches away from the screen. I was making sure I gathered every Pokemon out there, one by one. I even made a list of Pokemon I had and made another list of the ones I desired to catch. I took my Game Boy everywhere: restaurants, school, family events, in the car, and even in the bathroom (no one bugged me there). My girl buds were not Game Boy lovers, not even video game lovers in general. Some knew about it, others didn’t even know that video games existed. Either way I was in my own little realm where funky looking creatures existed and I was determined to ''...catch ‘em all!'' I accomplished that endeavor and was greatly satisfied with my success. Over time, Game Boy started to transform into fancier handheld systems. As that happened, I gradually lost interest and looked towards the different gaming consoles that were being released.

Playstation was and will always be my first console love affair, which was released in 1995. Ridge Racer and Gran Turismo were my favorite games. Tekken was the only fighting game I liked and Crash Bandicoot and Spyro were my games of choice for the platform genre. Once the Playstation 2 came out, I was introduced to a bigger array of genres, such as Grand Theft Auto (action adventure), Final Fantasy (RPG), Ace Combat (flight action), SSX (sports), Dynasty Warriors (strategy) and a lot more that I can't remember at the moment. You may notice a genre missing, which is the one genre that I am so passionate about and that is first person shooters.

The first experience I had playing shooters were Tom Clancy games for the PC when I was in my early teens. In one game, I vividly remember my character being in a tactical white military outfit suited with all kinds of fancy gear. I was to infiltrate a base of some kind with my loyal AI along side me, while we traveled snow type terrain. However, at the time I didn't know what the hell to do. I didn't know about strategy, what kinds of guns to use, or what it meant to give commands. And when I would see an enemy AI, I was actually afraid of shooting them! Instead, I would hide behind mounds of snow until they walked passed or run away.
My dad would become bored from watching me play because I would wait and wait for the enemy to come out of the base instead of storming in there and completing the mission. I figured they would come out sooner or later and that is when I would pick them off from a distance. Anything else that involved close quarter combat was scary for me. It was an intense genre that I never cared for until much later.

My love for Playstation was still strong and flourished even more when the Playstation 2 came out in 2000. Any other system didn't exist to me. During Playstation's reign of success, Microsoft unleashed its new gaming console called Xbox in 2001 and I had no intention of buying one or playing it at anytime soon. That is, before my sister bought one a year or two later.

... I watched her play Halo: Combat Evolved intently. She asked if I wanted to join in on the "fun action" and I smugly said no. I refused to touch any controller other than my Playstation's. However, she kept dying repeatedly and it drove me nuts. I noticed she would shoot over the grunt's heads instead of at them, she wouldn't take cover which brought her shields down and she would run out in the open Rambo style. I yelled in panic, "okay! Gimmie the controller!" I couldn't handle seeing her die again. Little did I realize that this was my mistake!-- I had let the console seduce me. As I played Halo for the remainder of that day with my sister, I was hyponotized by the plasma grenades, the guns, the characters, and the storyline. This was the first FPS that I played where I finished the single player campaign. And I was definitely not afraid of infiltrating any sort of base...

In 2005, I bought an Xbox 360 and by golly I was so happy. For a year I played the launch titles, such as CoD2, Perfect Dark Zero, and Gun. I was contented with that, but I wanted more. I heard great things about Xbox Live and how fun it is playing with people from all different parts of the world. At first, I thought to myself, "Naaah, I'm a bit too shy to go into that" but I was curious. I eventually got all the necessary things to play on Xbox Live and I was in.

The first game I placed on the disc tray was CoD2. I jumped into an online lobby and became giddy. I was so excited to be there on my own, anxiously (I mean really anxious) to see what the hype was all about. Immediately, I was amazed just to hear a random person talk to another person, just like hearing people talking in stores or people talking over coffee. Except, I didn't know any of these people, they didn't talk to me and being shy, I certainly didn't talk with them. The players in the lobby continued conversing and a couple of seconds later, the conversation turned abruptly silent.

I leaned in toward the TV thinking that would actually help me hear. You know, how you lean in to a person to hear them? But this was a TV and over the internet through a headset! My leaning stopped when I heard, "Koolaye! Turn down your mic!" I flinched back and thought, whoa, was he talking to me? No, couldn't be, I'm not talking so what is he hearing? And why is he yelling? Evidently, if the mic is on and the volume is turned up the highest it can go, it creates a buzzing sound that people in the game can clearly hear. Being an Xbox Live newbie though, I didn't know this.

Again, he yelled, "turn down your mic!!" Okaaay, I guess he is talking to me. I scrambled to figure out how the hell to turn it down, but out of panic I disconnected it instead and could no longer hear their conversation. The match started and just like playing the Tom Clancy game on PC, I was intimidated all over again.

Xbox Live was like unfamiliar territory, which I felt compelled to explore. Little did I know that Xbox Live was filled with a vast world of gaming possibilities for me and without it... well, I would probably still be afraid of first person shooters. Honestly though, I wouldn't know half the stuff about video games as I do now if it weren't for Xbox Live, which I'll save for another post in the near future. For now, all this talk is making me hungry for some video game action! So I'm off to go and satisfy my appetite.