I, Gamer

WE'RE SO HARDCORE!!!
 

I should have made a post about this a long time ago. I am a gamer, not like one of those people who plays Angry Birds or Tetris or whatever casual gamers play these days. I am the "Sink 3-4 hours into a new game on release date" kind of gamer (but not the level of "I'll shower after the liberation of Roma" that's just crazy.)

I've had a gaming console as far back as I can remember, some of my earliest memories are of my Dad mapping out the entireity of Zebes on graph paper while playing Metroid and then, when we got a Super Nintendo I fondly remember playing Secret of Mana with my brother and eating fresh coconut.

The game that truly made me a gamer, however, was Chrono Trigger. There's no way to really explain it other than the fact that it blew me away. It was amazing, and it was the first game I ever beat before my brother, so it has a really special place in my heart. From that game forward, I was truly a gamer.


No seriously, the battle music is playing in my head right now.

My brother and I have always been Nintendo die-hard fans, but after the dismal game releases for the Nintendo 64 and the Gamecube, we found ourselves drifting more towards the PC. With the PC you don't have to worry if you have the right console system. There's no controllers, no TV connecting to console issues, and you don't have to worry about all the extra crap that comes with having to deal with a console, like the graphics expansion of the Nintendo 64, the red ring of death of the Xbox, the ego-maniacal attitude of Sony and their gift-from-God Playstation systems.


I am not using obscure games to be hipster.
That's what my scarf and glasses are for.

Best of all, no matter how old the game is, a PC will still run it, one way or another. There's no new kind of CDs, or you need some kind of cartridge slot, or anything. If I wanted to play Lighthouse, a game from 1996, I could. Oh, it would probably take some time to set up my machine so that it was compatible, but it's possible. Let's see you try to get Joe and Mac for the Super Nintendo to work on the Playstation 3

A guy will probably have to
play this before even bothering
to propose marriage.

Probably one of my most favorite games is Thief 2: The Metal Age. It's not the most graphically impressive out there, even back when it was new, but it's got so much style and uniqueness that it has withstood the test of time so much that only a month or two has passed before this game is installed in a new computer. It invented the stealth genre, and is the very reason we even have stealth games today. However, it's also obscure enough that I spew breadcrumbs anytime someone has even heard of the game.



Okay, now I'm being hipster

I can list a slew of games that I have either played to death or else have been wedged deeply into my brain. The Neverhood, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Prey, Penumbra, Amnesia, Vampire: The Masquerade, Hellgate London (before it was grabbed up by another company and they ruined Lucious Aldin's lines).


It's standard that they install these in
all of their fans.

That's not to say I only play totally obscure games. I am a fan of Mario, the Fallout series, Deus Ex. Heck, ask me about Valve. If Gabe Newell knocked on my door and told me Valve owned my soul through contractual obligation, I'd believe him.

To me, one of the best ways to spend my time is to sit down with a good game. Even if I'm not playing I love to talk about a good game or express my fandom in some real world way (which you'll get to hear about later.)