Like pretty much all of you here, gaming has always been a huge part of my life. It has dictated the kind of people I socialize with, the clothes I wear, the way I act, the way I think. But I'm not going to talk about all that boring stuff, basically, I will be going over how gaming has changed throughout my life in terms of what game genres and gaming styles I have gone through as I have grown up.


As a child naturally I was gaming on the NES and SNES because well, that's what I had access to. Me and my brother would play single player games taking turns, or play multiplayer games together like Killer Instinct (which he always mercilessly crushed me in). Video games were always a source of healthy competition between my Brother and I, even today we still find time occasionally to compete in video games.




Competition however was not originally what got me hooked into gaming, it was total immersion in a single player game. I would have to say the game that stands out in my memory most as one I have spent countless hours playing and have beaten numerous times is non other than Super Mario RPG: Legend of The Seven Stars



I'd say this game is probably the deciding factor that made gaming the biggest outlet for entertainment in my life (I also have beaten it easily over 15 times throughout my life, as far as I'm concerned it's one of the best games ever made). While single player games were great the thrill of competition grabbed me with games like Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye where me, my brother, and a close group of friends would spend hours gawking at the dull glow of a television while trashing at our controllers and bitching about how Odd Job was a cheap character (but seriously it was retarded trying to shoot him when a reflexive shot wizzed right over his little bowler had adorned head!)

The N64 would dominate my gaming life until we obtained our first computer and a copy of Starcraft.


Looking back Starcraft 1 wasn't very dynamic or balanced, but it kept us entertained until the extremely successful Brood War expansion was released. This game dominated the lives of many including My brother and I. We would spend hours merely TALKING about the game when we weren't taking turns playing it late into the night. Because of Starcraft I became of Multiplayer fiend.I played starcraft for a good 6-7 years on and off until setting it aside to play other multiplayer games which would further my addiction for competition in video games. I became thoroughly addicted to multiplayer games because nothing gave me more satisfaction than defeating someone else. The more I played, the more I won, the more I won, the more addicted I would become.

Competitive gaming was always appealing to me, especially in my adult life I would spend far too much time watching frag videos of others far more skilled than myself. The only game I ever obtained enough skill in to play competitively in was Team Fortress 2, where I played primarily Sniper & Scout in primarily Pick-Up Games and Clan matches.


The nice delicious crisp ping of the head shot in TF2 yielded buckets of warm, gooey, self satisfaction.

The point of all this I suppose is to show not only how my gaming styles have changed but how gaming has changed me as a person. Without video games I would not be the person I am today (A pudgy nerd) Ironic this month's topic is about change, because If I could go back In time, I wouldn't change a damned thing....Thanks for reading :)


Unrelated: Gaming is also a great way to get recorded and make an ass out of yourself! Like in this wonderful Sparta remix of me

As you may or may not know. I am a huge blizzard fan, they basically could put a brown box with no label or any indication of what was in it, on shelves and I would fork over 60 bucks for that.

Well I feel the same way about Pixar.



Every single Pixar movie I have ever seen in my entire life has been phenomenal (Cars being the exception, that one was just..okay). Pixar has this unique ability to make all of their movies interesting to not only children, but to adults as well. Wall-E for example to a kid its just a funny robot doing all sorts of crazy things. To adults Wall-E is a journey of a courageous hopeless romantic battling through thick & thin to get to the one he loves (EVE). Also not to mention the amazingly bleak depiction of the future of the human race being completely dependent on technology to survive after abandoning Earth.


Goofy funny scene from Wall-E

My point is every Pixar movie at first glance could just seem like a fun kids movie. But they are so much more than that, they are intellectually and emotionally stimulating, there are parts in some movies where its tough to hold back tears because they have the ability to pull you in to their films.



They even broke the rule of sequels being worse than the original! I guess this could be a matter of opinion but Toy Story 2 was better than Toy Story 1, and Toy Story 3 was freakin amazing.


I guess the point I am getting at is Pixar is incapable of making an unsatisfactory film. Just like Blizzard is incapable of making a bad game.


If you disagree, you're wrong!

As a fanatic Starcraft fan I watch numerous streams and videos related to Starcraft. Since the release of Starcraft 2 my focus naturally has been the sequel to the Blizzard-made RTS.



Now for someone like me who has been playing Starcraft 1 and Starcraft Brood War for years I didn't particularly have trouble transitioning over to Starcraft 2. However, for some of the less experienced players with Starcraft 2 as their first RTS game the complexity and strategy of the game may seem a bit overwhelming, this brings me back to watching streams for Starcraft 2. There are many educational streams that will help you iron out various strategies and tactics used in Starcraft 2, my personal favorite of course is Sean "Day[9]" Plott's Day9 daily Ustream.


I am a huge fan of the Day9 dailies for a multitude of reasons, the primary reason of course being that its extremely informative and you will no doubt learn something new everyday you watch that stream and it will help you grow as a player. Some other reasons that may be more appealing to others is that he analyzes high level matches on a regular basis, but also has "Newbie Tuesday" where he will analyze a low level game from the bronze-silver league and give tips on how you can easily improve with just a few fundamental changes.


He's also freaking hilarious.(Warning, LOUD!)


All in all if you play Starcraft 2 at a high competitive level, or if you're a casual-competitive like myself, or even if you play every now and then Day9 will be appealing to you. You can find his scheduled dailies in the events section on Teamliquid.net then proceed to http://www.ustream.tv/day9tv at the proper scheduled time to tune in. You can also find all of his recorded Day9 Dailies at http://day9tv.blip.tv/ ... and for you YouTube fanatics he also has that covered http://www.youtube.com/user/day9tv.


If you're a bit lost as to where to start I recommend watching Day9 Daily #100 titled "My Life Of Starcraft"




Enjoy and learn lots!

Hi everyone, I would first off like to thank you all for the warm welcome. My name is Bryce, more known as Beece on the internet. I'll just start by listing off some information about me and my interests.

I'm 20 years old, currently attending college for general studies where I am strongly considering majoring in Journalism. My interests mostly lie in video games and movies, I enjoy nothing more than sitting down and playing a good game for hours on end sometimes with or without friends (preferably with friends), I also LOVE watching movies, I will watch almost anything and I'm not particularly critical or picky when it comes to movies. As for music I am a big metal fan, I like far too many bands to list all of them but some of my personal favorites are Dragonland, Domine, Opeth, and Wintersun.

I suppose you could say my passion for gaming started at a very young age when playing games on my big brothers NES and SNES. I'd say my fondest childhood games were probably Super Mario RPG, and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. I eventually transitioned if you will to being a more PC focused gamer when I started playing Starcraft, Starcraft Broodwar, and Diablo (You can see a trend here). My favorite games mostly are made by blizzard such as Starcraft 2 currently and soon to be World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. The games I am playing right now are mostly: Starcraft 2, Team Fortress 2, but I do enjoy playing some single player games from time to time (I intend to power through all of the God Of War games very soon)


Won this at the Starcraft 2 Midnight release trivia contest


Anyhow overall I'm a pretty nice guy that loves video games and sharing my thoughts on games with others, hence why I started this whole blogging nonsense to hopefully improve my poor/mediocre writing skills and making something out of my passions.

Thank you all again for the warm welcome feel free to comment or PM any questions you might have.

I felt a good way to kick off my first blog post on Destructoid would be to share my thoughts on this trailer I saw showcasing that grotesque amounts of violence can be delightfully entertaining!



Now when I played Darksiders I thought the violence and encounters were ridiculous.....then I saw God Of War (and I think we're all well aware of how that game is) and I was thinking that was over-the-top. Then of course I see Asura's Wrath, I'm not even sure where to begin with this, but between Spear Hailstorms and Space Buddha's I think we're all in for a treat when Asura's Wrath is released.




If this isn't a reason alone to get a game then I don't know what is.