I’m a new face here, I joined a few weeks ago but haven’t done anything, so I think it’s high time I give an intro thread. The best way to get to know me on a gaming level is to go back through my history with my all time favorite source of entertainment

To truly start my chronology for gaming, we must go to quite the unlikely device, a PC. This was an ancient relic, even for its day, it still ran on DOS commands. Some of the greatest memories of childhood bonding with my father came not from sports, but from Where in the U.S. is Carmen Sandiego, on an old floppy. I still remember the opening credit for Broderbund Studios that haunted me to my very soul. We spent many games catching thieves and robbers, a near perfect career, but the simple mistake of believing wolves lived in Montana(which today, they do in Yellowstone) instead of Michigan. It’s one of those random facts that, because of a loss, you’ll remember forever. We remember one day, finally, me and my dad’s hard work paid off, we had caught Carmen Sandiego. The strange thing is, there is an option to check out a “Hall of Fame” in the game. Catching the game’s namesake herself, we assumed we must be on that board now, but found it to be totally blank. That would end my experience with PC games until after my first console.

That would turn out to be the Sega Genesis. I had quite a few memories of that old machine. At this time I was far from what you would have called a hardcore gamer. Our collection of games only had one real hardcore title in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, we didn’t even own the first one for some reason. The rest of our catalogue of games consisted of sports games, from the memorable NBA JAM to the glitch World Series Baseball, where my brother once scored an inside the park home-run because my pitcher seemed to find picking the ball off the mound beneath him, to cartoon franchise games like Aladdin, the Lion King, and X-Men.

Sometime in 1995, my uncle came over to visit, and gave me my first taste of an FPS. He managed to sneak Wolfenstein 3D onto our computer without the knowledge of our wary mother. I remember it being a really fun game for its time, only getting stuck once the dual gatling gun wielders showed up.

Eventually my mom found it and it was promptly deleted, I would not touch another FPS until a trip to Georgia.

After we had given up our Genesis from disrepair and with no PC games beyond rudimentary we were much lacking in terms of games. However, one trip would change that forever. On a minor note, when we stopped at Georgia I got my first taste of a Doom game at a family friends house, but it made no great impression on me. However, when we visited some other family friends in Tampa, we were amazed at the N64 they had, more specifically Mario Kart 64, which we played almost every chance we got.

Once we got home from that trip, it didn’t take much convincing to get our parents to buy a new N64 with Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey and Mario Kart 64. Goldeneye would later be purchased and the three became staples of the rivalry between my brothers and I. I also received a Game Boy in that time. Ironically, we never made much use for the system; I would not even touch the Ocarina of Time until I owned our sixth generation consol.

You could say the Sixth Generation was what defined me as a true hardcore gamer. When our family first purchased the PS2, I did not play it that much. The only true hardcore game I had was Kingdom Hearts, a game in a respected position among my favorites. However, this would all change with one simply fantastic game.

I had seen Psychonauts in an ad and decided to rent it to see how it was. The ad seemed to overemphasize the braintanks, I assumed they would be constant enemies in a game about a psychic war. What I found was a dark yet hilarious game about a summer camp for psychics, it was the wittiest game I have ever played, and well deserves its place as the favorite out of all my games. It opened my eyes to great titles. Soon enough, I bought games Shadow of the Colossus, Beyond Good and Evil, Silent Hill 2, and finally my gaming experience came full circle.

Hearing its rave reviews, I decided to buy Half-Life 2. This was the greatest story-based FPS shooter I have ever played. It also opened me up to Valve and its game downloading system, Steam. Ever since, I have been a big Valve fanboy. Four of Valve’s games now grace my Top Ten, and Team Fortress 2 has easily given me the most bang for my buck out of any game I’ve ever played.

Well, there you go, my incredibly wordy intro, the history of my life as a gamer. If you made it this far, I thank you for your patience.