I can understand why many of you would read the title of this and go strait into hurling abuse at me, but hear me out.

My Hero...My God


I have been a consistent gamer since I was a pup, my first gaming console was a SEGA master system which I thought was the best creation ever presented to mankind. Even condoms had nothing on this thing (not that I had any use for them when I was 7 years old). I believe the first game I ever played was Kung-Fu Kid and as soon as I came to grips that I was in control of a few pixels which resembled a martial arts master kicking the piss out of everything that moved, I was sold. Eternally.

The Ultimate Battle


As time progressed, so did my obsession with gaming. During the epic console battle that was Nintendo VS Sega, I was prepared to get into fights at school to show how devoted I was to Sega and I did just that. I drew Sonic the Hedgehog and Alex the Kidd in class when I was suppose to be learning how to spell and check my grammar (So it will explain if this is not to the standard most publicists would expect).

The console battles changed as time went on, but my overall love for gaming did not. Once the market started to become obsessed with the new kid on the block that was The Playstation, I knew something big was happening and I had to get involved. I was young and naive but hell, who wasn't at the age of 13. I didn't agree with Sony for some reason. To me it seemed that every Tom, Dick and Harry was raving on about it, and if you can remember this far back, I didn't think it was right to see the price tag of $799 (AU) put on the side of the box it came in. Sega was falling down hard, the Saturn was a complete mess and the programing for games was too difficult to keep pumping out games at a consistent rate. I hung my head in shame, walked into 'Video Games Heaven' with my Dad a few days before my birthday / Christmas (They are 5 days apart so I generally used to get one big present), and made my decision...it was the Nintendo 64. I felt this internal betrayal but I was so overwhelmed with excitement that I didn't really care. We got a big Nintendo pack for the whole family to get into, 4 controllers and 5 games consisting of: Mario 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye, San Fransisco Rush and...I can't remember what the other game was, so it must not have been that good.

Throughout my first years of highschool I was obsessed with gaming. While my friends starting wondering about females, I was wondering about the next game I wanted to get. While they were losing their virginity, I was losing much time and money into these fantasy worlds I grew to love more and more. They would go on and on about girls, and I would smoke my cigarette behind the Sport Shed and wish that I was at home questing through to get 120 stars and punching in cheat codes (we have all done it so don't deny it) to get extra time driving my car on Alcatraz Island.

Eventually the friends I made through gaming led me into Anime, Art and Film and they soon became equal passions of mine that I still hold true to this day. But alas the time game for me to experience the opposite sex at the tender late blooming age of 16. It was just after playing through The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time for the 3rd time that I decided it would be a good idea to fall in love...spend two years of my life in a constant state of sexual slavery which deprived me of much gaming. I started to slip away from my original love and I soon started to forget about it.

Over the course of the whole 'coming of age' experience which involved adolescence and having my heart crapped on, I played a game here and there, but never really connected with it the same as I did before I corrupted myself with a woman who could never understand this love I had for digital fantasy.

I wish I had one!


Time went on, the Dreamcast arrived and fell as quickly as it came to my disbelief because I thought it to be one of the best consoles ever that I never really got the chance to play because I was too busy trying to make myself cool by association by having sex, smoking weed and pretending to be somebody I was not. I turned my back on my friends who were involved in gaming, anime, art and film for the 'cool' group who thought of those things are weaknesses and idiocies...I had strayed far from the path.

After Highschool I tried many different things and hung around with many different kinds of people, but I never did get the same feeling of acceptance, freedom and belonging as I did before females and the cool kids corrupted me by shoving me into the direction of social acceptance. But in all honesty, I made my own mind up for me, I was just easily influenced.

Parents go on about gaming being a bad thing, all the time, as do people in power. But I can say this now, and this is the point to me raving on and on about my past gaming life to which you probably don't care about; The nights where I would get together with my friends in Highschool, where we would watch movies and set up two Nintendo 64's so we could play 8 player Smash Brothers, while we ate pizza and soft drink. Those nights were the best nights of my life. No drugs were taken, no binge drinking occurred, no bullying happened, no pressure to do with the opposite sex (despite the fact that we had female friends who would get together with us and play these games and watch these movies)...It was just good friends having a good time.

I now own a Xbox 360, I play regularly with good friends whom all have good jobs and make a good living. But we have decided that nothing will come between us and the guilty pleasure that is 'gaming' again. Because it is not a waste of time. It is living a life that you would never be able to experience in the real world. It is using your imagination to the best it can be used...and it a way that somebody can let go from the troubles of the world in a safe and friendly (despite T-bagging and Team Killing, which can be fun) way.

My story may be different to others, but I do know that gaming has always been fun and has never caused me to feel bad about myself and I am sure its the same with every other gamer, otherwise, why would we do it?