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About Me

About Me...

I'm closer to 40 than I am to 30 (a lot closer), and reside currently in Phoenix, AZ, where daylight savings time is but a figment of the imagination. I grew up and lived my first 30 years in Pittsburgh, PA, and I still consider it my "Home Town" even though the place looks less and less familiar every time I go back for a visit. I have degrees in Video Production (never used it), and Multimedia Technology (used it in an offhanded kind of way), and usually make a living dealing with computers and the people who use them.

About Me and the things I'm into...

I'm into video games, natch, and I'll expand upon that in the next section. I'm into Pinball as well, and finally achieved a long time goal of owning my own table - a 1995 Bally Attack From Mars. I love music - GOOD MUSIC, which I have discovered exists in almost every conceivable genre. I'll throw down some favorites in a bit as well. I used to be a vacuum for pop culture, but I've just sort of soured on a lot of it lately, so I'm a lot more spotty bast the mid-late 90's.


About Me and Video Games...

Been playing them since the days of discreet logic games (That means Space War, Pong and similar ancient arcade and home systems to you youngins). My first home system was a dedicated Atari Stunt Cycle, and not too long after I received an Atari VCS, and later moved to gaming on a C-64, Apple ][e, and Amiga 500 before moving to a proper PC. So yeah, over 30 years of wasting my time with video games, and not a single regret thus far - except Unreal Tournament 2003 - that game blew.

About Stuff I Play...

PC:
COD4
Audiosurf
Team Fortress 2
Flash Puzzle Games

PS3:
DMC4
Uncharted
Guitar Hero 3
Almost every demo they put up on the PS store

Wii:
Carnival Games (seriously. it was a gift, but I do play it)
A smattering of VC games

About the tunes I listen to...

I spent my undergrad years in college working at the University radio station, where I had stints as Music Programming Director, and Station Manager. As such, I am an unrepentant music snob. That doesn't mean I don't listen to some crappy music, it just means I'm more likely to admit it's crappy than you are. I'm pretty open to most genres, but 'pop' music in almost any form (be it the traditional top 40 variety, or what sadly passes for country or R&B these days), is mostly annoying. Progressive Rock / Metal, Old School Hip-Hop, and Hard Bop Jazz, would probably be my top three. Lately I've become obsessed with Mashups, or Bastard Pop, as it is also commonly known, where DJ's take 2 or more songs from multiple artists and remix them into entirely new works. You really haven't lived until you hear Pink's "Get This Party Started" vocal laid over Black Sabbath's "Supernaut". And that's just the proverbial tip of the iceberg...

Gamer Profile

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Following (1)

And the gamers who play them: Old School Arcade Games Zer0 H0ur | 7:52 PM on 03.03.2008 8 comments

I could have taken this opportunity to rail on a gamer demographic that I have little first-hand knowledge of, like MMORPGs, or perhaps tried to delve into an oft-discussed genre like Casual Games, and just tired to push some buttons and get a nice flamewar going on this my inagural cBlog post. That, however, would be the weak-sauce. Instead, I'll wear my gamer heart on my sleeve, and write about something I actually might know something about. Specifically, that which was the inspiration for my cBlog name: Arcade games from the late 70's to the mid 80's. I'm no curmudgeon by any means, and I'm not here to tell you how "It was so much better when I was a kid", or any other such nonsense. I'm not going to suggest that your money is wasted on modern consoles, when you could just stick to the classics, blah, blah, blah. But if look at the "Old School", as a bunch of 30 or 40-somethings trying to relive the glory of their youth with overly simple games, with lame sound effects and crappy graphics, then I will have to rebut your misconceptions. Because if you haven't experienced the joy of Tempest with it's Neon-Vector graphic delights, or experienced the visceral joy that is Centipede played with a trackball, or sat down at that aging Ms. Pac-Man cocktail table machine in your local pizzeria and dropped a few quarters in, you really are missing out on something good. Not necessarily better, but definitely as good, but for different reasons. As much as I love modern video games (PC, PS3, and Wii are the current rigs in my lineup), with their more complex control schemes, great depth of play, and visual and aural overload, the best of the classics still shine when compared to the latest and the greatest. Recent releases like Geometry Wars, Everyday Shooter, N+, as well as graphical updates to old arcade classics, demonstrate that their is demand for this simpler, bare-bones type of game play. I'm not here to make a case for a business model though. I'm here to tell you to play some classic arcade games, and understand why it is so many of us who have been gaming since the 70's still find ourselves drawn to the past. With the ready availability of arcade classic releases on various consoles, as well as emulators for a more "authentic" experience, there's no reason you shouldn't take trip back in time, back to when the arcade experience was what the home gaming market was constantly trying to match - and failing to do so. While the Old School Arcade gamer can get called out for living in the past, or preferring to stick to games they can actually beat, or just being grumpy old farts, the truth is that most of us just like to play good games.