So uh, it occurs to me that I never really did the Introductory Post thing.

Hi! I'm fulldamage. I liek games. I write thangs.

I space out very easily, and occasionally space out during conversations, adding several lines to the conversation in my head and then jumping back in so no one really has any idea what I'm...

... yeah, and so that's why armadillos, right? Because they have leprosy in their toes.

Right? What?

If enough people went in on it with me, I think we could buy this house as a timeshare, and rule during the zombie apocalypse.

Games have been helping me get through life for practically as long as I can remember. The first computer game I recall playing was Dino-Warz on the TRS-80. The gameplay was kind of like thumb-wrestling with boxing gloves on, only less precise.



My first console was a ColecoVision. Venture was one of the games on it. Those green fuckers would appear out of nowhere with a fucked-up 8 bit serial killer noise if you stayed in any room too long. Venture was the first game that made me shriek out loud. I think I'm looking for a game that can still do that.

When we got an Apple IIe, I played a hell of a lot of Ultima IV. I don't think I ever won. The path of the Avatar is hard indeed. But goddamn if I didn't learn my way around spell reagents. What was in middle school, had two thumbs and knew what the hell nightshade, ginseng, and mandrake root were? This kid! (so ronery...)

My most-fondly-remembered console was the good old NES. I think we rented every game the video store had to offer. When I discovered that there was a 2nd quest in Zelda JUST AS LONG as the first quest with all-new dungeons, my mind was officially blown. Has any game done that, since? Why the hell not?


But... Second Quest! Where is it?

Final Fantasy I kept me and my brother sane during the summer that my mom decided that she'd snap and strangle us with a vacuum cleaner cord if she didn't send us to the grandparents' house for a few months. I've been fascinated with leveling, progression, and character/party builds ever since.

Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and basically the SuperNES's entire catalog made high school bearable.

College was all about Diablo, Street Fighter Alpha, and Mario 64. Also, the internet had just started happening. The internet helped me make friends, and helped to balance out the realization that even though suddenly alcohol and parties were closer at hand than they'd ever been, I was still kind of socially retarded. I started writing more, online and off. The writing would eventually lead me to making friends that I'd stay in touch with, meet in real life, room with, and that have stuck with me to this day.

FFVII blew my mind. It was released the year I graduated. It showed me things I'd never realized games could be capable of. After I completed it, my own world map opened up. I got more into punk rock, and learned that a little bit of applied anger could help me to assert myself and find my Limit Breaks in the real world. I took an airship to London with a few hundred gil in my pocket and lived there for six months. Came back to L.A. and dipped into the rave scene a bit. My budget mostly went to beer and gas, but on my friend's Dreamcast we kept the Soul Calibur rocking at all hours. I never could pick a favorite - I was an Edge Master man.


A strong soul makes a strong warrior, not their choice of weapon.

I was an environmental canvasser for a little while, in a total hippie house. I wasn't a heavy gamer at that point in my life, but I had a busted old Playstation to play FFVIII on. It wasn't as good as VII, to me, but I respected the emotional struggles of the main characters. Squall gets lambasted for being "emo" these days, and he was surely cliche, but he stood out among heroes at the time - he had a sarcastic, wry, somewhat ironic character that I could sympathize with - as though he was legitimately pointing out the ridiculousness of this entire world that kept coming to him to solve its' problems and have lengthy emotional discussions. I learned to be a party leader. I made sure everyone made it to the club and back safely. Arguments got mediated. Passed-out kids got safely tucked into bed. They promoted me to field manager at work. I was crap at hitting quotas, but I knew how to get other people to hit theirs.

The millennium turned. I said the hell with it, and went road-tripping for like half a year. Lived in New York for three months. Actual games faded out of the picture for a while, but in my head, I was always leveling up, learning to deal with new challenges, adapting and surviving while I built up hit points.


With a trusty steed and some gas money, EVERYTHING is an open-world game.

Ran out of places to crash. Headed back towards CA. On the way, I wandered into high-level territory in New Orleans, and got the crap kicked out of me somewhere in the French Quarter. That was the first time I'd taken serious punches in a real, non-moshpit, physical altercation. I've taken and given a few more since then, but I definitely learned that keeping your wits ready is often more effective than keeping your fists ready. Level Up.

Stayed in the old hometown for almost a year. Took up doing some spoken word at a coffee shop, where I met some great, funny, talented people and improved at expressing myself. Kept writing. I also discovered both Chrono Cross and Persona 2 - Eternal Punishment during that time. And again, I had my horizons expanded. I learned that you could cross time itself to find a place to fit in, and if you weren't careful, you might discover that you were the bad guy in your own story. I learned that people are nowhere near as simple as they look - we all house a near-infinite number of different faces we show to different people, angelic and demonic and beautiful and ugly personalities all vying for attention, all mixing with each other and turning into new personalities as we meet each of life's challenges.


I found this, randomly, in a locked case at Sears. Never heard of it before. Insta-buy.

I moved to San Francisco. The Playstation 2 came out, as did the Xbox, and a golden era of amazing games started to bloom. I got back into them slowly, over the years. I wrote when I could, I got into trouble all the time, I met all kinds of crazy people - and eventually stumbled into being kind of a grown up, somehow, with my shit kind of together, and something like a career, and friends who like to write and create things with me now and then. And games - and the people who play them - have been along for the entire ride, helping me to make sense of this crazy world by working through it in little simulations, one piece at a time.


I'm at the top of my game right now.

I've hopped out of a plane before. I've been to the green and black sand beaches of Hawai'i. I once interviewed a guy who made angels in his living room out of mannequins and meathooks. I've fallen in and out of love. I've crashed cars. I'm older than I ever thought I was gonna be, and still too young to know what I'm doing. I'm not sure I really count as a grown-up, and I don't really have a plan, still! But at the end of the day, I know the things I like best are getting a sentence exactly right - and plunking down on the couch with a friend to play some games. (okay okay, I like whiskey and drunken makeouts too, but I'm trying to stay on topic.)

And Destructoid is full of game news and gamers and writing and ideas and crazy, and it doesn't have a stick up its' ass, and there are a lot of personalities, and you have adventures and express yourselves with righteous style, and I am a massive fan of all of those things. (I mean, I'm short, not really massive, but you know what I mean.) And that's why I'm here, and happy to meet all of you.



BECAUSE VIDEOGAMES, MOTHERFUCKER.

See you at PAX!

(also I am sorry my blog is naked, I'll fix it I swear)