Introducing Myself! [Or: The Lengths I Will Go to in Order to Avoid Study]

I think I read somewhere that it's polite to introduce yourself before you start ranting all over the show, so here goes. This is my life at the moment. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, so:

Why now?

- I am four years into my Music and English degrees.
- I have my final exam for the semester in five days.
- This scares the hell out of me and I will do anything to put off having to study.

"Yeah, but why post an introductory blog on Destructoid? Surely there are other, less productive things you could be doing!"

This is true! Or was. But there's really no getting around the fact that I need to get this study done. Last week, I was forced to ask myself, "What will One-Week-in-the-Future-LotusEater be doing to get out of having to study?" The answer: "Playing games. Duh."

So now my girlfriend has my 3DS charger, and my Wii's AC adapter. I'm wearing my ugliest clothes, with the most offensive slogans, so I'm not even tempted to leave the house. In case you were wondering, the technology in my phone has recently been surpassed by those fake beepbeepboop ones you give your kids, and I own a MacBook.


Whatever it takes. Except, you know, actually doing the work.

Before I got down to work, I just thought I'd have a(nother) quick check of Dtoid's news. Having already read all but the three most recent articles, I searched frantically for a big red panic button, finding it in the "Edit your blog" stamp at the top of the page. Thank fuck for that. Four hours later, I've planned out my first three blog entries, as well as this introductory thing.

So this is me! I'm a poor student in New Zealand, where games are expensive and take too long to be released. If I really start to get into this community blogging thing, you'll have to endure my excitable ramblings about games you beat four months ago, with my humblest of apologies. For example, I'm planning to write about Ghost Trick and/or 999, both of which I imported because stores kept telling me they wouldn't sell well enough to be worth bothering about. /whine


Goddammit, New Zealand.

I guess I'm a Nintendo Boy. I'm not really a fanboy, but when I can really only afford one console at a time, I would prefer to be able to play Nintendo stuff. The whole thing happened pretty accidentally, really, when a 7 year old Lotus asked his parents for a "Nintendo Playstation". I'd played all my cousins' DOS and Mega Drive games, but I just wanted to play the Mario thing I'd played a few times in the store, so I could go swimming around that castle. The guy in the shop who told my mum the N64 was way better pretty much changed the course of my life. He is my mysterious hero. It went on from there, really. Gameboy Pocket, GBC, GBA, GC, DS, Wii, DSL, and now 3DS.

Platformers and adventure games tend to be my favourites nowadays. I love all the Nintendo standards to death: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, blah blah blah..., but the ones that really stand out for me are the ones that are unique AWAY from a franchise. It's not that I turn my nose up at the idea of a series (I game almost exclusively on Nintendo consoles, remember?) but the games I have the craziest love for are the ones that give me an experience unlike anything I've had before. I still name Grim Fandango as my all-time favourite. The first Metroid Prime. Ghost Trick. Killer 7 (and No More Heroes, for that matter). The World Ends With You. Majora's Mask. Little King's Story. I love these games, including the "standards" mentioned earlier, because of the way they feel.



I guess it could seem like escapism, but I play for more than that. Shooters and open world games are fine, but, for example, when I'm playing CoD, once I move past the graphics and onto the actual mechanics, I just feel like I'm playing a complicated game of tag with my brother. It's fun, but doesn't feel new to me. At the same time, it's the gorgeous world and vivid characters in Grim Fandango that make it my absolute favourite. I can't explain it well enough here - I could spend the rest of the year making blogs about distinguishing the "feel" of different games, and why I prefer what I prefer, but I've got other things to write about!


Ooooh, ooooh. Manny.

So, this was meant to be my very short introduction. You can curse my exam for the tl;dr-ishness of my first post. I'm afraid I can't promise the rest will be shorter. See you soon!

P.S. Did I do this right? Images and captions and stuff? I tried to upload a profile for the side, but the site wouldn't let me... I'll get round to it eventually.