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About Me

I'm a 20 year old college student in Missouri, whose love for video games is regularly hindered by a lack of disposable income.

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The next paragraphs are a recounting of my personal video game history. Verbose and, I imagine, boring for anyone but me.
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My first memories of gaming are when my grandmother bought an old NES at a garage sale. She undoubtedly used it to keep my older sister and me entertained while we spent time at her house. It came in a brown paper Kroger bag, which produced incredible games, many FAR too challenging for a 7(?) year old. I have faint memories of what I now know were classic games like "Super Mario Bros./ Duck Hunt", "Skate or Die!", "Marble Madness", "Mega Man", and "Kirby's Adventure" and some more obscure games like "The Adventures of Bayou Billy", "Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode", and "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers". I never remember beating, or even being good at any of these games.

Santa brought my sister a SNES one year, and my days were filled with Mario (of the Super World and Kart variety), Bubsy (of the 'Who?' variety), and Simba (of the 'My favorite SNES game, better respect, beat that shit as an 8 year old' variety). As I remember we didn't buy many video games: we rented. I think it's because of that 5 day deadline I was always given that I took to sitting in front of screens for hours on end. I have no clue what happened to that console.

I used my Gameboy Pocket to enjoy the Pokemon games, but never any past the original 150.

My best friend had a Sega Genesis, and I was jealous. So my parents spoiled me with a Playstation in front of all my friends at a birthday party. I played that gray brick of awesome into the ground. I never got an N64, and for some reason always thought it was superior. I'd watch friends play Zelda, Rogue Squadron, and Goldeneye and feel way let down when I returned to my Jet Moto, Vigilante 8, and the Oddworld series. I really should have appreciated that console more, because I ruined practically every disk I owned. My best friend and I first played Final Fantasy VII as fourth graders, and we could never get past the first boss so we put the game down. Something intellectually had developed once we got to the sixth grade, though, and we progressed into what became a truly great series of gaming memories.

I had an ongoing affair with PC gaming. RTS games like Starcraft, Age of Empires, and Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far brought me in, and games like Jedi Knight always kept me interested. I had a stint in MMOs (Star Wars Galaxy before Jump to Lightspeed came out, WoW from open beta to BC) but devoting so much time and money to one video game was a disservice to me and the dozens of other video games I could have been enjoying. I still love whatever deals come across Steam (most recently Civ III and the old Oddworlds.)

I bought a Dreamcast, and I really had fun with it. I still keep it under my bed, along with mismatched jewel cases containing NFL2K, Power Stone, Slave Zero, et al. I also bought a PS2, XBOX, and Gamecube, thus cementing myself as a gamer (in my own mind) by owning all the consoles of a generation.

I currently own all 3 major consoles (although the Wii is desperately hurting for some love) and still PC game on my Macbook, which has a number of downsides.

I'd love to talk with you.

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Following (2)

Hello, Dtoid. stuartmrdowning | 11:44 PM on 02.03.2010 11 comments

Hey, Destructoid. Long time listener, first time caller. I almost posted everything in my "about me" sidebar into a blog until I realized it was boring. Read it if you suffer from insomnia. I (generally, with few exceptions) love all music, movies, television, art, graphic novels, literature, and video games. Because of this expansive love, I don't like using Top ____ lists (which I've found to be a staple of, well, everything). Is it because quantifying enjoyment is really hard, or maybe because info-overload has subconsciously made humans hungry not for prose, but bullet points? I will say my favorite band has to be The Flaming Lips. But even that is up to discussion. I can also say my most recent favs are Funny People (movie), The Mighty Boosh (TV), and Pax Romana (Graphic Novel). I've recently been playing Mass Effect 2 (surprise), Castle Crashers, FIFA 10, and Beatles: Rock Band. Over the past few months I've fallen in love with Anthony Burch's "Rev Rant"s. I've made the "video games are art" argument dozens of times to friends, family, and one stranger, and to see quality video game criticism only further legitimizes my argument. He's also got me thinking a lot more about the current state and future of video games, and my thoughts will surely be posted here soon. So this is my blog. Thank you, Dtoid community, for being awesome.