Check out this thing that I'm doing about video games. Read about why I'm doing this, and help me decide why it took me so long to figure out that writing about games makes sense for me.
By Tony Walter | Feb 9, 2013
It had to have been 1991 - and granted I was a few years behind the curve - but we were poor, and I was too young to know what I had been missing. I don't recall ever asking for it, nonetheless my parents scrapped together some cash and bought me a second-hand Nintendo Entertainment System with a combination Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge. Sure, I may have been just getting acquainted with the plumbing brothers while others were discovering a new world with a more modern release, but I didn't know or care about that. My television might as well have been a dedicated Super Mario Bros. machine, the one game kept me more than content, for a while anyway.
As years passed by I played my way through several different consoles, handhelds, and computers. We'd make weekly trips to the local video store to rent a game for the weekend. Most of the time I based my rental decisions on the box art that I thought looked the best. This sort of behavior is why I ended up owning stuff like Batman, Battletoads, Mega Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for the NES. Looking back, it's amazing to me that I came to love video games when the first ones I ever played kicked my ass so badly.
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| Not sure if I remember the first level music because it was good, or because I could never make it past the second level. |
Maybe it was those ass beatings that were why I started researching games. Rather rapidly the hobby evolved from weekend time killer to something that would insert itself into every spare moment I had. Years would pass and the attachment would only grow stronger. Like somebody with a terrible addiction to nicotine, I found myself taking detours between classes - not to the boy's restroom, but the computer lab to check the most recent reviews and see what news had transpired since first period. I saw hundreds of game announcements, dozens of system launches, more than I'd care to admit of developer closings, and I played more games than movies I've seen, books I've read, and songs I've heard combined.
A couple decades have passed since I first hooked up that NES, my interest in the games industry has only become more personal since then. I have a hard time calling it a "hobby" because that sounds like something less, something peripheral, and that's not accurate.
That brings me to now. I'm going to discuss games here, to put it simply. Frankly, this is something that I've been doing for years, I just haven't bothered to be public with it, but it feels good to finally do something with this passion.
This space will evolve with time, of course. I have been tossing ideas around for a few months now, some potentially exciting ideas, others may never see the light of day. I'll definitely be covering games I play too, though a traditional review format isn't necessarily what I have in mind - reviews are wildly available all over the internet - but we'll see what happens. I'm keeping an open mind, and all feedback is appreciated.
Feedback, in fact, is something that I wanted to talk about. Not only am I totally open to any criticism, I am open to suggestions and recommendations. Anything from questions about games I've played to games that you think I need to play. I would love to use this space to respond to readers.
I look forward to seeing what exactly this will become, and I hope that you will enjoy reading.
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