I’m in the progress of developing my own gamer blog site and thought id premiere my first blog on vizzed, seen as I’ve been a terrible member this last year or so (contribution wise)  so here it is, you’ll probably find it a bit boring but I’ve had fun writing it and remembering my gaming past.    (I was intending to throw in pictures but Ive ran out of time, it took my 3 weeks to write this with in 20 minute stages)  

My complete history of gaming.  

Have you ever thought back at some of the first and most memorable games you ever played, remember how cool they looked?  How fun they were to play?  I do it all the time, I actually go as far as downloading them via emulation and try to play them again, only to realize in the end I should have just left them as perfectly good memories.  My life is just one long continuous cycle of painful realization, just about every week I download an awesome memory, only to think “Wow these graphics are no way near as good as they were back in the day” (when really, they’re exactly the same, in fact they probably look better now with no TV scan lines and fuzziness) I actually come to the conclusion that these old games are very small, they’re just so ridiculously hard they take so long to beat.  A lot of people now-days play these old titles “religiously” which to me is great!  Just don’t refer to yourselves as a “hardcore gamer”… there’s no such thing, just sadness.  Much like what I’m about to admit.  

The first video games I ever played were duck hunt and super Mario bros, Instead of playing them at first I was so mesmerized by this “console invention” that I actually just sat and watched the TV screen for weeks on end, I was too scared to actually play it…. No not really, my brother wouldn’t let me have a go for a few weeks, that’s ok though, I was spitting in his cereal every day (sticky rice bubbles… mmmm how’s that for game hog)  But even when I played NES games I would always be more interested in how they were made, I would compare the texture and tile sets of different games, little things like the main menu screen artwork and detail, the animation of characters and how much the 8 bit sound track made you want to get into the game.  Now that’s sadness, but that’s just me and I eventually got bored of the NES.  

When I was a few years older my parents bought me a Super Nintendo for Christmas, my initial reaction was “Wow a SNES!  I’ve heard about these before!”  It came with SMB Allstars, that Supers cope game and of course the SNES missile launcher… which absolutely murdered batteries.  I played the scope game for a bit, it just didn’t make sense to me, all you did was shoot missiles from the sky.  I finished all that SMB Allstars had to offer and by that time it was my birthday.  I got $100 total cash from everyone and a PGA golf game.  I still think the reason till today that I had been given a PGA golf game could either be because of my father loving the sport.. or most likely because we had a PGA gold game on our Windows 93 computer which I played a lot (mostly because it was the only real game I had available on the PC).  With my $100 cash I purchased Super Metroid, now you all have either played this game before, or at least heard of it.  If not, stop reading and play it, it is till today IMHO the BEST game ever made…. Ill come back to this.  In my whole career of SNES gaming, I had purchased nearly 100 games, which in them days (earning $5 a week or less) was a milestone achievement.  I still have all my games and my SNES in working order in my cupboard, I just noticed a unsealed second hand copy of Super Mario Kart in my local Game Trader store for $40AU, I’m hoping all my games will be worth a pretty penny one day.  

Coming back to Super Metroid brings me to a serious issue in gaming (and a lot of films)  “Terrible Sequels” and a lot of you will agree with me on this one.  When they took the Metroid series into 3D FPS they poked its eyes out with a stick.  I cant count how many times Ive tried to give the Gamecube/Wii version of this game series a chance.  This isn’t the only terrible sequel ever made (remember, IMO) this is less than 1/8th of a percent.  To name a few off the top of my head without thinking too much, SMB2, Chrono Cross, DMC 2, Bomberman Act Zero, MGS2, Rouge Agent etc… I think the biggest and most important step in making a sequel is to step back right at the beginning and ask yourselves these couple of questions:

-    Do we NEED to ADD anything new?
-    Should we tweak the gameplay features?
-    Do we NEED to change the controller layout?
-    BLAH! Should we just keep everything the same and add more levels with a new story?
-    What do our customers want?

The last question to me is the most important.  Im going to use the Assassins creed franchise here to put my point across.  AC1 was a great game to begin with, Ubisoft were extremely clever with what they did.  They used AC1 as a base, after seeing what players thought of it they changed a lot of the game features and they changed the whole setting, which worked beautifully.  They sculpted AC2 around AC1, using Altair as a legend, a somewhat myth who was based centuries before in time, but was centuries ahead in knowledge and the truth.  Now take AC3 for example, they kept everything almost exactly the same as AC2, added new locations and only a few new gadgets and characters.  They did this not only because there was so much more story to tell before getting to the climax, but the players liked it so much that they wanted the same thing, just more of it.  Moving on to AC4, using Ezio, Ubisoft cleverly takes us back to AC1’s Altair, on a voyage of discovery.  They’ve kept the main game mechanics the same, added a lot of new stuff to it BUT took us back to where it all started, they actually used a lot of the same level settings as AC1.  Im just rambling on now, sorry.  

So after many years of playing my SNES, my brother went out and bought a N64 along with Goldeneye… which sucked… not the game, the fact that we were back at square one with the whole waiting and waiting… and waiting to have a go at it.  I was mesmerized by the 3D graphics.  I wanted my own next gen gaming console at this point.  I went into the game store one day and looked at all the available titles for the 64 and compared them to the game titles available for the PSX… sure there were a few amazing looking 64 games but on the other side of the wall there were so many awesome PSX titles.. like MGS, Ape Escape, Tekken and Syphon filter etc… So I went with the PSX and it just so happened that the PSOne made its Australian release that day, so I ended up with one of those, Tekken 1 and MGS.  

Theres something about the Playstation that was so unique, I cant describe the feeling too well but if I had to, it would be something around the lines of “an endless tunnel of gaming”… simply because there were so many games and with my financial status at the time it would have taken me a lifetime to buy all the games I wanted to play.  The Playstation also felt unique in a sense of it was the first disc-based game console Id ever seen.  BUT, with its awesomeness aside there were issues that bugged me over the years like its long loading time, the tiny scratches that appeared in my discs over time and the ever annoying process of strategically keeping space on my little memory card (you know exactly what im talking about)  

I was introduced to a skateboarding game for the PS1 by the name of Tony Hawks Pro Skater (Tony Hawks Skateboarding as its release title in the USA) I was in love, this game not only introduced me to the culture and sport of skateboarding, but to thousands of replayable hours late at night.  I was playing this game non-stop and every chance I got, and when my parents kicked me off the PS1, I would go outside and skate.  It didn’t stop with THPS1, as you all know and remember they started pumping out a new title every year with new levels, skaters and features.  BUT.. as you all know (and to elaborate on my rant earlier) these titles grew more and more ridiculous after a few were produced.  The title that really put me off the series was THUG 2.. (ever so slightly put off by THUG1 aswell) … Oh well, just another example of developers getting too creative.  

So were at the era of the PS2 now, Christmas falls one year and I go out and buy my first PS2 with my Christmas funds.  I purchased Kingdom Hearts with the console too.  Before this I had played a friends PS2, GTA3 was the title I played.  At first glimpse I couldn’t believe the clean, crisp 3d graphics this machine could put out.  It was at this stage where I thought if this was possible, in a few years time there would be consoles capable of handling “photo realistic” graphics (I wasn’t far off either I may add)  I wont get into my experience with the PS2 too much, Ive had 6 since they’ve came out.  Two ended up dying of use and old age, 4 have died during my amateur attempts at hard modding.  Of the hundreds of PS2 games ive owned, only a few stick out as amazing.. BLACK, THPS 3 and 4, Shadow of Colossus, GTA Vice City, Sopranos and Kingdom Hearts.  

Around this time I was also heavily involved in PC gaming and game modification (especially back on CSBanana).  I created CS 1.6 maps, models, prefabs and retextures.  This was around the time where PS2 had some serious competition with PC games (graphics wise) but not everyone could afford a top end gaming PC.  

Were almost there…

Currently I play my PS3 about once a month, I mostly play EA Skate, Assassins Creed titles and im into Alpha protocol at the moment.  Id like to play it more (maybe once a week for a couple hours) but theres these things called bills and car repayments that keep me in work.  Ive also got a wife now and a baby on the way (which im over the moon about) so it looks like my gaming life is coming to a bit of a pause.  Sigh… oh well Ive had fun and maybe there will be a time when I can pick it up again.  If you’ve come this far, thankyou very much for reading, Ive had a lot of fun writing this and im looking forward to a bit of feedback

- Garth

Thanks for posting this. It was fun to read.

Personally, I have been gaming for over 25 years now, and I have grown up through all the crazy advancements in gaming.

I enjoy playing the games of my childhood (Not so much Atari) Personally, I like the classics on Nintendo, and the fact that many of the greats from back then still hold up today is a huge testament to how great they were back then. Sure, there's a lot of crap...but there's a lot of gold as well.

I do enjoy modern gaming as well...but If I had a really bad day and just need to relax and have a good time, I will pop in a game like Super Mario World, or MegaMan 3 and be happy as hell.

I'm surprise not many people have a video game life story to tell there's a thread about internet story but this site is mainly about videogames.

So good job at writing all of this out to us it was worth to read.

Jordanv78 : same here, id pick a classic over a modern game to de-stress anyday.. theyre just simple (well most of them lol)

I wish I had the time to recap my gaming history haha.

Even though I've only been gaming for 16 years (I started at the age of 3, and beat Sonic before I was 5.), I've got a crap load of stuff to share.

It's amazing how much things have changed since when I was younger, that's for sure.

I'll probably game all my life.

That said, it was a good read. A bit lengthy, but that's because it's history. History is meant to be lengthy.