Confessions of a Video Gamer

There has been a game system in my house as long as I can remember.  I was born in 1981 and I can’t remember ever not having Nintendo.  It’s funny to think my parents originally bought the NES for themselves, considering how rapidly and how much the video game landscape has changed since then!

Gaming changed for me when the N64 came along.  I was a young teenage boy and the 3-D controls killed me!  After all my years of side-scrolling glory, suddenly I was rage quitting and not enjoying playing games anymore. Even though it seems silly now, I was would get so mad at myself for losing at a game!  It especially stung to see my sister, 7 at the time, handling the 3-D switch with ease! It also sucked playing with my friends who were naturally great at it and loved the new graphic styling and controls.

Throughout my teenage years I continued to play my Nintendo and Super NES systems despite so many new ones being released.  After the “Nintendo64 Incident of 1997” I had no interest in a PlayStation or an Xbox.  I was perfectly content playing Turtles II and Star Tropics well into the early 2000s!  During college and my early 20s I played practically no games at all.  That is, until one day on a whim I bought a used Game Cube and a few games for cheap off Craigslist.  Guess what?  It was fun again!  I don’t know if it had to do with growing up a bit and becoming more self-confident, but it doesn’t matter now; I just know I played the hell out of some Paper Mario!  My video game mojo was back!

Shortly after this time the iPhone came out, and in my opinion changed gaming even more than 3-D graphics and controls did.  The iPhone made gaming accessible to everyone.  With so many choices and the ease of downloading and playing immediately, everyone was gaming.  Kids have always loved video games, but how often had you seen your 55-year-old mother playing intense rounds of hand-held games while trying to beat her high score?!  As a goverment worker, trust me when I say smartphone gaming is the best thing to happen to me since sliced bread!  Goodbye awkward conversations, hello Hungry Shark Evolution!  Even people in their 60s and 70s come to my place of work with tablets and smartphones to play while waiting for there number to be called. 10 years ago I could never have pictured it!  Teenage rage-quitter me would certainly never have believed it.

Today, even though I am over my 3-D controls phobia, own an Xbox360, PlayStation 4, and also love online PC gaming (StarCraft!!) I’ll always have an affinity for the 2-D and side-scrolling games. Perhaps it’s a result of the decade I was born in or just good old-fashioned childhood nostalgia, but nothing beats getting the spread-shot and killing it at Contra without using the cheat code.  Nothing!