Video Games & Me

To start, in the video game world I am Old.  I am over forty and my journey with video games starts in the seventies with Pong.  That was both the Arcade and Home system.  I remember their predecessor the Pin Ball Machine.  After pong there was Gun Fight which like Pong was very archaic compared to today’s games.  Growing up in both Southern California and Oregon, I became very familiar with Arcades.  Mind you they were more prevalent in the Seventies in California than Oregon.  That changed in the Eighties.  I never was that good at the games.  I became more familiar with them from 1978 to 1981 when my Family was bouncing between Alaska and California at the behest of the United States Navy.  The various Airports civilian and military had small arcades of 3 to 5 games.  My brother Mike and I enjoyed them very much.  This was also the time that the first major home console system became big, the Atari 2600.  We wanted one, but we ended up with a Montgomery Wards console.  Funny thing, it had better graphics, but being kids we wanted the Atari.

                                  

In Junior and Senior High Schools, I got into arcade games.  It did not hurt lived near the biggest mall in town and two of the movie theaters in town.  Mind you, I was never a master video gamer.  I had my fun.  Games went from Pong to the line games like Asteroids to Pac-Man and Frogger. I saw the advent of the laser disk games like Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair.  There were even Japanese Anime laser disk games in the mid eighties.  Living is Southern California I frequented the Amusement Parks (Disneyland, Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Knott’s Berry Farm), they all had state of the art arcades.   As you can see I have a soft spot for Arcades.  So as an adult when I found Ground Kontrol in Portland Oregon, I was in seventh heaven.  An old school style video arcade that is 21 and older.  Yes, that means they serve alcohol, however I am not much of a drinker.

By the late eighties early nineties, the NES came out.  I was in college at the time.  I played some of my roommate’s games, but was not that interested in owning one myself.  Mike got heavy into the NES.  I did not get back into gaming till Christmas of 1999.  Barbara, my Ex, bought me a Playstation 1. I got big into fighting and pro-wrestling games.  I loved Dark Stalkers, Bloody Roar and the WWF games.  My Birthday in 2001, My Mom bought my PS2.  I got into RPG’s and Adventure games with that game system.  I kept up with the fighting games and the WWE games too.  In 2005 I had a GameFly account that allowed me to try games I was unsure of.  I tried games I would not have before.  For a short time I even played Football games.  In 2012 I got rid of all my PS1 and PS2 Games, as well as the PS2 console. 

In 2004 I got into the PC game series Sid Meier’s Civilization III and later IV. In 2007, I picked up City of Heroes/Villains.  That was the beginning of the end for my console gaming.  I tried Champions Online and DC Universe Online, for Superhero MMO RPGs City of Heroes was the best in my mind.   I continued with City of Heroes till it closed in November of 2012.  Not sure about returning to either DCU online or Champions
Online.  I still have accounts there.  I have been tempted with Civilization V, we will see. 

Recently I acquired an X-Box 360, and I have only played a few games.  Skylanders: Giants, Brutal Legend, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Injustice: God Among Us are the ones I have played.  I am interested in the DC game Infinite Crisis.  I stink at Shooters, so even though Bio-Shock Looks interesting I am not sure if I will try it.  It may take another GameFly account to play with what I like.  I am not a hardcore gamer, I am very casual.  I never had a level 50 character in City of heroes for the 5 plus years I played that game.  I enjoy playing them, but they are not the end all.  That Is My Not So Humble Opinion.