My personal gaming history

Well the first time I was introduced to video games when I was given an old super Nintendo for my 8^th birthday. The first games I had for that was all the old Mario games from one to 3, which looking back is a good place to start in terms of games. After I got bored of those games I then got the absolute CLASSIC that was street fighter 2. I remember thoroughly enjoying this game, especially when there were two of us playing; it was this game that got me really into fighting games. A few years later when I upgraded to the Playstation I bought Tekken 3, which is in my opinion one of the best fighting games/franchises ever made and definitely my favourite Playstation 1 game. I used to try drawing my own fighter after playing this game and copy designs from the in game characters.

I also played the crash bandicoot games which were always entertaining and just downright good fun to play, I kind of miss when games were made with a sense of humour and without the need for heavy violence, theres still a few around today but not as much as there were to my knowledge. When I upgraded to the playstation 2 I was still played the latest tekken instalments, I also got into the SSX snowboarding games. SSX was a good looking game with a good gameplay system and a great soundtrack, I liked it because it didn’t try to be a snowboard simulator game, but instead had stupid yet spectacular snowboard tricks that defied what was considered possible in real life, who’d want to play a game that imitates real life anyway, it would be crap (*cough Sims *cough). Anyway a game that WASN’T crap and was my first proper experience with the first person shooter was timesplitters: future perfect. Again, the perfect ingredients to a game, hardcore action shooter with double the portion of ridiculousness, sort of  like call of duty but with that needed essence of comic relief. My friends and I would just crack up while playing this game, me as a dinosaur with a shotgun trying to hold off the onslaught of my friend playing as a bear wearing a fez whilst wielding a baseball bat; it just can’t get any better than that quite frankly. Moving onto the ps3, I bought one of the launch title games which was ‘resistance fall of man’, which was a good start for the console, interesting storyline, a sort of WWII meets aliens. I thought the aliens were well designed for that game, although it being set in England meant that you were fighting aliens in mundane English towns like Grimsby and Northampton, which felt kind of ridiculous if I’m honest. Other games I played on the ps3 were Assassin’s creed, Call of duty, Warhawks, Turok, portal, Fifa Street and many others. A game which I admired simply for the artwork was mirrors edge. Even though the gameplay is a bit faulty, the artwork is superb. The elder scrolls oblivion was a game I enjoyed simply for its scale and content, I’m currently playing the latest instalment skyrim (as is everyone else I presume), which is a game that should be applauded for its attention to detail in every aspect.

Hopefully games for the future would be games that go back to that sense of humour, whilst maintaining that core gameplay element. I personally think games are becoming too serious these days, don’t get me wrong they’re good games. But with games like battlefield and uncharted imitating blockbuster movies almost, the sense of playing a game is getting lost as the games get more realistic, I say we should re-embrace the silly outlandish games that are just fun to play (but not in the “cutsie” family Wii game sort of way). I say bring back the timesplitters, the SSX’s, the crash bandicoots, bring back the fun.