Daydreaming in 8bit

Though the earliest video games came before my time, I did cut my teeth on the NES, so I've been at this for awhile.  Video games have changed rapidly over the past 20 years. At least one thing that has remained the same, for me anyways, is their ability to captivate the player's imagination and submerge them into worlds they could only dream of. As a kid I probably spent more time outside pretending to live some of these games than I did actually playing them.

My NES collection was very limited as I was about 6 or 7 at the time. Castlevania was my absolute favorite game, and to this day is one of my favorite series. I loved the cover art and tried to draw it a hundred times. When the Genesis and SNES came out I was able to play a much wider range of games. The Super Nintendo was left at my grandparents house so my cousin and I could both use it. Every once in a while one of us would take it home for a week or so, if we were in the middle of good game. Summers were great back then. We'd spend all day at Gram's going back and forth from the pool to the basement to play Donkey Kong Country or Aladin. Like many grandparent's houses, there was a seemingly endless supply of snacks and Pepsi. I don't know if it was every kid's dream, but it certainly was mine.

One day, I remember my dad coming home with a large brown box. Before he could even get in the door I was looking inside and saw a Sega Genesis and a strange looking oversized cartridge. That cartridge turned out to be the Sega Channel. Well deserving its own thread, for now I'll say the Sega Channel represents one of my favorite eras in gaming. 

At that point, my video gaming habits were still pretty moderate. I loved to play, but spent just as much time if not more drawing or running around outside with my friends. When the PlayStation hit the market, I was completely oblivious to its existence. I remember seeing the PlayStation codes in the back of the gaming magazines and thinking the colorful shape inputs looked funny. I was in third grade when I first got to try one out. It was my first time hanging out at my new friends house and we played Crash Bandicoot and Oddworld. Both became instant favorites of mine. I was blown away, and tried hard to find a game for the SNES or Genesis that would compete with Crash's 3D platforming. I was unsuccessful. Then, on some random day, I was rewarded for my good grades with a trip to Toys'R'Us. I left with my own PlayStation, and my love for the brand began.

Since then, my involvement with gaming has only deepened. When PlayStation 2 was released, I was heading into high school. A job and a car made my video game purchasing all the more easy. Things have slowed down a tad more recently, mostly because life got more serious. Even so, I still manage to get a good amount of gaming in. Spanning almost all the major platforms, I dabble in a little bit of everything. I also frequently, and increasingly more so, replay the retro games that started it all. 

I've wanted to create a video game fan site for quite some time now. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to really dive into it. So for the mean time, I figured I'd start this blog. Here I hope to share my gaming experiences, both old and new, as well as reflect on the current video game culture. If you've read this far, you probably have a passion for these things too. Video games are much more fun when you can share them with others. With that in mind, lets game...