My Personal History of Video Games

As can be guessed I was surrounded by video games when I was a child – being the youngest in the family means I got the joys of sitting and watching my family battle as to who’s turn it was next, whether it be computer or console. The earliest I can remember is the personal computer my dad built, sat in the dining room dominated mainly by my dad as he sat and played Doom, Quake or Duke Nukem. I, obviously being observed as “too young”, was shooed away only to crawl back and hide, watching from a corner.

The earliest games I can remember myself playing didn’t feature and form of 3D graphics. Coming from the late 1980’s and through the 1990s I started with games by Humongous Entertainment –Putt-Putt and Freddi Fish to be more precised. These simple, brightly coloured point-and-click puzzle games, not only filled with Androgyny due to the fact Freddi was actually female, were the starting point to my own video game timeline. Point and clicks feature heavily in my past experiences with video games – simple and slow paced. The Monkey Island series was a favourite amongst my family, and although never getting the chance to play it through fully I remember watching my sister and dad play for hours on end.

Toonstruck and one of it's more.. questionable scenes

A point and click I definitely want to mention is Toonstruck, and after only just remembering it recently and looking into the game again, I question as to why I was allowed to play it when my Dad thought Doom was too violent for me to watch… The game is an interactive adventure featuring a combination of real life and cartoon-stylised 2D gameplay, where you play as the character of Drew Blanc – who is played by Christopher Lloyd. You play as a cartoon animator, struggling with an idea, only to end up being sucked into the world of Cutopia, surrounded by his own creations. The aim of the game is to stop Count Nefarious – voiced by Tim Curry – from turning the world into a dark and twisted place.
All in all, the game features scenes that could be considered BDSM/Dom and Sub with barnyard animals and incredibly creepy snot-nosed clown, and was a family gathering point as to how to complete certain tasks. Due to the fact point and click games are what I played most when I was younger, I would love to see more of them in the future – more than likely due to nostalgia.

When we finally invested in consoles, my sister was the one usually in possession of them. Because of this, I had very little opportunity to play them – I usually spent my time on my sisters floor, or from the door when I wasn’t privileged enough to come in, watching her play. I got told recently we had an Atari – the fact I can’t remember much of it showing how young I was when we had one. So I’ll move onto the Playstation, reminding me of the time I hit my brother in the face to remove a loose tooth whilst she played FF7… good times.
By the time I came into possession of consoles they were all hand-me-downs, due to my sister losing interest for a while and my brother gaining new-console rights. The SNES was the first in my possession – playing Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario World on an old 5-channel TV which you had to hit the top every now and again to make the display work. Once the SNES broke, I gained the N64 alongside Conkers Bad Fur Day, Zelda (Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask) and Paper Mario – of which would occasionally disappear as mum would sit and play them.

When my brother got the original Xbox, I was introduced to The Elderscrolls games. My dad “acquired” Morrowind for my brother, so I naturally snuck in when I heard the promise of elves and lizard people. The introduction to RPG’s led me to play Fable, and naturally I enjoyed it to the extent of finishing it within a day. This was followed by Oblivion and Fallout 3 in 2008, which hooked me into the world of modding, and are more than likely what made me want to do something revolving video games for a living. Their environments, soundtracks and combination of gameplay and immersion were incredible, the story for Fallout 3 was amazing – and both of their open world designs were a true awe. It’s here that, unfortunately, my days of pc gaming ended – my computer was not able to support them due to its outdated system. So I needed a solution, and an Xbox 360 was a cheaper solution to updating a computer that broke completely 2 years later.

Bioshock concept art

With the Xbox 360, although the controls are sometimes not the best, and the vanilla game is not as beautiful as it could be, I discovered some of my favourite games of all time. Mass Effect was one of the first games I played, finding the controls too clunky after a transfer from PC controls I removed the game from my life for a while. Dragon Age and Assassins Creed are all games of which I truly enjoyed before I revisited Mass Effect – starting with the second before I revisited the first one. Bioshock and Dead Space made me fall in love with video game concept art, playing through the games then looking at the enemies’ designs and inspirations for said designs was truly amazing for me.

Borderlands classes

Borderlands is another which I loved, its art style being something I had never seen before in a game – the use of the visible outline on something that’s 3D, borrowing the style of a comic book or graphic novel then outputting the style in a different media was fantastic to see done effectively (in comparison to games such as The Walking Dead, which is not so effective).

After I got a laptop – the overheated monster I currently type on, propped up on plaster hands in an attempt to stop it from melting any more candles that are on my desk – I reinvested in PC gaming, only to be devastated that Fallout 3 wouldn't work on Windows 7. I wasted money on The Sims 3, only to enjoy creating characters, and after being gifted Batman Arkham Asylum I realised how fussy I had become over games, as I became bored by the combat and representation of certain characters in the game. Another game that was disappointing on game play was Skyrim – as nice as the environments were, the story was boring and lacked the immersive feel I got from Oblivion. The “miscellaneous” quests were boring and the guild quests were rushed. It’s on the same level as disappointment that I got from Fallout New Vegas – where the story line has no emotive response and is absolutely nonsensical for the playable character to go through it.

For the future of games, I’d like to see more in-depth and immersive stories, environments and characters that are designed thoroughly, with iconic aspects about their designs. I’d like to see a female character that hasn’t been turned into a baby-faced cute little girl over time, and where rape isn't considered a plot point (The new Tomb Raider reboot).