My Gaming History
There was one Blaugust prompt for this week that I definitely wanted to dedicate a post of its own to:
Tell us about your absolutely favorite entertainment media.
If you've read this blog at all, it should come as no surprise that my favorite entertainment media is video games.
I've been playing games since I was around five years old. Some of my earliest memories are of watching my older brother play Nintendo and PlayStation games like the original Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VI. The scene with the first zombie in Resident Evil had a huge effect on me, and I credit it as one of the reasons I became so fascinated with horror. I spent my life seeking more chilling experiences like that. Eventually, I picked up the controller myself and pretty much never put it down.
My brother had a Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation -- all of which he let me play until the year my parents got me a PlayStation of my own for Christmas and it became my most prized possession. I played games like the Final Fantasy series, Legend of Mana, Metal Gear Solid, and tons of platformers like the Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, and Sly Cooper series. There were a lot of quirky, lesser-known games for the PSX that I adored too, like Threads of Fate, Brave Fencer Musashi, and Legend of Dragoon. I miss the kind of experimental aspect of the PlayStation.
My cousins had a Nintendo 64 and then a GameCube, so I played most of the Nintendo games of my childhood over at their house. We would play competitively with multiple controllers in games like Mario Kart, or we would take turns on one controller for games that were meant to be single-player, like Ocarina of Time.
The exception was Nintendo handhelds, which I had a whole string of: the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance SP, DSi, 3DS XL, and now the Switch. I still have clear memories of playing the original Kirby's Dream Land and Mortal Kombat on the Game Boy. They were my two favorite games for the console at the time.
I also had a PC of my own from a young age because my dad was a computer technician and was really into building them. I played a lot of adventure games on it, such as Myst and the King's Quest series. I remember playing a bunch of random "indie" games, even back then, because my dad would get his hands on shareware discs. Elfland and the text adventure Humbug are two that really stick in my mind that I loved.
These days, I mainly play games on my Alienware gaming laptop that I bought in 2023. It's starting to get a little outdated in terms of new triple-A games, but it still runs well. My biggest issue is storage. I have 1 TB, but that's becoming not quite enough for the size of games these days. I constantly have to uninstall bigger games to make room and then reinstall them when I want to play them again, uninstalling something else in the process.
If you want to know the specs:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX
- RAM: 16 GB
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and AMD Radeon Graphics
Aside from my PC, I still have my old PlayStation 2 and Nintendo 3DS, which I play games on regularly. I also have an original Nintendo Switch that I use mainly for YouTube and Animal Crossing, but I play other games on it sporadically. My husband has a PlayStation 4, but we don't game on it much these days. It's basically just serving as our DVD player.
My Steam profile and my RetroAchievements profile might be the best indications of what I'm like as a gamer. My favorite genres are horror, adventure, RPG, and puzzle. I still play retro games along with new releases. I definitely look at games as more of a personal experience than a test of skill, but I do like to take on some challenges, such as my current Inferno run in Resident Evil 3 remake.
You'll see on my Steam profile that I own over 800 games. That's reaching all the way back to 2014, and most of them are indies that cost less than $10. I've also had a lot of games gifted to me and am always trying to purchase games on sale. Gaming is absolutely my biggest investment, but I try to spend as wisely as possible, although I do splurge for some games on release day. The upcoming Silent Hill Townfall, my most anticipated game of the year, will be one of those.
And there you have it, maybe the most extensive post I've done on my gaming history and habits so far! What do you think? Do you have similar experiences with gaming?