This is the second part of a two-part series. Read “Part 1: Discovery”

I started thinking about writing full length reviews of video games in late 2001. I was still at University. I was going to make a website and came up with some generic name I thought was edgy and reflective of what I wanted to accomplish. It was going to cover more than video games. I had some things to say about popular culture.

After talking to some friends at school about my vision, there was some interest in this collaborative effort. There was already a zine floating around our faculty, but it was horrible. It was a soapbox for people frustrated with school and mostly contained their annoyingly priveleged views on an “oppressive” society. Instead of being provocative or insightful it was lampooning popular culture with pedestrian observations and half-baked philosophy. I could do better.

Of course, when you rely on friends to produce something for free, it doesn’t happen unless you get on their case about it. And I wanted to keep my friends. Plus, the whole “trying to graduate from University with a degree” thing. The project died on the vine, and I gave up the dream. For the time being, anyway.

I graduated from school the next spring, and started playing video games while I looked for work. My comptuer was getting old, and at this point the most it could muster was Unreal Tournament and Civilization III. I read the issues of PC Gamer that were mailed to me to keep up with the industry and the hobby I loved. I hung out on the internet a lot, and read too many terrible reviews that people actually got paid to write. My head started filling with ideas again. I could do better.

I started thinking about another website. Something that would capture my love of video games and provide an outlet for my brand of scathing commentary. I would call it “Tales of a Scorched Earth”, because I am an insufferable Smashing Pumpkins fan. I would adopt the handle of “Gatmog”, because it sounded cool and it provided the mystery any good internet handle should have^[1].

During this time, I started playing and thinking about video games as if it were research. I built a new desktop PC after I got a job and some money. I had a new purpose: I would record my thoughts on video games, write some reviews and share them with others. The availability and ease of use of self-publishing tools made this easier than I expected. I thought I would be doing something different than the typical weblog, and I used that as inspiration.

I wrote a lot of reviews and embarrassing posts during that time^[2]. I published most of them. It was a start.

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The “Gaming Made Me” series of video game retrospectives started by Rock, Paper, Shotgun came from games industry writers, journalists and the designers that make them. It’s become a kind of collective autobiography sourcing the video games that shaped who they are.

Of course, the cynical part of me expected this community-driven effort to consist of mostly name-dropping key titles from the history of video games. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response of webloggers that have taken up the mantle where Rock, Paper, Shotgun left off^[1].

So now I feel the need to contribute, because I think it is absolutely necessary for anyone who loves to play or write about video games to recognize the ones that got them into the hobby. Or in the case of game designers and professional writers, what made them get into the industry itself.

I have been into computers since very early on in my life, and playing computer games was a natural extension of that interest. However, I had no idea that this hobby would result in me creating a website to talk about them. I’m no industry figure, weblogging personality or budding game designer – I’m just a guy that loves to play video games, and write about them. For the people that truly love video games, they are as important as the books they read or the movies they watched when growing up.

For any game weblog, I’d say that writing something like “Gaming Made Me” is more essential than an “About” page. It’s important to let readers know where the author is coming from, and what games influenced their lives and opinions of what makes a great video game. It provides context for the reviews and criticism they produce.

At this point in my life, video games are no longer just a hobby. They have made me a writer, and they have taught me to be critical of things beyond video games. Both video games and this website have become such immutable aspects of my life, that I can’t imagine it without them.

It was hard to come up with this list. So hard, that I had to split it into two. I wanted it be a list of games that shaped me as a player of video games, as well as my viewpoints on what makes a great video game, instead of simply rewording a “favorite games of all time” list. So I’m not going to list off the Zeldas, the Half-Lifes, the Thiefs, or the Rainbow Sixes. That would be too easy for me. No name dropping of the classics and pretending as if they meant something to me in my early development as a gamer. The following list of games got me started in the hobby, tempered my opinion of the medium, and introduced me to the genres I love. Most importantly these are the games that eventually led me to write about them^[2]. They are the ones that left an indelible mark. And for that, they must be recognized.

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I took advantage of the Boxing Day shopping frenzy over the weekend and picked up an XBox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle at a discount that was hard to ignore. This is a purchase I had been deeply considering since my life-altering experience with Gears of War 2’s Horde mode. My familiarity with the console was mostly limited to some time with it shortly after launch, so I’ve been relatively out of touch with what has been released for the console since then. I was also a bit disappointed at the lack of hardware upgrades: the Elite is still hoarding the 120 GB hard drive, and there is still no Wi-Fi out of the box even after three years. Though I guess I should be thankful that the power supply hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Since getting back into gaming this past summer, I’ve tried to keep myself aware of the titles capturing the most buzz on all of the next generation consoles. Over the past few days I familiarized myself with the new XBox dashboard and downloaded a grab-bag of demos: the critically acclaimed and a few others that I was interested in. I’m still looking for a good RPG other than the obvious selections of Mass Effect, Fable 2, or Fallout 3. Feel free to add any other recommendations in the comments; this is my second leap into the console world since the Gamecube in 2003.

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Back when the specs of the Playstation 3, the “Revolution” and the XBox360 were originally unveiled, the idea of backward compatibility was latched on to by many as a deciding factor between the three platforms. In the reactions that followed each company’s announcement, it seemed that whichever platform would be stupid enough not to include the feature would immediately forfeit their position in the console war. Because the Playstation 2 has already set the precedent (with the GBA one year later allowing the use of both original Game Boy and Game Boy colour cartridges), there is now a demand for old games to work with new consoles. The cycle between generations has roughly stayed the same, but consumers want to be given more than an incremental graphics update for their dedication to a platform. In my haste to dismiss the next generation as merely imitating computers, I missed a crucial point: is backward compatibility even necessary for a console to succeed?

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The gaming mob is fickle.

The novelty of E3 continues to wear thin, for me at least. I’d rather selectively watch coverage on the internet than be stuck in line with a bunch of people who are probably not even supposed to be there. It’s become an amusement park. A giant, throbbing, noisy commercial for games that might not even see release, but we’re going to get super happy excited about anyway. How much can you really glean from a game’s trailer or 5 minute playtest that’s been built up after waiting for two hours? The software isn’t even complete. Is it to say you’ve played it first? I’m having a hard time figuring out my former longstanding desire to attend an E3. The gaming mob is fickle.

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