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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After finishing my tenure at The Cultural Gutter and jumping ship from Game Set Watch after a three-post stint, I threw together a summary of what I had been listening to over the previous year, and then essentially stopped writing. I thought I could keep the momentum going after that, even though I wasn’t really playing any games. But for some reason the muse abandoned me. And I abandoned this website.

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I have not played a game in exactly seven months.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I should probably specify that I haven’t played a console or PC game in seven months. I’ve gamed on my Treo 650 and my video iPod. I spent all of 15 minutes with Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. But does it count?

To be honest, I don’t really miss it all that much. Life is busy with the little one, and I now know that time actually can pass faster. Changing responsibilities at work and at home has left me with very little spare time, and even less of a desire to sit at my computer and have to install and learn a game, and possibly squeeze in a play session. It doesn’t feel right.

Nevertheless, I keep coming back to this place and looking at the last time I updated it. While I like writing for the Cultural Gutter, I don’t really consider those “updates” in the purest sense, because I’m writing for someone else. After two more articles I will no longer be writing there anyway.

I recently felt the urge to write about games like I used to, but I haven’t played any that provide suitable inspiration. Well, except perhaps MoonFighter, a devilishly enjoyable exercise in navigating extremely basic physics. It is on my Treo.

I missed the holiday season, and the post-holiday season. My sister and her finance have a Wii that I haven’t touched yet (but desperately want to). Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is on Xbox Live Arcade. Computer Games Magazine has died a premature death and I never submitted a feature. I don’t recognize the shelves of my local electronics retailers anymore. I have no idea what games people are talking about. The only newsworthy item I can relate to is the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which made me laugh because I had written a preview for the game to be posted on my site in 2003. It has been getting decent reviews. I may even play it.

I don’t want to abandon Tales of a Scorched Earth completely, but I’m having trouble approaching what I’m going to do with it. I always said I prefer writing substance than linking and quoting, and that’s not going to change. I have also come to the realization that I liked writing about games more than I did playing them, because it is a form of entertainment that is still emerging and being shaped more by the people that play them than the media that reports on it. I have also come to the understanding that this is an integral part of my life, and harder than I thought to separate myself from. I hope to be returning within the next few weeks as my life approaches a semblance of equilibrium.

One thing I’ve learned from doing more reading than writing in the past seven months: bad writing isn’t just a boil on the ass of game journalism. It is everywhere and it is inescapable. Good criticism is mostly forgotten or buried under the piles of readable, yet completely innocuous commentary that people are paid for. As ridiculous as it sounds, weblogs are still providing better entertainment be they inane or thought-provoking. As much as I hate the idea of them, they are a fair reflection of society at large. They are unconventional, they are brutal, they are sometimes (?) completely misinformed – but they approach the sort of verisimilitude you would expect from a crowd of like minded individuals. At least one thing hasn’t changed.

On August 30th at 7:37 pm I became a father to a beautiful baby girl. She definitely takes after my wife.

After nine months of waiting, I finally met the little person that was growing inside my wife. The biology of pregnancy is quite amazing when you think about it – and while the most well-meaning people will often try and scare you with stuff that can go wrong, or things your wife should be eating, or the right time to buy a crib – I constantly fell back on the advice of our prenatal class instructor: this is supposed to work.

As an expectant parent, everyone tells you it’s this huge life changing experience that you will never forget for as long as you live, and there isn’t anything else out there that comes close to the way parenting enriches your life. Alongside the incessant advice-giving, I have to admit I was completely skeptical of the gravity of the event to come. I really had no idea how wrong I could be.

I was there for everything. I saw the birth. And as much as the Life network and the movies shown at the hospital try to prepare you for what to expect, there’s really no replacement for actually witnessing it. Yes there is blood and gore and pain and the squeezing of hands and all that other stuff people love to mention when talking about childbirth, but none of it matters when you see that tiny human come into the world.

From that moment on priorities change. They have to. For the last two weeks I’ve been learning to be a parent. Dealing with crying jags. Changing diapers at 3 a.m. I have begun to make lists. Things that I have to do, things that I should do, and things that I would like to do. Everything related to the baby is in the first list. Housework (and sometimes feeding ourselves!) ends up in the second list. Gaming, and everything related to my computer, has been in the last category, if that.

At first I was a little uneasy about the lifestyle change. Like everyone else who has grown up in a generation where education, career and technology are everything, it was very easy for me to push the idea of raising a family aside for the time being. When my wife and I got married we both knew we wanted children…eventually. After we moved into the new house, we started thinking about it seriously. Just in time for Christmas, we found out we would be parents.

Now I have to find a new balance. And it doesn’t bother me that much. I have to admit I’ve watched a lot of T.V., more than I have in the last five years combined. Commercials still mostly suck, daytime television is for the unemployed (bad movies galore and every commercial break is an ad for going back to school), and in the evenings I’ve watched the Red Sox go from struggling ball club to a full-on end-of-season collapse. I’m often used as a pillow for our little one’s sleeping arrangements, leaving me pretty much incapacitated for most of the day. While this sedentary lifestyle may not be for me, I know it gets better.

It’s exciting to watch this little person sneeze for the first time, or grab my finger, or vomit all over my wife’s back. I watch in amazement as our golden retriever tries to comfort our baby with a drool-caked toy, or the way she is always sleeping wherever the baby is. It’s been so much fun, I’ve pretty much forgotten about everything else. The best part is that baby has no idea if we’re doing anything “wrong”; they have nothing to compare to. It’s very reassuring.

Things may slow down here for a while, but as I find equilibrium within this new life production should return to normal. I may even start polishing off some of my forgotten unfinished reviews to maintain some semblance of an update schedule. In the meantime I’ll game whenever I have an appropriate opportunity.

Last year I shared the fact that I got a dog with the entire internet. I battled my most primal urges to post a photo, out of fear of becoming that kind of weblog. This time is different.

Indulge me as I embark on my yearly retrospective.

As most long time readers know, if there’s anything I want out of this website it’s thoughtful discussion on games. And I have to admit that requiring commenters to register has ensured that – for the most part. I’ve also learned that it’s almost impossible for me to write short posts. They just feel…incomplete. I love the details. In some cases I’m sure I’ve bored someone to tears before they even get a chance to comment. But that’s beside the point.

Allow me to share some observations and commentary after writing a gaming weblog over the past three years:

• A question every weblogger, not just a games weblogger, has to ask themselves: Do you like to write, or do you like attention? This is kind of a rhetorical question. Everyone who has a website wants attention. Otherwise it wouldn’t be there. The important thing to remember is that this need for approval is kept under control. Let the content speak for itself. Producing content for someone else to read can be a really gratifying experience. It can also be an extremely gratuitous one. If you’re selling adspace, I’m pretty sure you’re going with option #2. But don’t expect anyone to take your opinion seriously once the steady commentary becomes incessant droning for clickthroughs. I’d like to think that this surge of interest in games writing over the past year has done well to promote sharing the love of the hobby, while taking it under serious consideration in intelligent discussion. But I don’t think it’s working – there’s too much antagonism towards print media. It sucks, I get it. So do most high profile gaming sites. There’s also some serious backlash for the games weblogging community. It’s annoying. Let’s move on and talk about games.
• Never apologize for a lack of updates. Unless you’re being paid for it. But then you should be apologizing to whoever hired you that is paying for you to produce content. Not your readers who are consuming it for free. I keep seeing this phenomenon. I’m pretty sure I’ve done it once or twice in the past. I have no idea why. There are hundreds of gaming weblogs out there. The news will be picked up somewhere else – it’s not a big deal. If you have something interesting to say, sit on it. Make it better. Chances are some correction will be issued in the next couple of days anyway and you don’t look like so many other twitch bloggers. There’s really no need to post something if you have nothing to report. You have a life. It’s ok. Posting something about not posting is insulting to the reader who expects real content.
• The siren call of a new release. Everyone feels it. A new game is out and we all want to be the first ones to report on it. The big gaming websites already had a leg up – they’ve been playing a gold master copy for weeks. But weblogs are (theoretically) different because they have a unique opinion that doesn’t necessarily follow a standard outline of the game’s features. It’s important to have your own opinion – it’s what makes weblogs interesting to read. But I find that some of them get caught up in carrying the hype. They don’t want to seem like the party crasher. They don’t trust their own opinion of the game and seek validation by joining the crowd. I’ve seen it time and again. Then a month or two later the “real” reviews start pouring in, saying the game was overhyped or isn’t nearly as good as everyone first thought. It’s a vicious cycle. Allow your thoughts to congeal. Take some time to formulate a cohesive argument. Take advantage of the format. Maybe it is that good, and you want to explain what makes it great. I absolutely cannot stomach reading reviews that are unsubstantiated, or are clearly rushed to simply get something out there. It’s not doing anyone any favours, and carelessly squanders the concept of having a weblog that answers to no one.
• The Slashdot effect. Slashdot used to be a great place to get breaking tech news and decent commentary from the community. Not anymore, because it’s competing with a hundred other sites doing the same thing. Similarly, the majority of game blogs seem to link to stuff with a quick opinion and let the comments section pick up the details. Which is fine, if the proprietors don’t mind being interchangeable with each other.
• MMORPGs will ruin your life. Obviously an exaggeration and nothing to do with weblogging, but there’s some truth to it. I played World of Warcraft on and off for 10 months before quitting in Februrary. It’s a good game for a while, as long as you understand that nothing else in your life will matter. The social aspect is great – if you don’t mind spending all of your spare time in the game. Trying to level just so you can quest with friends or guildmates is a huge pain in the ass. I’d rather play at my own pace. Though at that point it’s a lonely experience, and I might as well be playing Oblivion. Despite what people may think, this game model is not going to change. It makes money and satisfies most of the customers that aren’t screaming on the official forums. And that’s ok – I just won’t be playing.
• Fun fact: Most of what you read here starts out on actual paper. I keep a notebook accessible whenever possible, especially when playing a game. It makes it easier to remember points to visit in detail. The worst thing about coming up with a great topic to write about is having no place to record it.
• I enjoy writing full length articles. So much that I’ve accumulated way too many of them that are still sitting in an unfinished state, most of them reviews. Golden Sun, Knights of the Old Republic, Spider Man 2, Tales of Symphonia, Fire Emblem, Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, Metroid Prime 2, Baten Kaitos, Brothers in Arms, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, F.E.A.R… the list goes on, unfortunately. But I don’t have a problem with that. Some will see completion “when they’re done” (to borrow from our beloved industry), and some will probably remain as collections of text from a time where my heart was in the right place but the writing just wasn’t there.

So I continue to write when I feel like it, about games I have played, articles I have read or media I have consumed while trying to maintain a level of quality that doesn’t make people feel like they’re wasting their time. My only hope is that I can keep this up for three more years. Because it isn’t getting any easier.