A Celebration of Video Gaming: Help me decide on my 1000th videogame!

I love finding random pictures on the internet!

I'm still amazed, looking back at my video game collection and how far it has come along. It's all felt like a blur. I can still look back and remember beating the first and second bosses on Castlevania and failing horribly the rest of the game (how my father managed to get to Dracula, I'll never know). I can remember the time I broke my PS1 playing Bug's Life because I've had a nasty habit of yanking the controller, which in turn would pull the PS1 right off the shelf (Luckily, it wasn't that long until the PS2 would launch and I managed to get one on release day. Success.) I still remember getting 100% on Psychonauts and all of the fun that was involved in that. Beating my first bullet hell and all. So when I tell myself I'm kind of close to my 1000th game, it kinda blows my mind.


I can only WISH my collection was organized this nice. Ma crap's everywhere.

I've typically loved video games all my life. I haven't have a reason not too. They been with me ever since I can remember and I've typically loved them all (even if they are crappy sometimes). I can't really describe what pulls me into them and I can't really describe why I play them either. It's just fun to me. People wonder why I've devoted myself to what they consider to be one of the most trivial things in the world and all I can really tell them is that I find them to be entertaining and fun. They scoff at this point and tell me to do some more worthwhile with my time, but I don't care. It's fun. Sometimes, my peers understand, sometimes they don't. They're so COD obsessed that I can only sigh, because my attempts to recommend other games to them seems to fail most of the time. I can get through to a few, but so many of them are so lost, I don't know what to do. They don't seem to have an appreciation for the "retro era". Maybe I wouldn't either if the NES wasn't my first console.

Having an NES as your first console makes all of your anger towards video game difficulty go away. Most games of this generation don't hold a candle in terms of difficulty towards some some of the games in the NES/SNES era. Playing these games, you begin to build up a tolerance for losing, as losing was quite common in these days. It's funny, I hear stories all the time of people pulling out games the beat when they were a child and wondering how in the heck they did it. I can't really remember having that sort of moment, because I generally sucked balls at all those games. I remember it was an accomplishment beating the first level of Mario, and now I could probably do it with my eyes closed (well, maybe... I'm going to go try that later now...). Because of this difficulty, whether artificially or just real challenging, I like to believe it's given me a more positive outlook on life. It's allowed me to dust off my shoulders whenever I get knocked down and get back up and try again. Yeah, sometimes a game can get the best of me (Binding of Isaac iron man runs, I'm looking at you) but I'm afraid to think of how angry I could get if I didn't have these games teach me a lesson in patience.


We've all been here.

My next console was a PS1. I can't remember if I was ever a graphics whore, or if I didn't care if a game had sprites or polygons. I just know I liked games that were fun (gosh, there's THAT word again..). This is the console that started my love for 3D platformers. This is the console, I think, that really HOOKED me into gaming. My NES days were fun, and I look fondly on them today. But the NES wasn't mine. It was my dad's. But this thing, it was mine! I could play it whenever I wanted. No more having to wait my turn, I could play all I want (but I would let you play, because I didn't mind sharing. YAY MORALS!). I don't have that many memories of me playing the PS1 (or the NES for that matter), but I can remember Spyro the Dragon (I 100%'d that one ^_^), Tarzan (THAT GAME WAS HARD), Tonka Space Station, and A Bug's Life. Sadly, me yanking the controller while playing A Bug's Life ended my PS1 days...

But I couldn't have broke it at a better time. The PS2 was coming out soon and this meant I was GUARANTEED to get one for Christmas. I didn't want it for the graphics but for the fact that it would play my PS1 games AND my PS2 games (whenever I would get some)! I knew that the PS1's days were also coming to the end, so when that happened I could continue playing new releases. I remember hugging the box on launch day right after it was purchased by my wonderful grandmother! The PS2 blew my little mind. And it was beautiful. Lots of gaming happened through these years, and I'm betting that some of us will share a memory or two with this console. I grew up with this console, and a lot of my gaming memories were made and are continuing to be made with this console. But then, shinny new toys were announced and I began to get hype again for the next console I was planning to receive: the PS3.


LOOK AT IT'S BEAUTIFUL BLUENESS! *sobs*

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, I didn't get a PS3. My family and I had decided that it was too expensive, and they had already bought me so much stuff for Christmas so getting a PS3 was a no go. So, I decided to get a Wii instead. I saved up my monies and either the Valentine's Day after launch or the Valentine's Day a year after launch, I got a Wii (I think it was the first option, because I remember it was really hard to even find one at a store.) And I loved the motion controls at the time. And I was happy with it for a while until, again, I wanted a new toy. Motion controls weren't cutting it anymore. I wanted something with a regular controller. I wanted a Playstation 3. So I ended up getting a PS3 with Killzone 2 and inFamous on black friday for $350 and have loved it ever since.

I've obviously skipped a LOT of my gaming life (we've never even touched me getting a GBC, a GBA, a PSP, a Dreamcast, a Nintendo 64, etc.) so suffice it to say I've had a heck of a ride. I consider myself a hardcore video gamer/collector/huge nerd these days, but there a few nitpicks that other collectors would call me out on, so I'm not going to touch that category. I try to stay very informed in the industry, and video games in general. I usually buy stuff that I will actually play (unless SALES, which pretty much happen all the time). I haven't beaten a lot of my crap, which makes me sad, but thanks to my backloggery.com (we'll get to that later), I'm actually finishing stuff these days. Yay.

So let's finally get to the main reason I'm making this post: I want you guys to help me decide what game I will buy to be my 1000th. I'll pretty much play any game as long as it's fun. I don't want anything too hard to obtain, but I might if it's just 100% worth it. Of course, you guys COULD always buy me something and give it to me. You know, as long as it's not Grabnicholson Extreme Sleepover Text Adventure (I'm kidding, I would much rather you guys donate to Child's Play or something instead of lil ole me. But if you want to...)


Oh, BOY!

So, head over to my backloggery @ http://www.backloggery.com/ninjapresident so you can see what I already have, and flood me with updates here on what to buy (imports are A OK!). I know I haven't been around long, but you guys have made Destructoid seem like a second home to me. Alrighty, let's get started! Who knows where we might end up!

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