LONG BLOG
The Past: [Immutability]
So, to start, little bit of backstory, just to acquaint, I've been a gamer since as far as I can remember. I was born in the year of our lord 1981, not religious just like a sense of revelry and gravitas, anyway, and some of my earliest memories involve gaming. Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of spending countless magical summer afternoons spent atop a milk crate, which was the style at the times for smallish children, playing Double Dragon, Operation Wolf, and Rampage at the creatively named "Fun and Games" at the mall near my house. The combination of my high school aged cousin as live in babysitter in the summers and a mall in walking distance facilitated this, now that i think about it, lifelong love of gaming. And that's the beautiful thing about gaming. It's a lifestyle, and the more that I think about it, gaming, like war, never changes.
There's a certain beautiful chronological and emotional parity to it, in the sense that we have all felt the same feelings of wonder and merely sensation during the past, present, and future of it. Now granted I can only prove that with anecdotal evidence, but search your feelings, you know it's true. Okay, here's example one. Not but last night I downloaded Outlast on PS4, as it's on PS Plus and I was fairly psyched to finally play it (full disclosure I have never been part of the glorious PC master race, had a decent gaming PC for about 6 weeks in college before it was woefully passe.) Anyway, I'm playing the game for like literally half an hour and if you've played the game, then you know, and I the shit starts getting all sorts of ill and terrifying and I, a grown ass man and fan of jump scares, quickly said to myself, "Oh, fuck this right now; I've got to go to bed in two hours and, just no." Then, as I started watching safe, non terrifying sitcoms and playing equally non terrifying Gravity Rush I had a very specific memory just light up. I was about 15 or 16, and my parents were out doing something, and I was playing Resident Evil 1 for the first or second time, and I'm home alone, and those dogs jump through the window. My young brains goes, "Oh, fuck this right now." And that's the beauty of having spent so much of my life fully, mostly, enjoying this hobby/ lifestyle.
I mean I personally find it interesting that I still go through the same, borderline obsessive, process of digesting information in anticipation for "Bravely Default" that I did for "FFVI", granted working in an office facilitates finding the amount of time I used to have to slavishly gaze at EGM articles in anticipation. I still get the same "Holy Shit, this is going to be awesome squee" unboxing a PS4 that I did unboxing that Sega Master System those fateful years ago. (Full disclosure, I started on the "losing end" of every console generation up until maybe this one; we'll see.� I know what you're thinking, and the answer is TurboGrafx-16 and Atari Lynx although Todd's Adventures in Slime World and Bloody Wolf and Alien Syndrome do not get the modern waxing and fawning they deserve as late 80's/early 90's classics, anyway.)
Pretty much, what I love about gaming, aside from the games, obviously, is the immutability of the feeling of sheer wonder that they bring.� The games, unlike so many other things I loved as a child, (yes, I'm talking about the Star Wars movies), grew up with me.� I can think about the hours after school playing Dynamite Duke at a friend's house after school, and now, thanks to the miracles of the internet, playing GTA Online with friends after work (then the Moneyocalypse came; half of you know it's true). Just this week I had a long conversation about the sheer, all encompassing time sink that was Halo 2 on Xbox Live. Sure, I remember that time semi-fondly, as it got� a tad out of hand, but I remember a lot of the games fondly. I think back on the loving shame that has followed me this past decade for maxing out the game clock on FF X-2 (Gullwings 4 Lyfe), and the weird ass looks I've gotten when my friends overhear the dialogue of Persona 4: Golden (the concept doesn't fly with an unsurprising number of people). I'd say the only real change is that I'm less susceptible to high end advertising (Yes, I too was swindled by Abbadox and countless other well marketed turds, especially Power Glove).� Oh, and I got way better at item management in games. �� So, that's really it. When I think of my gaming past, I feel the same about my gaming present and gaming future; I just spend those magical summer afternoons at home now.
Dwayne 
Elsa 1
Occams 1Dwayne 1
There's a certain beautiful chronological and emotional parity to it, in the sense that we have all felt the same feelings of wonder and merely sensation during the past, present, and future of it. Now granted I can only prove that with anecdotal evidence, but search your feelings, you know it's true. Okay, here's example one. Not but last night I downloaded Outlast on PS4, as it's on PS Plus and I was fairly psyched to finally play it (full disclosure I have never been part of the glorious PC master race, had a decent gaming PC for about 6 weeks in college before it was woefully passe.) Anyway, I'm playing the game for like literally half an hour and if you've played the game, then you know, and I the shit starts getting all sorts of ill and terrifying and I, a grown ass man and fan of jump scares, quickly said to myself, "Oh, fuck this right now; I've got to go to bed in two hours and, just no." Then, as I started watching safe, non terrifying sitcoms and playing equally non terrifying Gravity Rush I had a very specific memory just light up. I was about 15 or 16, and my parents were out doing something, and I was playing Resident Evil 1 for the first or second time, and I'm home alone, and those dogs jump through the window. My young brains goes, "Oh, fuck this right now." And that's the beauty of having spent so much of my life fully, mostly, enjoying this hobby/ lifestyle.
I mean I personally find it interesting that I still go through the same, borderline obsessive, process of digesting information in anticipation for "Bravely Default" that I did for "FFVI", granted working in an office facilitates finding the amount of time I used to have to slavishly gaze at EGM articles in anticipation. I still get the same "Holy Shit, this is going to be awesome squee" unboxing a PS4 that I did unboxing that Sega Master System those fateful years ago. (Full disclosure, I started on the "losing end" of every console generation up until maybe this one; we'll see.� I know what you're thinking, and the answer is TurboGrafx-16 and Atari Lynx although Todd's Adventures in Slime World and Bloody Wolf and Alien Syndrome do not get the modern waxing and fawning they deserve as late 80's/early 90's classics, anyway.)
Pretty much, what I love about gaming, aside from the games, obviously, is the immutability of the feeling of sheer wonder that they bring.� The games, unlike so many other things I loved as a child, (yes, I'm talking about the Star Wars movies), grew up with me.� I can think about the hours after school playing Dynamite Duke at a friend's house after school, and now, thanks to the miracles of the internet, playing GTA Online with friends after work (then the Moneyocalypse came; half of you know it's true). Just this week I had a long conversation about the sheer, all encompassing time sink that was Halo 2 on Xbox Live. Sure, I remember that time semi-fondly, as it got� a tad out of hand, but I remember a lot of the games fondly. I think back on the loving shame that has followed me this past decade for maxing out the game clock on FF X-2 (Gullwings 4 Lyfe), and the weird ass looks I've gotten when my friends overhear the dialogue of Persona 4: Golden (the concept doesn't fly with an unsurprising number of people). I'd say the only real change is that I'm less susceptible to high end advertising (Yes, I too was swindled by Abbadox and countless other well marketed turds, especially Power Glove).� Oh, and I got way better at item management in games. �� So, that's really it. When I think of my gaming past, I feel the same about my gaming present and gaming future; I just spend those magical summer afternoons at home now.
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