Personal History of gaming

Following on from my previous history of gaming posts I have decided to share a little of my own personal gaming history. I have mentioned some of this before in the previous posts but I thought it would be a good idea to elaborate on this, I will discuss how I got in to gaming, the games I like to play, games that inspire me and the future games and consoles I plan to buy; I will also mention some relevant gaming news articles that I find interesting and exciting.

The first game I owned!

I’ve mentioned the first few games I started playing as a kid in previous blog posts, I mostly played games on pc as it was all we had at the time and the occasional game of street fighter on my brothers Sega Mega Drive. However at the age of 5 I received a Gameboy Colour for my birthday along with Pokemon blue, this was my first proper introduction to video games and it was great. The next year we got a PlayStation 1 but it wasn’t until the PlayStation 2 era that I truly started to appreciate games as something more than just fun; Metal Gear Solid 2 was the turning point for me, after playing through it I didn’t understand the ending at all but after playing through it again and again I began to understand the meaning behind it. This game changed my outlook on games completely (partly why I am such a big fan of the series now) and made me much more analytical of the games I choose to play.

The next milestone was the jump to next gen, the Xbox 360. I was quite an early adopter of the console and the graphics at the time weren’t great, they were considerably better than the PS2 but the scale of the games was what surprised me. I remember playing the first Assassins creed game and being amazing at how detailed the buildings looked and how seamlessly you could climb them, in games in the past it was pretty obvious what was climbable. I’d probably say that Batman Arkham Asylum is my favourite game from this generation, mainly because they captured the visual style of the comic books really well yet kept it realistic and gritty.  I was always a little curious as to how games were made, I did a little research and tried to download Autodesk Maya years ago but struggled to get a free version and my computer at the time was awful so didn’t run it properly. So I decided to focus on my drawing in the hope that I could pick it later in life, I mainly looked at very stylized artists as I grew up reading comic books etc. but realised if I want to be a better artist I must start with realism.

 As of now my main gaming device is a gaming PC, so I have pretty much gone full circle back to PC. Mainly because of the increase in graphics and steam, since starting this university course I can no longer play console games without picking them apart; especially games that have a large scale like GTA5 or Red Dead Redemption. A friend of mine recently lent me his PS3, mainly to play Metal Gear Solid 4 as I never had a chance before; I also picked up The Last of Us as well to see what the hype was all about and I was very surprised at how well made it was and how much better it looks compared to equivalent Xbox titles.

In terms of next gen, I haven’t really seen the need to pick up a PS4 yet but I plan to when some more games come out. I do have my PC for anything like that and I need to catch up on the PS3 titles I have missed. I plan to lay off gaming a bit over summer and really get to grips with 3DS max and maybe an engine, I have wanted to do some higher poly stuff for a while now but I just haven’t had the time. I also aim to get a lot better at Photoshop for next year as well as keeping up on the drawing side of things.

Evolve from the creators of Left 4 Dead one of my favourite games

 In terms of games I am excited about that are coming out later this year, there aren’t really that many. Evolve is shaping up quite nicely and looks quite enjoyable, I actually had a go on this the other week at the gadget show convention and really enjoyed it. The other game this year I am really excited about is probably Batman Arkham Knight, it’s a series I have loved for a while and its back in the hands of the original developers; the visuals look jaw-dropping too. The only other game I am really looking forward to, is probably Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain but that comes out next year so I will probably pick up a PS4 when that is released.

Batman Arkham Knight in-game Screenshot

Image reference:

http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/screenshots/Evolve/evolve_-_goliathvmarkov_fire.jpg

http://images.psu.com/index.php?size=img_full&src=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.psu.com%2Fmedia%2F14-03-05-12-18-35-3815%2F14-03-05-12-18-35-3815-ss-6.png

http://whatanerdgirlsays.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/pokemon_blue_cover_art_by_comunello76-d4xvjro.jpg