Memories of a hardcore gamer
My name is Aaron, and i'm a casual gamer.
On July 27th, 1998, I never thought I'd ever type those words. I was 13 years old, with a daily paper route and a weekend job in a cafe, but that wasn't important. I was a contributor to Gaming-Age.com, which at the time was a popular site, with a thriving community (a community which still flourishes over at NeoGAF.com).
Between school, my two jobs & my delusion that I was a journalist, I didn't have much time for anything, but I made time for games. Every (distinctly British) penny I'd ever earned had gone on importing the latest and greatest games in from Japan. Four days earlier Radiant Silvergun had been released, and I had pre-ordered it from my local importer; A small games store without a name, nestled inside an indoor market in Croydon, my hometown.
Every day after school I would head down to the store to play Blazing Star, a scrolling shooter that was nigh impossible to find at the time. While many people thought it was a classic, I wasn't really sold on it. Regardless of my opinions, I was playing it, no one else could, and that was the point.
On that day however, I wasn't interested in Blazing Star. I headed straight for the counter, where I had paid £75 2 weeks earlier to secure a copy. Years later my investment would pay off in a big way, when I sold my copy for over £150, effectively doubling my money. Since then, with the rise of international sellers on eBay, the price has stabilised somewhat, but a good copy will still set you back around £120.
Radiant Silvergun was and remains my favorite shooter of all time, and I've spent 100+ hours losing myself in the madness of it all. I've recently rediscovered it as an XBLA title, that i'd urge everyone to pick up. I was going to write a mini-review of the refreshed version, but sites like IGN & Gamespot have done a stellar job already. All that needs to be said is it's extremely challenging, but even more rewarding.
Nowadays, not much has changed. I work 3 jobs, one of which is as an Intern for The Verge: only the fine details of my crave to be a Journalist have changed over the years. My spare time is still extremely limited, and I still play games. Looking back, the time I spent importing Sega Saturn games was the peak of my gaming life. I have never again been able to match the excitement I felt when playing an anticipated title for the first time. I feel video reviews & previews take away from a lot of the mystique of a title, especially one that's not available in your territory (a situation that happens less and less these days). You now know exactly what you're going to get, and i'm not sure that's a good thing.
Gone are the days where I furiously amassed huge collections of obscure titles, and I've lost my passion for gaming: Only the biggest releases come onto my radar, I play them through once, and then discard them. I now pass my time with my iPhone, playing Tiny Wings, Scribblenauts, and the occasional quarter of Madden.
Maybe it's becoming a father, maybe it's that gaming has moved on and I haven't, or maybe it's just that it's too damn easy to find good games these days, when for me, it was all about the anticipation, the searching, the waiting, and the bragging.
Am I alone in feeling this way? Do any of you have an interesting snippet from your gaming life you'd care to share?
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