Getting Old

The fact that I am turning 25 next year is getting to me. Quarter of a century, under my belt, starting to become old balls Mcgee. That doesn't matter though, the girl I am with right now tells me all the time that I act like a 12 year old. This is alittle harsh coming from a girl four years younger then me. But I am not the only one getting old. Video Games have been around longer then me, they have played a role in my entire life.

When I was born in 1987, vids have been around for a few years already. PONG was released in 1972, that was the the arcade model, then in 1975 Sears released a home console edition. I am not to worried about arcades games though, don't get me wrong I love arcades. While I was growing up, arcades where taking a hard hit with console gaming becoming so popular. I am not going to lie I thought the SEGA Genesis was the first console for SEGA. Boy was I wrong, SEGA Master System was the arch enemy of Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo released in North America in 1985 and SEGA Master System (SMS) was released the same year I was born, 1987.

I was well aware of the rivalry between Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. SEGA and Nintendo were fighting before then. SMS didn't do well in North America and Japan. In other countries like Europe and Oceanic and Brazilian markets, SEGA actually did better then Nintendo. I am still getting ahead of myself, SEGA first system was called SEGA Game 1000 or SG-1000. It was released in Japan the same day as the Nintendo Entertainment System, in 1983. Surprisingly SG-1000 did unbelievable in Taiwan's secondary market even with all of the mock and pirated systems like, Famicon. SG-1000 has many add ons, namely SG-1000 II, and SC-3000 the computer equivalent of the SG-1000. The original SG-1000 was never released in North America. So if you have one hold on to it.

One of my earliest gaming memories was, playing one of the Final Fantasies. My older step Brother was convince I couldn't play it because I was around three years old. Not knowing how to read could really put a damper on playing games with lots of text. I don't remember exactly how things went down, but I ended up beating the part they were stuck on. They came home, I have three older step Brothers, and where shocked that I beat Final Fantasy for them. I have been playing Video Games since I can remember. I went from Nintendo Entertainment System, to a SEGA Genesis, then a Nintendo 64. I stayed at Nintendo 64 for a very long time, then a X Box. Once I turned eighteen, Video Games took a back burner, I was busy with life and all that come with it. In 2005 I did something I don't think I would ever do again, I sold my Video Games.

It was almost four more years before I got another system, a Playstation 2. A did end up selling that about a year later and got a Playstation 3. Just because I didn't own a Super Nintendo, Playstation or some of the other one, doesn't mean I didn't play them. I also owned Nintendo Game Boy, and a bunch of other handhelds. I major part of gaming career was involved in SEGA Genesis and Nintendo 64.

Nintendo 64 was a game changer, I remember the first time I played Super Mario 64 in 1996, I was blown away. The graphics and controls were off the hook. I have seen some impressive graphic before this, mainly the SEGA CD had some very impressive looking games. N64 wasn't the first 64 bit game system around, Atari Jaguar had a 64 bit processor first, it came out three years earlier in 1993. The Atari Jaguar was a commercial failure and forced Atari to drop out of the home console gaming market. One of the best Alien vs Predator was released for Atari Jaguar.

Sony got into the game late with the Sony Playstation, their first home console, released in 1994. The Playstation only had a 32 Bit processor, but utilized it well. The first Playstation was discontinued on my 20th birthday, March 23 2006. That is a long life for a console. I was too busy playing N64 to bother with Playstation, but a lot of my friends had one. One of the coolest features was the ability to play CDs, this was a huge step for a more multi-use console.

When I first got a X Box, released by Microsoft in 2001, I was really impressed, other then the size of the fucking thing and how loud it was. This is around the time I started smoking weed and found that gaming and dope smoking went hand it hand. Halo was pretty much the coolest thing around, I remember going to all the local teenager hang out spots. Everyone was smoking bongs and passing around the controller to the next halo player. Halo was huge in our group of friends, everyone played that shit. We even held parties where we had deathmatch tournaments.

That was my teenage years, as a young adult, like I said earlier, I was too busy for Video Games. Too much partying for my our good. Pussy and social life was more important to me. One thing I found, girls don't like gamers very much. I have met some gamer girls but they are far and few between. Nothing sexier then a hot gamer girl, but that is like finding a unicorn. Damn near mythical.

Now a days, games are all over the place. One thing I hate, so much, are those flash games that are so popular on facebook right now. I remember when flash games started to come out and they were pretty cool, I played tons when I was a pre-teen at newgrounds.com. Now though, the games on facebook, especially farmville and shit like that, when I play a game I don't want to wait till the next day to advance on. Whats the point of playing for five minutes, then waiting for hours and hours to do something else. I should suggest Harvest Moon to all the Farmville players.

Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) are big right now too. I don't think a single person doesn't know what World of Warcraft (WOW) is. I was a huge Warcraft, Command and Conquer and Starcraft fan. I am not much of a computer gamer, but I did play these ones, a lot. I don't know much about MMORPGs I never played Final Fantasy XI, but I know tons of people who swear by it. The newest MMORPG is DC Universe and it looks really good. I tried WOW, their free month demo. It did nothing for me I played it all month but that was it. just wasn't a game I could get into.

Well I have been ranting for quite a while. I missed tons and I could talk about games until I die. The advancements made in the last thirty years in unbelievable. I am really looking forward to see what the next thirty years has to offer.