My Gaming History Part 1.

My gaming history extends back to the early 80's. My parents were poor, and didn't ascend into the middle class until I was in middle school. In my early youth I was always fascinated by Pong and shortly after 1982 or so, Atari 2600. I had friends who had an Atari; Peter Mitropoulous who was my friend at my old elementary school, perhaps my first best friend and later Wes Oucharek, who was a neighborhood kid I got to know after I moved to the Mountain from Westdale in Hamilton. We played many hours of Combat, Pitfall, Space Invaders and yes, many frustrating hours of E.T. I also had a couple friends who had Colecovision. Over there we played BurgerTime, Q*Bert and Donkey Kong.  As I said, my parents were poor, not so poor that we couldn't afford an Atari, or Colecovision, but we couldn't afford to replace a TV if the rumors of burn-in screens were true. In fact, we had a black and white TV until 1983.

In 1982 for Christmas I got a Game and Watch version of Donkey Kong. Holy shit, did I play the crap out of that. I'm not sure where it ever went - probably to the video game graveyard. That was the first video game I owned. Swapping out runs between my Dad and I, I think he always came out on top for the high score.

Around that same time we'd trek down to the Eaton's store in Jackson Square and go down to the toy section in the basement. They'd have displays set up where if the controllers were out you could play video games. At first it was Atari 2600 and Colecovision. Later was the Vectrex, which my parents relented and paid a lot of money for in 1983. Over the next year we amassed quite a collection, including Spike, a dog of a game, but one of the first with voices. 

Arcades never lost their lustre. I am still amazed by the dollar I spent playing Dragon's Lair (which ended rather quickly too) in a Yonge Street arcade in Toronto where people stood for what seemed hours watching anyone crazy enough to spend a dollar on one video game. It was glorious at the time, and I still remain a little pissed off about the amount of money I spent (probably $5 all told) as compared to the time I got out of that game (probably about ten minutes).

Then the home video game crash of 1983 hit Canada, cartridges were discounted and by 1984, and I went back to the arcades humping the cabinets of Wizard of Wor, Elevator Action, 1942, Smash TV, Gauntlet and much later Double Dragon at a variety store on Brucedale Ave. somewhere in 1986.  I also discovered punk that year.

By 1988, I got the Sega Master System and my run of getting the less popular of the systems that are available at the time was intact (I did not however get the Turbo-Grafix 16, or 3D0). I will say that Sega was way ahead of itself, and probably should've done better than it did - the 3D games they released were pretty cool for the time, and they had some credible arcade ports (Altered Beast, Streets of Rage). They also pooped out some big time crap. I never got a NES, and my friends of course were less than kind about my offbeat choice. In hindsight, I think I would be a different gamer if I didn't make the choices I did early on.

All of that changed in 1991 when my girlfriend (now wife) bought me a SNES. 

An Introduction Is In Order

My name is Jon. I play video games. I also don't like a lot of them. Mostly, I don't have issues with games that are broken - the physics are bad or the graphics aren't up to par - those are technical issues that maybe, just maybe, could've been dealt with by having some more money pushed into them or more talented developers working on them. The issues I tend to have is with the content of a game. As you'll see with my reviews, when a developer makes a choice about characters, or plot developments those are issues that can be changed. The choices developers make are also choices that should have been discussed, especially when dealing with social issues that as a world we face.

I'm not saying everything should be Polyanna; I like grit, violence and attractive people as much as the next guy. However, I always tend to look for patterns and reasons for those choices. I am not an industry insider. I do not have connections to anyone in the video game industry. If offered, I certainly would play and write about video games for a wage. I work in education, and I do enjoy that field. However, I grew up with video games, and frankly they've taught me more than any education system could.

I'm also old. No, really, I owe Jesus five bucks.

Well, OK, not that old. I'm pushing 40 as of this writing, and probably need to see a psychologist to understand why I can't let go of youth culture (punk, video games) and age gracefully.

So why do this blog?

Well, I wrote a bunch of reviews for a failed online review site - it failed so bad that it never got off the ground. I kept writing thinking that they might actually be able to do it, but no, it never happened. Then there was another blog that I was going to start with my friends, all of which who play a lot, but again, it just never happened.

So taking a cue from punk's DIY attitude, I'm going to do it myself. Fuck it.

Clearly, this is a labour of love - but I'll be doing my best to get it right. I will play the games as far as I need to. If the game is shit, I'll reserve the right to preserve what free time I have to devote to another game. I will give my honest opinion. Games that are completed, will be given a post-mortem. I play mostly on Xbox 360, however, I do have a PS3, Wii, PS2, Playstation, SNES, Sega Master System and Vectrex at my disposal in my house. I do play on PC or Mac as well, and have an iPad and an Android phone. I do like technology. If you have made a game, and want me to review it, I would love to, contact me and we'll sort it out. I will probably not deal with new releases in a timely manner, because I think the game deserves a full play through - and frankly that's something I want to do anyways.

I will give games a score out of ten. The review I write may not line up with the score - sometimes a flaw I find in a game is not a deal breaker - does a game that executes it's vision well deserve a high mark? Yes. Some people just don't give a shit about latent racism, bad plot holes or use of bad puns.

Like Polygon, I will disclose, in the unlikely event, if a game has been given to me for review.

Happy New Years, and as General Tani from Takeshi's Castle says, "Let the games, begin!"