Nostalgia

I was just going through the posts I put up on my first proper gaming blog way back in early 2004 (or maybe even late 2003!) and I realised I actually had some good ones.

I will be posting them throughout the week so that the blog will at least see some daily activity. I might tweak some of them for grammar or whatever, and some of them I think started some ideas that have shaped my thoughts on games and game design, so those ones I will probably want to go over and maybe develop some of them. Oh, and I will keep the original titles as well, so please forgive some of them.

Anyways, here is the first one, and it occured at the time that I had just gotten seriously into online gaming via xbox live. I actually like the style I had back then. don't think I still write like that anymore, and in some ways it is sad, in others at least I can say that I have moved on.

MEMORIES OF THINGS PAST

I woke up quite late today after a night of vivid dreaming. The first thing I heard was the sound of gunshots.

My brother was playing Resident Evil on the Gamecube. Seeing him do this just reminded me about how much fun I had with that dinky machine since I got it at the Japanese launch. It made me think back to why I had stopped playing it religiously and now measured my gaming experiences by the amount of time spent on Xbox Live!

Last summer, I lost all the data on my memory card. It contained every single save I had since I got the machine. At least, every single US save. Goodbye trophies from Super Smash Bros.! Goodbye Wind Waker! Sayonara PSO, Timesplitters and tons of other game stuff. Even my beautiful replays from Super Monkey Ball on Expert mode...*sigh* When I realised it was all gone, through an oversight on my part (I mistakenly agreed to wipe the contents of the memory card while I was about to play a Japanese game)I just lost interest. Then, I got an Xbox. Life became about getting as lost as possible in the worlds of Vvardenfell, Halo, and the skies of Panzer Dragoon. I never even gave my Gamecube more than a second glance in those heady days with Mr. Driller been a slight diversion to the cube's delights. Even Mario Kart only kept my brother and I playing till we unlocked all the cups. By now though, PSO had come and brought with it all its addictive goodness.


Now though, my brother has gone to the back of the mansion and is at the tombstone that requires the arrowhead to get through. It's all coming back to me. I tell him to go back inside and go upstairs to get it from the room with the mirror and the two zombies. It feels cool.


I am going through a gaming fallow period. Being online is fun and all that, but only about four people out of all the people on my friends list make it worthwhile. I had more fun playing all these single player games offline. Or just messing about on Super Smash Bros. with my flat mates. Those days were cool. Of course, I am not saying that Live or online gaming as a whole is without its strong points and its allure, after all I already have a copy of FFXI waiting to be installed on my PC, and NWN is also probably only going to be played online. Overall though, I think that I play games for the experience of gaming. Getting lost in a world and having it affect my own environment as well - the theme tune for a level coloring my memory of summer for example - creating a dialogue, both spoken and unspoken between me and a group of friends, even if they don't play videogames.