Hello, I’m nabokov
Hi. Most of you probably don’t know me and those that do probably don’t know me all that well in the first place. So I wanted to start off by giving some background into my gaming habits and explain a bit about why I think the way I do.
I started playing games as a child, going to grandma’s house, playing Tetris on her NES and Game Boy. I spent weeks of the summer at my uncle’s place on his NES playing Super Spike V’Ball and World Cup Soccer. My parents owned an Atari 2600. My siblings and I would beg for it to be brought out and hooked up when we have time off from school. My childhood friends had a Sega Genesis that we would play sonic on and another had a PC that we would play DOOM II on. My more personal gaming memories started when I got my own Game Boy from my Grandma and later when I got a lime green Game Boy Color years later. I enjoyed playing NHL 97 (Yes, I even remember the year), Tetris, Pokémon, Metroid, and a glut of others. Years later, my siblings and I were given a Super Nintendo with Donkey Kong Country 3. Since then I was hooked on games. I came home and had to fight the urge to ignore my homework, just to get a few more laps in Super Mario Kart. Trips to Grandma’s house were never complete without a round of Mario Paint and a few hours of Super Mario World. As you can see I have had a diverse gaming history, playing many genres on many platforms.
Over the middle and high school years I spent weekends playing Tony Hawk and Vigilante 8, Madden, etc… Things really changed for me, however, when we finally got a PC in the house. I spent hours upon hours playing Math Blaster and Reading Blaster along with Lemmings, and NHL 2001. One year I even got Half-Life and Rainbow Six as a gift from my other uncle, the preacher. They became the games that I couldn’t get enough of. I played the sequels, spent hours watching that 10 minute long behind-the-scenes video for Ghost Recon. Eventually, I got the game on a PlayStation 2 that I had received for Christmas.
During high school, I met a friend introduced me to Counter-Strike, foremost amongst other games and I was hooked again. With my rekindled excitement for PC gaming, I built my first PC for graduation. I have since built a second and am waiting anxiously to spend more hard earned money on the upcoming ATI Radeon 7970 to finish off that build. A few years into college I was finally got a PlayStation 3, my first personal console purchase. I’ll never forget that experience, the enjoyment and the sheer shock in my mother’s eyes when she asked the question, “It costs how much!?” Needless to say, the PS3 has been a long and rough ride, one that has shaped every future buying decision for consoles, and I will eventually get to writing that out for everyone to enjoy. I later got a PSP for use on my way to and from college. I’ve used it on a daily basis since the day I got it.
While attending college, though, gaming has been reduced to a weekend enjoyment. I spent many years with my PS3, all seven of them (units, not years), and got to play some very cool games. From Gravity Crash to Uno, I enjoyed the hell out that system, but more to come on that later. Eventually I was able to get my uncle’s NES from him as a gift, and went on an EBay buying spree, getting games for it, as well as repurchased an SNES, a Game Boy Advance, an N64, and eventually, a PS2. I am nearly out of school and looking forward to enjoying those systems in the future. Currently I spend time recording my own podcast about gaming and hardware. I play when I’m not working on homework or traveling back and forth to school and work.
You may ask yourself, why did I just dribble on for the last 5 paragraphs going system by system and make it seem like I was trying to prove something? Well, truth is that I have some pretty extreme opinions, some have told me. You may have heard how terrible Lair is as a game, but I don’t even remotely think so. You may have heard how fantastic the Left 4 Dead series is, but I view it as a ripoff of an extremely popular mod called Zombie Master and as far inferior to its inspiration. You may have heard how brilliant BF3, Portal and Skyrim are, but I would argue otherwise.
These opinions are not just to get attention, page views, or contrive a conversation and get satisfaction out of putting others down. These thoughts came from years of having the very nature of my own beliefs molded, shaped, and matured through life experiences. I also spend a majority of my time listening to others thoughts on podcasts, many hours a day. I have had personal beliefs and things challenged and formed when I took a multitude of philosophy courses at college. Along with those there is one other major factor to consider. I don’t scour the news, blogs, or reviews. I play games completely on my own. No one, be it near me or in my house, enjoys gaming apart from talking to friends whom have moved and those I have met over the many years of online gaming about their thoughts. It more than likely all started 4 or 5 years ago when I decided that my goal for the year was to play genres I had never played before. Prior to 2005 I spent my years in shooters, strategy, sim, sports, and SNES games. In 2006 I played RPGs, JRPGs, League of Legends, MMOs, RTS games, Rhythm and Music games, and many other genres for the first time that I would traditionally avoid.
While review methods and systems can change and come into question, I have found that I take a very different approach when I play games. I do not look for others to confirm or deny my opinions. I play the game and see the game for what it actually contains, not crowding my own experiences and opinions with the majority or basing them on what others feel. Simply put, I am able to base my thoughts and reviews on circumstances that happened during gameplay and not those whereby I bring outside influences and experiences to shape and mold those thoughts. If Half-Life 5 came out and I was responsible for reviewing it, I would look at the game on its own before I considered ranking it in terms of the franchise.
Moreover, I believe any game can be artistically and critically compared to any other game as long as you have the proper understanding of the genre. For instance, I can compare Madden to Witcher 2 as long as I understand the background of each genre, the difference between a game like Blitz and Madden, as well as something like Dragon Age: Origins and Witcher. This is very similar to when you hear someone in the games press proclaim that one game is like another for their own genre. Perhaps something like “they tried to create a game with the controls of Mario, but the visuals of Crysis.” It may seem out of place, but when you compare sound design, graphics, visual style, controls, and other factors it is a lot easier to say that one game does one particular aspect much better than the other.
To explain this you need to understand the context of when I first thought this. As you know, I play sports games. I have since I was 10 or so years old. I have heard over the years from reviewers and media explain to their readers and listeners that “they aren’t the sports guy” or “I don’t cover/play those kinds of games.” It is all a load of bullshit. We all consider them, compare then, and rank them when we make our game of the year lists, or our “Best Games Ever Made” lists. I do not play one genre, I play racing, sports, strategy, shooters, RPGs, arcade games, platformers, and I know what makes a game good. I know what makes each genre different and what the design criteria for each game are. In complete honesty, it’s asinine. Consider the same argument for movies or books, and imagine telling a critic they can only like horror films or romantic comedies.
I guess at this point I should cut myself off. I will end by listing my top 20 or so games of all time, look out for more from me, and by all means feel free to ask me anything in the comments.
My Personal Top 20
1. F.E.A.R.
2. Evil Genius (PC)
3. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (ARCADE)
4. Demon’s Souls
5. Counter-Strike: Source
6. Pokémon (GB/GBC)
7. Max Payne Series
8. Donkey Kong Country 3
9. Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear / Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm
10. SWAT 4
11. Half-Life
12. Super Mario Bros.
13. F.E.A.R. 2
14. Gran Turismo Series
15. R.U.S.E.
16. Heavy Rain
17. World Cup Soccer (NES)
18. Lair
19. Dragon Age: Origins
20. Civilization V
21. Super Mario Kart
