The Journey Begins

Like most people my age, video games are a pretty integril part of my life. I spend many hours a day playing games both on and offline, trumping human and pc foes alike. I love the feeling of blazing through artificial enemies as a one man army, plowing through hordes of invincible baddies so I can come out on top covered in the bloody glory of victory.

Ahhhh, Victory!

                    


Unfortunately, my gaming hit a road bump the other day when my Xbox fell victim to the inevitable RRoD. I know, my Xbox is slow, obtaining the RRoD after most other Xbox patrons, but it happened. After talking to Xbox Tech support for 30 drawn out, script - read outsourced minutes I got what I need to ship my Xbox out to be fixed. Seeing as this would take the longer end of a month, I started going through my game library to see what I had to play on my Wii and N64. This was when I came to a pretty strong realization.

My game library is easily dominated by First Person Shooters. Sure, I have a lot of other non FPS games, but the ratio is clearly strewn. What's worse, I looked at most of my non FPS games and realized I haven't beaten any of them. Most, I had purchased, play for a few days then neglected for months on end.

Neglected like these books, only less booky.

For example, over the summer I bought a used copy of Bioshock, for 17.99. I heard great things about the game so I figured I would give it a try. It totally lived up to the hype I had been hearing. The game is fun and diverse, it invovles a lot of strategy and understanding of the way the gaming engine works. Although it is a first person perspective game, I do not consider Bioshock a FPS. For this reason, even though I loved it, I simply tossed it on my shelf after two days and forgot about it.
This habits roots all the way back to my Sega days. For some reason, I've always been hooked onto FPS games. Sadly, I have to admit, I can't recall beating any game that is not a FPS. Even games like Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64 and Final Fantasy 7. As a matter of fact, I've gotten up to Ganon on both Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, and stopped playing while the end of the game is well withing my grasp.

She's got a right, I never technically saved her.

So, this brings me to my point, what I am doing here. I have always considered myself a gamer, but I've come to the realization that I only play one type of game, and have beaten almost no games of any other genre. I am going to set out on a new journey, to explore every type of game possible, improve my skills as a gamer and along the way learn to appreciate all types of games, old and new, hard and easy, magnificent and ridiculous.

There is no target here other then to play as many different types of games possible. I am, however, going to set some rules for my journey. The most important being, once I pick up a game, I do not stop playing it until I beat it. This will prevent me from my bad habit of shelving a game once it gets too difficult. Second up, genre jump. Everytime I beat a game, the next game has to be of a different genre. I can repeat genre's, but not twice in a row. Simple rules for the time being.

As far as what games I will actually be playing is a different story. I am looking for a lot of reader input here (assuming I have some readers). Like I said, my knowledge of gaming rests mostly in the FPS realm. I am hoping that readers will give me some games to try out, and I am really looking to explore older console games (especially Nintendo and Super Nintendo).
I will post the list on the blog as it grows. I know this is not a journey that can be completed, but I will definitely enjoy it.

GAME ON!