Personal gaming history.

Now this is a bit jumpy as I have quickly reviewed the last few decades of history that surrounds games and computers, and here I am jumping back a decade to outline how my tiny role fits in to this massive fast paced time scale.

I had a bit of an unusual childhood compared to others. I was born deaf, and I did not actually hear any solid clear sound until I was six and a half after an emergency operation. Now granted, this made my life quite difficult, and cause a lot of frustrations since I could not really communicate with people well, especially my mother and teachers. However, video games had the opposite effect on me, as did drawing. This made me look at both of these things differently.

To understand a video game, you do not need to understand the story line, or being able to read the text, or listen to the cut scenes or music. They do play an important role, and they do create part of the atmosphere, and it helps to know exactly what is going on. But to actually grasp on what you need to do, or how to play, you do not need sound nor the text. I will explain a bit later on in this post.

It started when my mother brought me and my sibling a sega mega drive when I was roughly three/four, and my sibling was five. Obviously, one of the best games fell in to my lap, which was the original Sonic the hedgehog. I spent hours on that thing and my little four year old thumbs must have aged to ten year old thumbs at least.

Later on that year, I got my hands on the original grey brick of a game boy, and my mother brought me the best and worst thing ever: Pokemon Blue (yes, I did actually get it the day it was released, like every other Pokemon game since). What my mother nor my brother understood was this, that at the age of four, it had created a beast within me that would evolve in to a fifteen year (and counting) obsession with Pokemon (and the rumours of me having a Pokemon tattoo is true, as well as the rumours of me wanting that extended to have my first original team are too). I am not too sure if Pokemon or Sonic was my first video game, I knew they were within months of one another, but I saw it as Sonic was my first console game, and Pokemon was my first hand held game. On the right, is a picture of my mew tattoo an hour after it was done. It looks so uneven.

Now linking back to me being deaf as a child, you can play Sonic or Pokemon and grasp what the entire idea is. Sonic, you're the hedgehog, collecting rings, avoiding the creatures, defeating the bad guy with the ginger moustache, whilst saving the little bunnies and ducklings. You do not need music or text to let you grasp hold on that, Pokemon is similar too, they were both simple, yet addictive, games. I felt happier as a child, knowing that I could understand this as some everyday tasks were nearly impossible for me. It was this magical feeling, that I found this unquestionable connection to something and it did not get frustrated at me because I could not understand it. I am not good at explaining it, but hopefully you will understand how this became an amazing accomplishment for me.

My sega died a tragic death when I was six. Between the ages of six to eight, all I played was tetris, and Pokemon. At the age of eight (when I could hear), I had changed schools the year previously, and this is where the second stage of my gaming history begins. I got introduced to Spyro the Dragon, I know, a classic, everyone loved him, typical girl game, still the fact still remains I became obsessed with games that were not hand held anymore. I begged for a playstation, and I received one. This made my love spiral out of control and I became in love with Gran Turismo, Gex, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, but most importantly, Sony.

After that, I started to expand and experiment with other areas of the video games. Currently I only own a: PS3, PS2, PSP, Nintendo DS, Gameboy SP, N64, Sega Megadrive (I have brought another one recently to replace my old one), and a Xbox. Along with the original grey Gameboy and every version of it up to the Nintendo DS, including a limit edition Pokemon Gameboy colour.

I feel like games are becoming more complicated, like how books can be. I understand that they are on a similar path, opening up an entire new world that anything is possible, such developed characters that are well loved, creatures that haunt your thoughts or you want to own, but when I was younger, books were always much more in depth, whereas the video games were more basic. I could not have read a book being young and deaf, but a video game, I could play that.

The most memorable games from my childhood are: Sonic the hedgehog, Spyro the dragon, any Pokemon games and gran turismo. These are my top four played games, and most loved games, still to this day.

I would not mind more video games becoming basic like they were. Sonic the hedgehog was a massive success, but it was so simple and addictive. I feel like some games, are like books, you have to play them often to remember what is going on, who is doing what, and where to go. I feel like they have lost that little magic touch of simplicity.

Listening to: Bring Me The Horizon, and You Me At Six.