Me, a "Gamer"?

A friend mentioned that as our family has almost every console known to man, that we must be total "gamers".....I don't know about that. I get my butt kicked any time I try to compete live in games like Burnout. I even got kicked out of Burnout Paradise before I could even start. But I have been a fan of video games ever since I saw my first real game in a San Diego Hotel in the mid 1970s.

Inside the Travelator Motel, across from the historic El Cortez  (I think it's a Howard Johnson now)  my brother and I discovered not only Pong, but a video game I have never seen  since. It may have been called "rocket race" or something like that. There was only one control, a joystick that moved a little rocket up or down. You started with it on the bottom of the screen and had to race the other player to the top. Meanwhile there are tons of little asteroids that cross from left or right which make it pretty tough. Touch one and you explode and start at the bottom again.

I remember getting a pong game for the TV that could only play that game plus a pong version of hockey and racket ball. But back then (and still to this day, if I can find them) my real love was pinball.

The first real game system I got was an Atari 5200. I won it as part of an MTV One night stand contest (three friends and I got to go to a Men at Work concert and met the band. Though much of the day was spent filming commercials for them) That was a lot of fun. I think I had pac man, Jungle Hunt (remember that lil dude in the pith helmet?!) Q-Bert, space invaders and my fave, Defenders.

I think my brother in law gave us a Nintendo system and I discovered that there was more to games than button mashing.  I fell in love with the first Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
After a while we were given a super nintendo and that was about all we had until about 1999. Hubby, knowing I was a Jackie Chan fan, found his Stuntmaster game and picked the game and first Playstation system up for me as a xmas gift. (He soon picked up some hockey and boxing games for himself as well) Later we got the PS2 in time for me to review Jet Li's Rise to Honor.

Having kids has given us more of an excuse to buy more games and systems. We have a gameboy for our youngest who has since grown big enough to be careful with one of the two DSs (one for the kids and one for hubby and I), two playstation portables, a game cube (Though last I saw it the older daughter has it in her room and somewhere- my hubby picked up a link game for it and has never had the chance to play it as she went off with it for so long that he forgot about it! ),  a Playstation 2 and 3, Xbox,  and recently, getting nostalgic for all the old nintendo and super nintendo, we got a Wii, which delights our daughters as they are very much into Pokemon and Smash Brothers.  We really do like that system more for games the whole family can literally get up and play. I doubt we'll bother with X-Box 360. I just hope that if a sequel for Jade Empire ever comes out, they release it to another system or PC as well.

So what games do I like? Recently I've been into Dynasty Tactics 2 on PS2, Burnout Paradise,  Stranglehold, Hot Shots Fore and Hot Shots Out of Bounds (I like the characters in fore better really) and the Williams collection of Pinball Hall of fame for PSP. I guess the reason I don't see myself as a true gamer, is that I think of a gamer as someone who plays for hours and hours and logs tons of on line hours, complete with the mic and chat room set ups. I'm more casual about it, though I have dabbled on line now and again. I might do so again with burn out paradise if I can figure out how to get on without being kicked out. I must have sounded like a little kid, when my hubby asked me if I tried the on line Burnout and I pouted, "I wanted to but they won't let me play with them!"  It soured me a little on the whole on line experience which, in the adverts and instructions sounds so welcoming and fun. Ah well,  at least the new updates have some cool off line goodies too.

Oh and PC games? I love Emperor:Rise of the Middle Kingdom, The whole Zoo Tycoon2 series, Sims and The Movies. I guess strategy  and building stuff count among my faves as well....slower paced and makes you have to plan and think. But for moments when nothing but mind numbing destruction will do, then I'll speed around Paradise City and crash into stuff or find a nice shoot-em-up occasionally!