200 games: A history.

So, I've beaten 200 games, according to my Backloggery. That's not a huge milestone compared to some people who have broken 1000. However, it's still a pretty big number for me. About half of those are RPGs or RTSes or TBSes that require much more time than your average game, so that still represents a huge time sink. Wait - A time sink? Really? Nah.

So, how did I get started in gaming? Well, one of my earlier memories is, while the rest of my family was eating dinner, crawling into my older-by-16-years brother's room and playing Super Mario World. Another great one is watching him play FF2, and seeing him beat Milon, who, at 5, I had trouble with. My older brother was always into video games. He, actually, got my grandmother into the Dragon Warrior games on NES. My grandmother and I played the everloving crap out of Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 over the years. We found 1 and 2 as well, but didn't play them nearly as much.

I actually learned how to read from RPGs. Back in the day, I'd ask my grandmother to read all the dialogue to me. At some point, she said to me, "I've read what that person says to you so many times you could probably tell me what he says.". And I could. So, we went from there. I learned how to do math from RPGs as well. Figuring out how much money needed to buy equipment for the party. (Cue Piccolo from DBZ Abridged: "Neeeeeeeerd")

As well, my dad and I used to play games together. We played through FF1 (... How we got through that game back then, I'll never know) and played against each other in Super Mario Kart (At first, I'd beat him handily. Then, it became I could only really beat him on a single track - Koopa Beach 1. He was using a superior kart, though, DK, to my Yoshi. But, damnit, Yoshi is awesome, so I had to use him.) and F-Zero (This was no contest. He'd beat me every time). He'd also play 2 golf games he had gotten, PGA Tour Golf (Where he could get -50 in a tournament consistently) and HAL'S Hole In One Golf, and The Hunt for the Red October. Ah, wait, no. That's not true. He and I did play through Lufia 1 together. Though, when we bought Lufia 2, he didn't have as much interest in it.

Heh. Speaking of Lufia 2 - Tangent. That's the game that led me to GameFAQs. Ohhh, GameFAQs. I've been going to that site for probably about a decade now. Maybe more. I remember, one day, noticing, "Oh, huh. There's a poll on the site now." Thanks to that site, I've found a lot of friends. The message boards, the FAQ writers, a great community. It's changed so, so much, though. I remember when each update way CJayC himself writing something. It was better, back then. But, ah well.

Magazines, too. Whew. I got Game Informer, back in the daaaaay, way back when. And then OPM for the demo discs. Maaan. So many games I tried out due to those demo discs and then bought. Good memories of those olden days. It's thanks to those that I picked up a few games - Grandia, Suikoden. My interest in rhythm games starting before DDR in Gitaroo Man on a demo disc. Etc.

Ah! So, where was I. Well, I have to thank my brother most, I think. He gave me a lot of the games I played on the NES and SNES as a kid. I have a semi nice collection of rare old games that I value more than their resell value has ever been. FF1, some of my Dragon Warriors, my SNES RPGs, etc. Great, great stuff. Inspired me towards the games I've played ever since. I ended up siding with Sony due to him, really. Thanks to FF7 going to PSX, my brother got a PSX, and so, I ended up getting one. I went where the RPGs went. Aaah, memories of console arguments, about which would win... (I was right, at least!). Before that, I had both an SNES and a Genesis, so I liked both.

My brother in law mostly got me into PC gaming. That and Shareware. Though, I didn't have much shareware, just some Epic games stuff. I actually bought one of them - Castle of the Winds. My first Roguelike. :3 Ah, Roguelikes.... But, one day, I played Warcraft 2 on my brother in law's PC. I got slaughtered, as I picked a scenario and had no clue what I was doing. I ended up getting WC2 as a gift from him shortly afterwards, though, and there started my love of RTSes. But, back when we only had a 486, he gave me a CD with an NES emulator and some games. The 486 could only handle some of the NES games. Later when we got a better machine, he gave use a disc with MAME (Yep. MAME was around in the Win95 days) and ROMs. My dad and I used to play those all the time: Tapper, Popeye, Dig-Dug, Burger Time. He also would burn me PC games and eventually got my PSX modded. I ... sorta knew this was illegal back when he did this, but it never really triggered in my head. I've always been around piracy, heh.

My love of TBSes was a bit different. I ended up buying asking my mom to buy me Civ2 back in elementary school. As good of a gamer as I was back then*, it was beyond me. I tried to read the manual and play, but that didn't work out too well. I kept trying every so often, though, and managed to win a game a couple years later.

*Okay, so, it took me like 3 times starting FFT to beat it. I didn't realize people died permanently when they crystalized/turned into a chest. And then the second time I thought 4 Knights + Chemist was a good team. I got it like right after it came out, so I was like 9, damnit. Was my first SRPG, too.

So... That's roughly where I am today. Something like that. My tastes have only grown since I started. I skipped over some important events, probably, but... Well, I can't cover them all and have this be of any reasonable length.