I’m curious to see how you all got started with the vidya, so feel free to copy this post’s format if you want.

Childhood
When I was three years old, my father bought me a NES. My mother objected, but Dad insisted that it would be good for my hand/eye coordination. That tiny event, which took place almost twenty years ago, was the most influential event in my early life. If I hadn’t become interested in video games, I would have never become interested in all things electronic, which would convince me to start tinkering with computers, which would lead to me getting my A+ certification at a fairly young age, which would inspire me to pursue a degree in Computer Technology at Purdue. Also, I would have never become a young basement-dweller, which would lead my parents to forcing me into middle school band, which would introduce me to a vast majority of my pre-college friends, which would lead me to doing marching band, which would force me to get in shape, and on and on and on.

But I’m rambling. Let’s talk about the vidya.

As I said, my father got me a NES. This led to countless hours of mostly Ninja Turtles 2, along with a side helping of Mario 3 and a few others. I only had ten or so games, but I was happy with them. So happy, in fact, that I spent a lot of time inside when I should have been outside running around and riding my bike. My parents noticed this too, so they took the TV out of my room, restricted my play time, and took the NES away when I was a little brat. Looking back, I’m very glad they did this, because if they’d let me play as much as I wanted to, I’d be just like everybody else on /v/ (that is to say, stereotypically fat, socially inept, etc). During those lengthy NES droughts, I was allowed to play educational computer games such as Reader Rabbit 2, Treasure Cove, Treasure Mountain, and pretty much all the crap the Learning Company put out back when it mattered.

An Uncle bought me Sim Ant when I was in 1st or 2nd grade, which I blame for my arachnophobia, and things pretty much stayed the same until that magical Christmas day in 4th grade when I received Oregon Trail 2. For some reason, that game was pure premium cocaine in an IV drip for me, so my parents had to start limiting my computer time as well. That’s all well and good, because shortly thereafter I discovered Mechwarrior 2. Joy of joys, I played that game (and later Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries) to death. I really miss the Mech genre.

Middle School
Most of my middle school gaming days were spent on my family’s aging Gateway 2000 Pentium 100 MHz computer. The fact that I had completely missed the SNES/Genesis era didn’t really occur to me until much later. Why? Because I had Civilization (yeah, the first one) and Mechwarrior! Why would I want anything else?

All of that changed, though, when I unwrapped a Playstation on Christmas day, 1998. After spending a good amount of time in Mega Man land (that’d be MMX4, MM Legends 1 (and later 2), and MM8), I was introduced to something called a “Jay Are Pee Gee”. No, Final Fantasy 7 was not my first, Xenogears was. What a grand opener. The rest of my middle school (and early high school) years were spent on Xenogears, Final Fantasy, Lunar, Star Ocean, etc. Good time, good times.

High School
Suddenly PS2/Xbox/Gamecube! Much like the fourth generation, I also missed the 6th generation. That didn’t matter though, because after the death of the PS1, I rediscovered PC gaming. Specifically, LAN parties. Lots of Warcraft III, Starcraft, Tribes, Tribes 2, Diablo 2, and Unreal Tournament necessitated my building of my first gaming rig. Shit was so cash.

College
World of Warcraft came out late in my first semester as a college student. I swore I would never pay a monthly fee to play a video game, but after two months of peer pressure from my now geographically dispersed friends, I caved. Spent a good two-ish years playing that game and only managed to get one character to 70.

I also started playing DDR in the arcade, which was very expensive, so I ended up downloading Stepmania and buying a couple of soft pads. This led to me eventually founding my university’s DDR club, which led to me meeting a lot of new friends, which led to my first college girlfriend, etc.

Only within the last couple of years have I started getting back into more traditional gaming. I bought a Wii a couple of years ago (which I regret), and TF2 pulled me back into the online FPS scene. I also bought myself a DS specifically for Pokemon Pearl, but that’s an on-and-off kind of thing (I only have 6 badges ;_;).

I’ll be graduating in a couple months, so I’m not sure what the future holds for my gaming activities. I’m getting to the point where it’s creepy of me to play DDR in arcades (”who’s the old dude?”), so I foresee a lot of online FPSing with perhaps a hint of Street Fighter 4. We’ll see.