Hello all, my name is Matthew. Please excuse my lateness to the party. My first foray into gaming came was I was really little and my mom walked me into a K-Mart and told me to pick a console. I chose the N64, and my first game was Glover. Don’t let it fool you, it was hard, sometimes downright impossible (or I sucked at it). After that my gaming life exploded. I also had a purple gameboy color, on which I fell in love with Pokémon (didn’t we all?). I didn’t know it then but this was my first step into the world RPGs.
RPGs are my favorite gaming genre, the reason for this primarily being the focus on story and the length of playtime. The first RPG grabbed my attention and has held onto it until this very day was Final Fantasy X (haters gonna hate, I never really liked FFVII). I have replayed this game more times than any other game I’ve ever owned, borrowed or rented. I’ve played it on my PS2, PS3 and even emulated it on my PC and I cannot wait for the HD remake to be released. The into song still makes me tear up. The story of FFX is exceedingly long, with dozens of twists and tragedies. The biggest thing for me in a game is a good story, and most RPGs have this in spades. The sequel to FFX, FFX-2 was, on the other hand a terrible game. It undermined the ending of FFX and threw away most of the RPG elements instead relying on missions and percentage completion in order to actually show you the best ending. Percentage completion that is anything more than an integer on the screen is a terrible game mechanic. The other major RPG series that has stolen more hours of my life than I would ever admit is the Elder Scrolls, specifically Oblivion and Skyrim. I have done literally every quest in both of these games, sometimes multiple times. The ability to replay and join a different faction and live a completely different life was an amazing experience. Add in the fact that these were on the PC and I could add a ridiculous amount of mods; they were really just the games that kept on giving.
The second genre of games that I love is slightly removed from RPGs, the genre of Open World games, specifically Open World Shooters such as Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and Far Cry 3. The first one I play was Grand Theft Auto 3. And I knew I was hooked when the scene opened up on the bridge of Liberty City and the game just told me to drive. The ability to go anywhere and do almost anything I wanted, without consequence, was amazing, although the genre really came together for me in Red Dead Redemption. Red Dead Redemption has the best pacing of any open world game ever I’ve played in terms of both story and character upgrades. By the end of the game you feel like a God, but at the same time, strangely not invincible. It also has one of the best shooting mechanics in any shooters I’ve ever played.
The final big genre of games I like would be MMOs. In 2007, I was 15 and I came across an advertisement on a site for a game called EVE Online, and it changed my life. EVE is a space based ship MMO, although they are expanding the universe with the upcoming free to play PS3 FPS: DUST 514. And EVE gets a bad rap by being called a spreadsheet, for its difficulty curve, and for being elitist. All of which are unfortunately true, but it has its own charm. It has the most unique leveling mechanic of any game I’ve ever seen, the fact that it doesn’t have a leveling system. Instead it has a time based skill system where you pick a skill such as curies missiles and it takes a certain amount of time to train each level of that skill up to 5. These skills train even when you’re not logged in and can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 months depending on the level or difficulty. Since the game is based on the skills you have on you character and the equipment on your ship it helps eliminate the advantage that veteran players typically have over beginners. A beginner in EVE can kill any other player if they catch them in the right situation. EVE also has the best online community of any game I’ve ever played. If you get in with a good group of people you can stay with them for literally years. In fact I run a 50 player corporation, the equivalent of a guild, which has members that I’ve known since I started playing the game 6 years ago. Despite being the number 2 ranked MMO in terms of subscribers behind WoW, it is truly a unique experience and I would recommend everyone to try it. The other large MMO I play is Guild Wars 2, which I started playing because you buy the game and then it’s free to play going forward, this doesn’t leave me feeling guilty when I don’t play it for a long period of time. The main draw for me to Guild Wars 2 is its unique take on the leveling mechanic insofar as the levels actually matter. The only time they matter is when you try to go into an area where the base level is higher than your current level. Any other time the game adapts you level to the situation. For example if you go into an area that you are too high of a level for then you are automatically leveled down but you still can experience at the normal rate, likewise if you aren’t the highest level and you wish to try pvp then you are automatically leveled to the cap. This is useful when you are playing with friends of various different levels and it equals the playing field.
I could continue to go on and on about games but everyone must have an ending even our favorite games (except MMOs) so I’ll stop here. I’m looking forward to the class and I hope to work together with and get to know all of you throughout the semester.