One Blaugust prompt that caught my eye was to share some facts about yourself, so I thought I’d give it a shot by wrapping it in the subject of this blog – video games! Here are 5 facts about my gaming life and habits. Hopefully, they’ll give anyone reading a clearer picture of my interests and perspective.
Princess Zelda made me fall in love with video games.
The first video game I can remember playing was Super Mario Bros. on the NES, as part of that SMB/Duck Hunt combo cartridge. It was a staple of households in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and I found it quite fun. What truly made me fall in love with gaming as a hobby, though, was playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the first time. Specifically, seeing Princess Zelda herself in the castle dungeon during the prologue. I just loved her design and the fact that she was a brunette, like me (though she wouldn’t always be in the future). Her dress was gorgeous and greatly appealed to a little girl going through the princess phase at the time. This kind of leads directly into my next fact…

Tomb Raider opened up a whole new world to me.
Christmas 1997 brought me a PlayStation and the smash-hit game Tomb Raider, starring the legendary heroine Lara Croft. It was the first game I ever played that featured a female protagonist. Playing TR was like an evolution of my earlier experience with Zelda. I got to figuratively step into the shoes of the iconic woman herself, exploring ancient tombs, hunting for treasure and blasting rival mercenaries without a care in the world. Lara was cool, confident and tough as nails. I wanted to be just like her. Tomb Raider also genuinely jump-started my interest in travel and learning about the wider world. I’ll always have a soft spot for the series and its star for the impact they left on me.

My opinion on multiplayer gaming has changed drastically in recent years.
As an adult, I’m a pretty big fan of online multiplayer games. I’d guess my gaming time is pretty evenly divided between them and singleplayer games, but it wasn’t always this way. I used to strongly dislike online multiplayer games, to the point that I would call myself a snob about them in hindsight. In fact, I basically did just that when I wrote about my experiences giving Call of Duty an earnest shot for the first time. My husband, on the other hand, has been a big fan of online shooters since the first Halo took the world by storm. He tried many times to get me into online multiplayer over the years, but it didn’t stick until Overwatch came out in 2016. I liked the cartoony aesthetic and focus on teamwork instantly, and decided to check it out. I ended up playing it regularly for a few years, and branched out to other online games. At present, I have Dead by Daylight, Apex Legends and Fall Guys in regular rotation between singleplayer games. I’ve also poured hundreds of hours into Call of Duty entries, Splatoon 2, Tetris 99 and Pac-Man 99 (RIP Mario 35). My hubby and I even play Apex together, which makes it all the more fun.

I am absolutely fascinated by weird, experimental and low-budget games.
I love a good, quirky game. One of my all-time favorites is Chulip, a game about running around town kissing people. I’d gladly fund a Kickstarter campaign to give that game a modern port by myself if I had the option. If a video game was made on a shoestring budget by an eccentric artist, you can count on me to give it a look. I’m one of those people who’s definitely going to try to beat the infamous Takeshi’s Challenge one of these days. I’ve played and enjoyed so many strange indie games thanks to the explosion of small games getting made and sold nowadays. I was so excited to finally get to play Garage: Bad Dream Adventure recently, and it was a very rewarding experience after such a long wait. Basically, I love all things weird and out-there in the world of video games.

I’m pretty decent at horror games.
Speaking of weird games, I’m quite fond of the horror genre. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are two of my favorite series of all time, and it’s rare for me to turn down any horror game big or small. I think the genre is in a pretty interesting place right now, especially since we were all told by the big publishers horror was dead during the height of the PS3/360 years. There are tons of indie horror games being released, as well as excellent Resident Evil games still coming out regularly. Having been a fan for so long and counting some of them among my personal top 10 games, I’d say horror is one of the gaming genres I’m actually pretty decent at! I’m no professional speed runner, but I can beat Resident Evil (2002) under 2 hours as a matter of course at this point, and both Silent Hill 2 and 3 regularly finish under 3 hours each playthrough. I’ve also beaten RE just about every way there is to do so, having gotten all of the achievements/trophies on multiple platforms. As you can see in my banner image up top, I’ve beaten the remake of Resident Evil 3 on Inferno difficulty with an S-rank. I’m not the best gamer out there, but I’ll give myself a little credit in this area.

There you have it, five facts about my relationship with video games. I hope they shed some light on what kind of gamer I am and how this hobby has shaped me over the years. I enjoyed thinking about what tidbits would fit this prompt. It’s fun to get introspective from time to time.