Favorite Games

The first video game I ever fell in love with. I've always had a thing for gothy stuff and a vampire-hunting adventure game was the first title to make me look at video games as something I might want to try. I forced my mother to buy a Nintendo Entertainment System just for this game. Truth be told, I never actually beat this title. I would go on to conquer its sequels but this one remains an unfinished quest. I'm almost tempted to leave it as such. Favorites that spawned from this classic were Castlevania 3 and Symphony of the Night.

Probably the one game that absolutely everyone knew about. SMB3 was simply the franchise at its best. The visuals were awesome, the character designs were appealing and the game itself was spot on. Years later, I would still find new things about it, so that speaks for its replay value. I always felt I'd been outside the cool crowd because I wasn't a big Mario fan... then 3 came out and suddenly I was hip! I even played with the cool kids when the Super NES sequel came out! Unfortunately, my interest in Mario ended with those two games.

If Castlevania was the sole reason I had to own an NES, Street Fighter was the sole reason I spent my birthday money on a Super NES. After being introduced to the premiere fighting game by my cousins, I spent nearly all my time training myself to be the best World Warrior around! Nothing could match the exhilaration of pitting my skills against my foe (usually my little brother) in real time! It had all been side-scrollers for me until this point. Now fighting games would rule my life. And, honestly, the most well-known female characters are usually from fighting games!

Finally -- a game that could tell a decent story. This was, in fact, not the first Final Fantasy game I'd played -- I'd played a bit of VI years before -- but this was the first one that really impressed me. Everyone knows this title and either loves it or hates it, so I don't really need to go into my reasons for being enamored with it. Suffice to say that this title is what made me seriously consider working in the game industry.

I was absolutely crazy about this game when I played it! I'm a big horror fan and this burgeoning new survival-horror concept really did it for me. I'd already owned a Playstation by the time I discovered this game, so I didn't buy a system for it... but after going through the games a number of times without the benefit of saving, it did prompt me to finally purchase a Memory Card! Because of my inability to save, though, I really did NOT want to die! So I became extremely proficient at Zombie-Dodging! To this day, it just doesn't feel right if I'm not allowed to continue on in a Resident Evil game by weaving through the throngs of undead enemies. This game also made me love revolvers!

I like games. I LOVE stories. FF7 dramatically increased my love of video games because it showed me that they could be used as terrific interactive storytelling mediums. I enjoyed watching the storytelling abilities of video games progress as time passed. I knew that one day a perfect game with a gorgeous plot would come along. Amazingly, I did not have to wait long. To me, Metal Gear Solid is video game perfection. As far as I've seen, it simply doesn't get any better than how I felt throughout playing this game. I'll let you know if anything ever surpasses it, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

While I'd already been attracted to the survival-horror genre through Resident Evil, Silent Hill stands out in my books because it managed to scare me worse than anything else in my life. I literally could not sleep during the night for five days straight after I finished this game. Since I love being scared, this meant that Silent Hill was going to be a huge personal favorite!

FF7 introduced me to RPGs, but KOTOR stands out because it made me interested in Star Wars. Beyond that, it was a simply fantastic game with an awesome character development function and lots of interesting NPCs amidst a very exciting plot. Interestingly enough, I hold this game in higher regard than I do any of the movies.