The prompt for my first entry in this blog is to write a personal narrative recounting my experiences with video games - however, after considerable thought on the matter, I have been confronted with a few serious problems: primarily, that I don’t actually have much of a personal history with video games. Given the likely expertise of my audience, I doubt that I’ll be able to successfully fake my through this assignment; so, I suppose my best option here is to endeavor to explain my lack of experience on the matter.
In the truly American tradition, I blame my parents. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born in 1986, the only child of two well educated, well-read, and decidedly technologically un-hip college professors (my mother was an expert on Renaissance-era classical Spanish literature, and my father taught English literature and composition). Both were already in their early 40s, with absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the merits of the new media fad whose popularity skyrocketed during the years of my early childhood. Accordingly, like many others of my generation, I was raised on the staunch principles that children should only be allowed access to entertainment of educational value, that reading was the best way to develop an imagination, and that TV and video games would do nothing but rot my brain.
Of course, when I turned 5, I was sent to a nice, suburban, public elementary school, where my circle of acquaintances was greatly enlarged. The school’s enrichment program assigned each class an hour each week in the new computer lab, where I was exposed for the first time to the world of computer games: Number Munchers and Oregon Trail were my favorites. For the next several years, this was my sole experience with computers, let alone with gaming – my parents put off buying a computer until I was 14, when my junior high school teachers required typed assignments and internet research for the first time.
My own first-hand experience with actual console-type video games started when I was 16 or so, when my high school boyfriend and a bunch of his guy friends would gather religiously after school to play Halo, Final Fantasy, and Silent Hill. Of course, being the only chick in the group, I spent most of these gaming sessions watching with reluctant curiosity while the guys became wholly absorbed in the task of shooting each other or beating zombies to death on screen. Eventually someone would have to go home or do school work, and I’d get a chance to play – after a while, I actually got pretty good at first person shooters – but I still never seemed to get the same feeling of full immersion in the games as the guys did.
These days, playing Tetris on my cell phone is about the extent of my interest in gaming, with the exception of my enthusiasm for the totally addictive and really bizarre Katamari Damacy game (I mean, what could possibly be niftier than a game about tidying up the universe?) when I get the rare opportunity to play it. Still, there’s something nostalgic about those days when my high school friends and I would spend an afternoon on someone’s Xbox, relaxing and making a real social connection without even the need for conversation. My current boyfriend and his roommates have Halo parties all the time, and I’m usually invited, although probably more for the sake of courtesy than for the pleasure of my company. Maybe I’ll go and play a round with them… Maybe… just as soon as I'm through with this book.
