Introduction

What is this blog about?

This is a personal blog that is not focused on any neatly defined topic, such as a single game or franchise, for example. In essence, I will write about whatever I feel like at any given moment. That being said, there are three general subjects I plan on focusing:

1. my favorite games,
2. more general topics and trends in gaming, and
3. esports.

The first subject should be pretty self-explanatory; I want to write about games I have played, enjoyed, and thought about the most, and thus have something to say about. Perhaps I can even convince you to play them! The second subject deals with more expansive topics in the gaming industry, such as how video games and the culture surrounding them have changed over the past 10 or so years that I have observed them. Finally, I will probably discuss some topics that have to do with esports. While I have never competed at a high level (well, not even at a moderate level, to be honest) in any game, I have followed the competitive scenes of a number of games throughout the years. The games I have followed most closely include Warcraft 3, Dota, Call of Duty 2, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Who am I?

I am a 25-year-old English student from Finland. I have been playing video games throughout most of my life, and will continue playing them for the foreseeable future. I am currently enrolled at a university, working frantically on finishing my Master's Thesis. Although I hesitate to call playing video games my hobby (since I consider a hobby to be a more constructed and regulated activity), video games undeniably are a big part of my life, as well as one of the most long-lasting interests I have.

What made me start this blog?

There were a few reasons that made me decide to start writing this blog. First, I figured it could help me refine my writing further. Secondly, as I said above, I am in the process of writing my Master's Thesis, and my life is largely consumed by it. I figured I could use something more casual and free-form (and, frankly, also more interesting) to balance out all the academic crap I have to write. Third, since I use quite a bit of time to play games, I inevitably also end up thinking about the games I play. As such, I guess I might as well share some of the things that occur to me, in case someone else might find them interesting.

Gaming history

My ventures into the wondrous world of video games began in the 8-bit era. The first game console I ever owned was some weird bootleg NES that came with a game cartridge that contained “over 500” games and a raygun that hardly worked at all (not that it made much difference to me back then). In reality, the 500 games were, of course, only limited to maybe a dozen games, including Super Mario, Duck Hunt, Dr. Mario, some tank game, and some Wild West themed quick draw game that you played with the raygun. The few games that there were on the cartridge were simply listed over and over again, with slightly different names. Interestingly enough, I remember that some of the “different” Mario games would actually start from different levels, perhaps in an attempt to fool people that they were actually playing a different game altogether.

That fucking dog... Image taken from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Hunt>

The second console I had as a kid was an actually legit one, the 16-bit Sega Genesis. In all honesty, I think that the console is pretty underwhelming now in hindsight, but I still managed to waste countless hours playing it as a kid. In addition to the Sega Genesis, I got a Gameboy Color as a Christmas present one year. GBC introduced me to Pokémon and Zelda, and got me to hop aboard the Nintendo train, at least for a while. Enter early teens, and the Nintendo train chugged on at full speed, powered by the Nintendo Gamecube that I got as a birthday present. The Nintendo ride went on for a couple of years, until it was finally halted by my dad finally getting us an actual modern computer (imagine being 15 without a computer in this day and age!). Thus, I sort-of joined the PC mustard race, although I still continued flirting casually with Nintendo on the side, and eventually even bought myself a Nintendo DS in my late teens.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was one of the games that defined my early teens. Picture
taken from <http://dailyemerald.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Wind-Waker-Windfall.jpg>

Finally, as I tentatively entered “adulthood” and entered the university life, my gaming went into full-blown ghetto mode for a few years. During this time, I basically only had a mid-range laptop to be used for gaming, which meant that I missed out on nearly all games that have been released in the last six or so years. My long-lasting gaming dry-spell finally came to halt last summer, when I officially joined the mustard race by assembling a high-ish end gaming PC. As such, I have now been playing catch-up to experience all of the (presumably) great games I’ve gathered on my Steam account over the last couple of years on various sales.

Enter "adulthood". Picture taken from
<http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/508/664/025.jpg>

And there you have it; a brief introduction to my gaming life, and what this blog is all about. Next time, in my first “real” post, I will gaze back at an old classic – The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Until then, enjoy the last few days of 2014!