When beginning reviews, I saw it as a way to be able to play video games while having a purpose, which is to improve my writing. Although this did happen and am happy with it, there's been a small problem. These reviews have caused me to feel disconnected from the gamer I really am. I feel like a lot of what I played as of late was just for review. This isn’t necessarily the worst, but it has caused me to think about gaming differently. I buy things for review now, when I should be buying things I really want. I wanted to do this to help myself go back to the old mindset, and maybe you’ll learn something along the way.
I began playing games for as long as I can remember. My 1st gaming memories were on two systems, the PlayStation 2, and Game Boy Advance. These were my brother's systems, but he let me use them, and I ended up owning them later on anyway. Some of the most nostalgic games I can remember are the TimeSplitters trilogy, Thrillville: Off the Rails, Shadow the Hedgehog, Spider-Man for PlayStation 1, and Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure. These games I would play a lot because I had no other games. I hated racing games back then, and a lot of what my brother had were racing games. Gaming didn’t really get extreme back then until I found a certain YouTube channel.
My knowledge and enjoyment of video games as a whole would begin around 2013, and 2014 with a channel called Classic Game Room. This channel reviewed both modern, and retro video games, as well as video game systems. This is where I first gained my knowledge about the Atari 2600, the Vectrex, Sega Genesis, and much more. This would be my first inspiration to back older systems, but at the time I didn’t do that, due to no money, or knowledge of where to find older stuff. This would then change a few years later.
Around the summer of 2017, I bought my first retro system, the Nintendo 64. Prior to this, I received a Super Nintendo from a friend, but the Nintendo 64 was the first one I got from a seller. This was actually a part of a trade. I traded a PlayStation 3 for the Nintendo 64, and some games, including Lego Racers. This would later inspire me to get a Sega Genesis, and after that, I started heavily collecting, but that starts a small problem. Early on I bought things I don't really need, like a Nintendo Entertainment System. I began spending full price on things I didn’t want, and just got them because they were valuable. I stopped this, however, and it started to find again, which brings us to modern-day.
Lately, I’ve been just playing stuff I would never think about playing for review. It hasn’t gone off the wall yet, but I want to make sure it doesn’t. A few weeks ago I was playing Code Name S.T.E.A.M for a while to review, and it didn’t make me happy and stressed me out. I’ve been stressed on reaching a deadline, and for the time being, that’s not the most important thing. I’m not making money doing this, nor do I want to right now. It’s time to reshape this a bit.
I’m not going to stop reviewing, I like doing it, but doing reviews has not made me feel great playing just any game. I want to have fun while playing games, and not every video game will do that. I’m not going to stop reviewing bad games, but I’m not going to force myself to talk about them. I’m going to review stuff I feel is worth talking about. These will be obscure games I find quality in or a game that does something really bad that I feel it warrants discussion. There are also going to be two additions to the blog. These will be different reviews, one is for free to play games, and the other for games I’m biased about, or see a different side to compared to most people. These three styles I'll make on my blog. I also might do more of this style of writing as well if people like it.
Starting reviews have been fun, but I jumped in blind. I’m learning about how to do these things, and I will make mistakes, but that's what learning takes. I got to thank everyone who has supported me on this trip, they are what keep me going. I am still working on my next review, so stay tuned.
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