Video Game "Reading List" 1

Every artistic medium has its vitally important pieces, the great pieces that define the medium. Every artistic form has what could be considered a "reading list", the cream that rises to the top, the diamonds separated from the rough, pieces that define a medium, a movement, a time period, or a person. You can probably see where I am going with this.

I began considering what games would be on my "video game reading-list" as I was playing through Bioshock for the second time. It was the opening of the game that inspired me in particular and made me think about the games that needed to be included on my list of "must-play". As I continued to consider the sheer quantity of quality games, I decided to divide my list into sub-lists based on genre.

My first list, I decided, in keeping with my current trend of posts, would be the reading list for the fictional class, "First Person Shooters 101." Without further ado, here is the first installment of my video game reading list.

First Person Shooters 101

I. Early FPS's

1. Sega's Missile

2. Maze War

3. Wolfenstein 3d and Doom

II. The Evolving Genre

1. 007: Golden Eye

2. Perfect Dark

3. Halo 2

4. Call of Duty 2

III. The Modern FPS

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat

2. Killzone

3. Crysis

4. Bioshock

5. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

6. Portal

On First Person Shooters

In my last post, I mentioned that the first video game I really remember being awestruck by was 007: Golden Eye. This game still means a great deal to me for many reasons, not the least of which being the fact that it introduced me to a genre quite near and dear to me: the first person shooter. In my childhood, video games and, particularly, first person shooters were always taboos. I was not fortunate enough to grow up with staples of the genre such as Doom and Quake. I, however, came to love this genre as much as anyone who had.
The First Person Shooter encapsulates what video games are all about: transporting the player into a new world, giving them new life through the character on the Tv screen. The first person genre, by simply changing the camera to the character's view allows the player to almost become the character, seeing through his or her eyes, literally and metaphorically. The player not only sees what the character sees but begins to actually think like the character would. How much closer does one feel to Master Chief as one follows his story through his eyes than looking down at Solid Snake? In my opinion, this is one of the key differences between the mediums of video games and film. While one simply watches a film, one actively participates in the story of a game. We are not watching the characters defeat the baddies and save the princess, we are the characters defeating the baddies and saving the princess. This spirit is exemplified by first person shooters in that they truly transform the player into the character as opposed to leaving the player a third party observer.
As I mentioned before, first person shooters are very important to me; not because I love seeing the blood of my enemies first hand, but because I love the sense that I truly am Master Chief or Samus or a soldier in Normandy or a noble adventurer in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. I love the sense that I have left my world behind and have entered a whole new one. For me, this is what gaming is all about: the abandonment of everyday life in favor of a few moments in someone else's skin.
It goes without saying that the sole reason for the success and popularity of the FPS is not due entirely to their quality of bringing players deeper into the game. The popularity of the First Person Shooter can also be attributed to it's innovation in multiplayer and it's wide variety of sub-genres. I will reserve the discussion of the reasons, dear reader, for another post. I hope I have let you into a very important part of my gaming life: the first person shooter.

Hellos and My First Memory of Video Games

In many blogs, the first post is usually extremely awkward. For amateur bloggers such as myself, the first post poses a bit of a conundrum. "Should my first post sound professional or vulgar? Should I begin with a welcome speech, introducing myself or begin with just a normal post?" Many new bloggers, in my experience, find a great deal of anxiety in this, thinking that this first post will set the stage for all the posts to come. This, however, is not the case. For those few people who actually care to read your blog (as these people are few and far between) it does not matter in the slightest what your first post is like; if people care enough to read your crappy writing, they will read it regardless of what your first entry consists of.

I, however, have thought carefully about what my first post should be like (professional or vulgar, long or short, an introduction or a normal post) and I have decided to choose all of the above. I will make my first post neither long nor short, but medium in length. I shall both introduce myself as well as make a "normal" post and I shall be both professional and vulgar. Penis.

That being said, I would like to move on to the second part of my first post: my background in video gaming. More specifically, my first memory of video games. I was born in 1993, three years before the release of the Nintendo 64 and two years after the release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Mine was a Nintendo household. Many mornings I would come downstairs to the sounds of Link's swinging sword or the classic over world theme of Super Mario Brothers. However, my memories of video games actually start before my family purchased an N64, back in the days when you could rent entire consoles from Blockbuster.
It was late in the afternoon in winter, sometime around the beginning 1997. My older brother and sister had finally convinced my mother to allow them to rent an N64 along with two games: Super Mario 64 and 007 Golden Eye, or as my brother and I would come to refer to it, "The Shooting Game." It had rained a great deal in the past few days and our entire downstairs had flooded so we removed the carpet to  let it dry. The living room consisted of a cold, carpet-less room with a couch, a small Tv, and, of course, the rented N64. All I remember was sitting on that couch on the kind of day that's much too cold despite the sun shining without a cloud in the sky. I was eating Cape Cod brand white cheddar popcorn and I was watching my brother play the first level of 007. I was hypnotized from the moment the camera flew down into the back of Bond's head. Every aspect of the game mesmerized me; the colors, the graphics, the crack of Bond's gun, the blood splotches on the terrorists' shirts. Although I didn't know at that moment, video games would become a massive part of my life. I would come to learn the Konami Code by heart, I would come to learn where each of the Kongs was held prisoner in DK64, I would come to learn how to defeat Pyscho Mantis, and I would, of course, learn that the cake is a lie. I would think all day in school about video games, I would take my meals in front of video games, I would even dream about video games.
Although I am sure that this was not my first experience with video games, it was certainly one of the most influential. This is the memory that truly made me what I am today, this memory is the memory that made me a gamer.