Ok, so.

This was my introduction to vidjagames:

I was four years old, at a wedding in Iowa, bored out of my goddamn mind, when my older cousin was like, "dude, here, you are ridiculously bored."

So he handed me this:

Now, Link's Awakening is a game heavy on text and puzzles. But I was reading at age 3-ish, so I was able to get into it.

And holy SHIT it was so cool. It was like all the fantasy books that I had been reading at the time, but I was the main character. And since I was a 4 year old, my imagination filled in all the blanks that the limited hardware left open. My cousin had great taste. Zelda is the shit.

So bored 4 year old 8bit turned into immensely satisfied and immersed 8bit. And like any kid that gets introduced to something early, I was HOOKED.

That year I was turning 5. My mom and dad took me to Walmart on my birthday and asked me what I wanted. I trolled around, looked at some of the toys, was like "mmmeeeeh", then walked into the electronic section.

And then I saw this on a shelf:

The only reason I even noticed was because its box-art was similar to the game I had played in Iowa. So I was like, "that, please."

So my mom and dad, bless their pretty little hearts, got me a Nintendo 64 and a copy of literally the best game of all time.

I was just lucky, really. But by 5 I was pretty much either reading a shit tonne of Redwall/Harry Potter or playing a videogame. I wasn't interested in shooters, really. Adventure games, platformers -- my bro bought a PS1 and I got into Final Fantasy and Spyro the Dragon, who was my spirit animal till I was like 8. Pokemon, Harvest Moon...I liked immersing myself in the stories and the like.

And it was like that through most of middle school and high school. My mom and dad were cool with it - I wasn't obsessing about girls, I was acing class, I wasn't a fat slob, I prayed five times a day, etc. etc. - so they weren't worried about me all that much.

College shook things up a bit. My roommates, second semester freshmen year, were like, "oh, videogames are for dumb babbies, if we play them, we are also dumb babbies." So they cut games out entirely. So my love for the hobby sort of wavered. Was I being immature for playing? It wasn't my ONLY hobby, obviously - I still loved to read, and write, and screw around with computers. But I was worried about other people judging me. I stopped playing my 3DS on the bus, didn't really talk about games with my friends anymore.

That lasted for like, 1/2 a year. Then I reached a point where I was like, "wait, this is stupid." I like playing games. I'm more into it than most people I know, yeah, but I realized that that was okay. Some people like football more than anyone else, some people like cars more than anyone else, I like videogames more than anyone else. Granted, I'm not 100%-ing every game I pick up nowadays. It doesn't take up as much of my time as it used to, just because I have less time now then I did in Middle or High School, and I've readjusted that time - but I think the stigma I attached to myself for playing games was dumb, and letting other people affect my hobby was dumb.

Now, are games perfect? Hell no. I don't hang out on gaming forums, I don't like most people that play mainstream videogames, and I think there's a lot that's untapped in gaming, potential-wise.

Also, I will never, in my LIFE touch World of Warcraft. That shit is, apparently, videogame heroin, and I like watching progress bars go up. I refuse to let myself get hooked.

But videogames are the one thing I feel like I can be a bit of an elitist snob about. Well, that and hiphop, but that's neither here nor there.

As for boardgames - my buddies come by every break to play Munchkin. It's amazing good fun.

Oh, and about violence in games = I think you will find this interesting:

The rest of his videos are amazing too.

And just as an aside, my top 10 games:

1. Persona 4: Golden

2. Ocarina of Time

3. Metal Gear Solid 3

4. Shadow of the Colossus (SUCK IT KLEIN, AHAHAHA.)

5. Cave Story

6. The World Ends With You

7. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

8. Final Fantasy IX

9. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

10. Super Mario Galaxy 2