At some point in my short and generally obscure life, I gained the uncanny ability to combine simple words into coherent sentences. It's brought me nothing but trouble ever since. When most of my sentences ended up describing video games, an obsession quickly became something vaguely resembling a career and for several years, a good deal of my time was spent playing games and then writing mean things about them. At the end of 2005, I joined Weblogs Inc. and despite several protests, I still construct elaborate amounts of drivel for them. Blogging is but one of the balls I currently juggle -- the others being my final year of university (studying Computer Science, Mathematics and Industrial Psychology, in case you were interested), my exciting South African lifestyle and of course, my tendency to be infuriatingly obnoxious.
- First game experience: It's somewhere between Space Invaders, frighteningly rendered on an XT and CGA screen, and Combat for the Atari 2600. I learned early on that clumps of on-screen pixels are very often coming to kill you.
- Games that changed me: Combat (2600), Super Mario Bros. (NES), The Secret of Monkey Island (PC), Kings Quest VI (PC), Space Quest IV (PC), Grim Fandango (PC), Full Throttle (PC), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64), Shadow of the Colossus (PS2), Metal Gear Solid (PSX), Final Fantasy VII (PSX), Deus Ex (PC), Thief: The Dark Project (PC), Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille Zur Macht (PS2), Freespace 2 (PC), No One Lives Forever (PC), Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive), Rocketknight Adventures (Mega Drive), Space Channel 5 (Dreamcast), Lumines (PSP), Silent Hill (PSX), Ninja Gaiden (Xbox), Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast)
- Potential sources of bias and conflicts of interests: Like any serious gamer, I have my favorite developers and game designers, with Tim Schaefer, Hideo Kojima and Tomonobu Itagaki, yes really, consistently impressing me and raising my expectations. I'm particularly fond of the Sega Dreamcast and to this day, I view the system's failure as one of the worst atrocities in human history.
- Why I'm blogging about games: It seemed like a good idea at the time. Though my relatively remote geographical location isn't the most conducive to interacting with the gaming industry, I haven't let any of that stop me from enjoying games and sharing my experiences and opinions with those people I share a planet with. I'm intoxicated by communication -- games talk to me and I love to talk about them. Blogging is a unique outlet that lets me get away with things that many other mediums won't. I can be as creative and as honest as I want to be. I hope to not only raise the bar for writing about games (hell, let's toss that thing like a javelin), but to eventually barge my way into game development or localization.
