I will commit to playing more games

This Friday, Sept 20th, I went to the Gamespot at Queen and Spadina and bought the Wii U Zelda Wind Waker HD bundle. I don't have pictures or a video of the unboxing because all you would see would be a monster tearing apart the packaging, drooling in my underpants. I doubt any of you would want to see that. (If you do, email me and we can go out on a date!)

I like the pattern on the Wii U Gamepad controller that is unique to this bundle. The unboxing and startup experience of the Wii U is really smooth and high quality. I am enjoying it.

However, this post is not about the Wii U. It's not even about Zelda (Wind Waker HD is really beautiful though).

This post is a reaffirmation to my commit to games. I got my first computer in Grade 4, before I knew how to speak English. The first computer game I remember playing by myself was Castle Adventure. I spent hours on it trying to decipher the instructions and the story - good thing I didn't need to understand English to know when I died. I invented a whole parallel world distinct from the game story out of necessity. Ascii art evolved into the blocky graphics of Civilization II, Dune 2, and then onto the pinnacle of DOS and early-Windows era gaming - the Wing Commander Series, Strike Commander, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Command & Conquer, and Diablo I and II. I never got into the First Person Shooter scene, but I did learn to admire those who were great at the finger twitching Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, and Quake games.

Real Time Strategy (building bases and controlling armies), Turn based strategy (building cities and empires, RISK type games), and Flight Simulators (either in atmosphere or in outer space) were the mainstays of my early life. I was really happy because I could find myself in different worlds, doing crazy things unimaginable and impossible in real life.

The gaming industry evolved. In university, Half Life came out, along with the refined first person adventure shooters with intricate stories, plot devices, and gameplay schemes. But I didn't grow into the gaming culture. I got busy with life, publishing magazines, writing short stories, got into girls and gender relations (what a headache that still is), at the expense of my gaming life.

The last game I really enjoyed was Dishonored and it was very difficult to find the time to play that game. Even though I had all the free time in the world, games seemed to take a back seat to going out to eat, or drink, or to shows, concerts, standup comedy, movies, or just hanging out with people.

All of those things added to my life, but I still missed the time spent with games, just cruising along on an imaginary spaceship, or commanding armies into battle.

With the purchase of the Wii U, I feel ready to jump back into gaming - to make sure that my life always has that wonder and imagination. Let's see where computer games take me next.