Obsess Much?

Why, yes, I am trying to save the universe.

No matter how hard we try, many of us will never be able to forget our “firsts” – our first crush, our first day of school, our first crush, our first pet, etc.  And that is just in the childhood years.  There’s also our first dates, our first loves, our first house, our first kid.  Subaru’s current ad campaign is even about sharing the story of your first car.  How many of us remember our first gaming obsessions?

In high school in the '90s, I became a favorite among the guys as soon as I showed a propensity for Halo: Combat Evolved.  I had already played SNES when I was younger, and had owned a Nintendo 64 in junior high, but I had consistently played Mario Kart or Star Wars: Rogue Squadron more than anything else.  I rarely delved into FPSs (besides GoldenEye 007, which was wickedly fun in its own right but probably now wishes it could be Halo or Call of Duty).

However, Halo addicts all know that you just need a chance for a first play, and after that you must satiate your desire with continual fixes.  As it happens, I got my first play at a friend's house and went home depressed that I could not continue shooting Grunts and marveling at this odd, new ringworld.  After a few months' of life without Halo, I realized there was only one way to fill the void: I bought myself an XBox solely so I could play the game.  Now I'm not saying I wasn't obsessed with my N64 games; at the time, I thought I was.  Then Master Chief made me realize that my N64 friends were like those friends you hang out with in high school whom you vaguely keep in touch after graduation, whereas he was able to live the moments of my life along with me, for the rest of my life.  Kind of like a spouse, except not really, because of obvious reasons.

No amount of rehab can cure me of my addiction to this series, but I don’t consider this a limiting, or even a negative, situation.  If anything, Halo opened up the glorious gaming world for me in ways I never thought possible.  I was thrust into the personal stories the game creators had slaved hours on end to write, and suddenly I realized that games could be so much more than mere entertainment, more than some pew-pew-pews at the bad guys.  Many reach the level of art.  And thus my desire to explore the world of video games expanded.

So thank you, Bungie, for introducing me to one of the loves of my life, and I'm not just talking about Halo.

How about you?  What was your first gaming obsession?  I would love to hear them, and I will collect some of the best and write them up in a future "Obsess Much?" post!