Clare Writes Poetry; A.K.A My Personal Gaming History

I'm a Shakespeare nerd

I really like poetry and I miss writing stupid poetry like in English in middle school so I’m going to write this entry as a poem so sorry if you don’t like poetry yay. If you (understandably) can’t be arsed to read it then just skip to the penultimate stanza and beyond.

Otherwise, enjoy:

When I was only five, maybe more
My brothers got Nintendo 64
With three controllers; yellow, green and grey

(green would’ve been mine, had I gotten my way)

But alas, ‘twas not meant to be,

as the present was theirs, and the youngest was me.

Grey became mine, much to my dismay

I would still steal the green one when Andrew was away.

The gaming console brought hours of fun,

And I loved to play (though I rarely won)

My reactions; too slow, my hands were too small
the weird controller design didn’t help me at all.

I often resigned myself to watching them play,

FATWHAP in all his glory

As long as I remained quiet, they would let me stay.
My favorite game was of course; no mystery
The Legend of Zelda series fascinated me.

I really loved Link and his pretty green dress,

My brother renamed him FATWHAP but I digress,

I loved his little brown boots and his fluffy blonde hair
he had virtually no personality but I didn’t care.

I really loved Hyrule with its different lands,
The woods of Kokiri, the Gerudo sands,
I loved all of its features, every last one,
If I’d have had to pick faults I would’ve found none.

As soon as I could, I completed it on my own
And discovered a feeling that I’d never known;

I had done it myself, finished my very first game

From that point on things were never the same.

Feeling determined, I began to pursue

A game that would make me feel that way again too.

I wanted the pride, the accomplishment,

Gratification for all of those hours I’d spent.

After Ocarina of Time I played many others
But a similar title I was yet to discover,

Until one day, following a twelve-year wait

I discovered a game that was a clear candidate.

I was sixteen and now had my own PS3,

Anything with Dragons & I'm sold

So for Christmas I wanted to play a new RPG.

I really couldn’t be arsed to read game reviews
It’d be fun for a change to just blindly choose.

One title had a dragon blazing on the cover,

It was described as “Dark Fantasy” so I was won over.

On Christmas morning 2010 I began to play,
And after only three hours “Dragon Age” blew me away.

The graphics sadly, weren’t up to much
But the characters and story were simply top notch.
It didn’t take long before I was completely hooked,
the games few faults were totally overlooked.

My fondness for this game made me realize

That characters were the most important; in my eyes

Shitty storylines and graphics could perhaps be excused

If made up for with an amazing character or two.

Luckily Dragon Age had plenty of these,
A variety of companions to come questing with me.
Each with their own back-story, dreams, hopes and fears,

This was the game that I had wanted for years.

However now, it seems that I am back to square one,

Although I can’t see how that feeling can be outdone. 
Dragon Age 2 didn’t even come close;
The whole experience left me feeling morose.

go away Merrill you look like a hairy
breadstick

My new companions were still interesting and fun,

But so much environment recycling just shouldn’t be done!

Not only that but the story wasn’t really up to a lot

I was left -sadly- uninterested, more often than not.

My party members though, and the familiar lore,

Do keep me replaying the games more and more.
I’d be lying if I denied the huge part of me

That is absolutely buzzing for Dragon Age 3.

So here’s hoping that Bioware gives me what I want,

Lots of interesting new friends, on a merry little jaunt!

Only maybe not so merry, and kinda filled with peril

With just as good teammates (and less like Merrill)

You’ll be happy to know that soon ends my rhyme

If you didn’t bother to read, or did not have the time

Kindly provided just a few lines below

Is a summary of anything that you might want to know.

And so there it is; though it may be quite shit

I hope that my poem amused you for a bit

Just one of the weird ideas formed in my brain

To explain “Clare’s History of Video Games”.

In summary;

When I was younger I played a lot of NES, SNES & Nintendo 64.

As I said in the above hilariously crap poem, I played a lot of Legend of Zelda; from the original NES game up to Majoras Mask (the last N64 Zelda Game) I also played on the Oracle of Seasons Gameboy Games. I blame Zelda for my love of elves and old fantasy lore things and forests and rivers and all that rubbish/good stuff. It really was my main influence in terms of video games, I was ridiculously into this series.

Competitive games like Mario Kart and WWF games (now WWE, of which I am still an unashamed fan harhar) are also a big part in my childhood as I used to play them with my brothers. Shawn Michaels the HBK pulls a baseball bat out of his arse on the SNES game, which is pretty funny.

He's just a sexy boy

Quick little list of other games I remember most from this age: 
Goldeneye –N64
Perfect Dark –N64
The Mario Games – N64/SNES/NES

Mission Impossible –N64 (only to punch the pianist though)

Donkey Kong –SNES

Pokemon Blue/Gold –Gameboy

Etc etc etc.

My old room when I was like 13; complete with N64,
HD TV, stitch teddies & copious amounts of anime/manga.
Oh dearr hahaha.

As I got older (between 8-14) my best friend and I developed a huge obsession for the Resident Evil games, even though I’m a massive wimp. Our favorites were Resident Evil: Remake for the Gamecube and Resident Evil 4 for the PS2. It would be interesting/horrifying to find out how many hours of our lives we wasted on these games. This is one of the few games with really awfully bland, badly written characters that I’ve actually enjoyed. Around this time I was also hating LOZ:Windwaker and loving LOZ:Twilight Princess. Also I did not buy a Wii because they are shit and I’m too lazy to jiggle about loads when playing a game; ruins the immersion for me. Just makes me think of chubby bored housewives desperately using the Wii Fit or playing Wii sports with their children in hopes of losing weight/filling in the hours while their kids are at school (no offence to housewives or Wii owners).

14 year old Clare on Christmas Day HAHA

I had a hilarious obsession with Guitar Hero, and it was one of the reasons that I purchased my PS3. Guitar Hero 3 usually had me up until ridiculous hours of night around Christmas, along with DRAGON AGE wooohoooo; Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Devil May Cry 4; a game that I enjoyed at the time but in retrospect is overwhelmingly style over substance.

When my PS3 eventually broke I gave in to the Xbox 360 hype and enjoyed games such as Fable (Hahahahahahaha just kidding) no but seriously I played a lot of Left 4 Dead, Prototype, Skyrim and Dragon Age 2.

Since working for a year last year and being at university this year I’ve actually not had a chance to really play much, plus the TV in my uni room is postage stamp size; so hopefully I’ll be able to get into a few games over the summer, who knows?