Being New to GamingGrowing up without a ton of money killing any ability to have video games. When I was very young, we had the Super Nintendo but I was so young that I was not allowed to play it without my dad present. But I'm not gonna lie, I rocked the 64. I didn't know what I was doing, but the only one I knew that could actually beat me at the games we owned were my cousins that actually knew what was going on.

By the time we upgraded to Game Cube, it was basically out of date and nothing was coming out on it but there were four of us kids and we all could play so we didn't care much. Besides the few games we had, I also played Age of Empires II and some Sims but I really could never...

Being New to GamingGrowing up without a ton of money killing any ability to have video games. When I was very young, we had the Super Nintendo but I was so young that I was not allowed to play it without my dad present. But I'm not gonna lie, I rocked the 64. I didn't know what I was doing, but the only one I knew that could actually beat me at the games we owned were my cousins that actually knew what was going on.

By the time we upgraded to Game Cube, it was basically out of date and nothing was coming out on it but there were four of us kids and we all could play so we didn't care much. Besides the few games we had, I also played Age of Empires II and some Sims but I really could never consider myself a gamer because I didn't know about other platforms and how they were getting better games. But I had a library so I didn't care much.

After losing the Game Cube to a wall, we were given a Wii and several games. That was a Godsend to our family because we didn't have much at this point—including internet. There's a reason the Wii gets hate but we had a blast accidentally (or on purpose) killing each other in Mario, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. We still played some Game Cube games when we were bored, but all six of us would gather in the living room and laugh and blame each other and rag on one another. It was fantastic. I want to buy my own Wii because of that.

But then I moved out and got my own computer (a lovely Macbook Pro for all my animator/filmmaker needs [except decent editing software because I'm still poor]) and wished desperately for something I could play. Then rumors about Skyrim started punctuating our game of Pathfinder.

I bought an Xbox to play Skyrim. I also bought L4D2, which I had on my PC that couldn't actually handle it. Then came Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary (I mean, come on, what else was I supposed to buy?), Assassin's Creed II (simply because I adore Parkour and this had a video game version of it). I have a few more I haven't been able to play between work and sleep and trying to film things and keep a social life.

It's very strange trying to start gaming when I am so behind. I just pre-ordered my first game, Assassin's Creed III and am trying to finish the series before October, which will be interesting when collage starts again and I start learning how to use 3D animation software. Tangents aside, how am I supposed to catch up on so many wonderful games? I also want to pre-order Halo 4 but it seems strange to just jump into something with such a huge fanbase and still try to keep up with everything.

Ohhhhhhhh weeeeellll.