About Me

My name is Katie, and I have been gaming pretty much my entire life. Raised in a home with a techie Dad and two older brothers, I took every chance I got in order to find a bonding point. While my enjoyment of video games did not necessarily make my brothers want to hang out with their annoying younger sister any more than normal, it did prove to have its benefits. For one, it was fun. I will admit, my watching and playing of video games was rather forced to begin with. I did not understand the draw of pushing some buttons to make Ness fight Pikachu. It was not very appealing, and I was content in feigning interest as an attempt to be included in my brother's lives.

After a while, something changed. Once I discovered the internet, I started begging my parents to forget about the phone for half an hour so I could go online to play on the PBS Kid's website (remember the good ol' days of dial-up?). Eventually this expanded, and I began playing things like Pokemon Stadium and Super Mario 64. I moved on to Gameboy games, and increasingly became more invested and interested as new systems came out, including Gamecube, the many evolutions of the Gameboy, and of course, the WII. We were a Nintendo family.

As time went by, I started wanting my own games and my own systems. Asking my brothers to share theirs  was not enough anymore. Once I started spending my own money on games, the stakes rose. I wanted very badly to be good at picking games, but as a young girl, I had awful taste. My brothers made sure I was very aware of this. They always told me if I was making the right choice or not in what game I was choosing, and generally if they said it was bad, I would listen. I remember the first time I didn't. I was adamant on buying some game based on a TV show I liked. My brothers tried desperately to talk me out of it, telling me what a huge mistake I was making, but I would not listen. 

...I should have listened.

The $20 that I had saved up from weeks of allowance money went entirely to waste, as I discovered after my first time playing the game, that my brothers had been completely right. After this, I got better at predicting what games would actually be worthwhile. 

 (One of my favorite games, Skies of Arcadia: Legends)

Over time, after developing an understanding of how to read reviews for games and figuring out what features and game-types I really liked, I was able to part from following the opinions of others 100%. I really enjoyed this, because this opened up a lot of conversation between me and my friends. We had different preferences, but we all knew what we were talking about.

That was another great gain from video games. Not only did I genuinely grow to enjoy them, but as I got older they became a large part of my friend-base. I definitely hung out with people who did not like video games, but a large majority of my friends did. Not to mention, come high school, my knowledge and enjoyment of gaming definitely increased my popularity among certain male groups, which was fine by me!

Since my gaming beginning, I have expanded from solely the internet and Nintendo to many other systems and styles of games. I cannot claim to be a great gamer. My best friend, who I am currently playing through Heavy Rain with, would highly support the fact that I am not. But for me, being "good" isn't the point. I do it because I think it is fun, generally I enjoy the story lines in the games I choose to play, and I like the community that comes out of it. Overall, gaming is a part of what makes me me. As nerdy as it sounds, it's the truth.