(Yeah I ripped it off of my myspace about me)

I was immersed into the gaming world at an extremely early age, playing the Super Nintendo at around age 4. As time went by, I got into the Sega Genesis, played Sega CD, the 32X, NES, SNES, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar, Playstation, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, gameboy [big one], gameboy pocket, gameboy color, GBA, DS, PSP, and PC games. It sounds like a lot, because it was.

 My favorite genre of video game is possibly Real Time Strategy, or RTS. What makes me love RTS is because you need a brain to think, well about strategies. You also need a good reaction time to respond to the conflict at hand. Another thing thats good about RTS is that if it looks ugly, it doesn’t steer you away from playing it, these games are mainly focused on gameplay and balancing of things. First RTS I touched would have to be Starcraft on the Nintendo 64. I rented it from Blockbuster because I couldn’t find anything I actually wanted. I played it and was purely awed by it. I soon rented it a lot and played against my brother and cousin, then bought it weeks later. I mainly used to console RTS in my beginings because I didn’t have a computer till way after. Games like Command and Conquer on the Nintendo 64, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 on the Playstation, Warzone 2100 on the Playstation, and yeah starcraft on the N64 as I previously stated.

 The RTS games I enjoy playing is from the Starcraft universe and Command and Conquer universe. Other select games would be Company of Heroes, World in Conflict, Tom Clancy’s Endwar, Supreme Commander, and thats about all I can think of. Although I haven’t played any of those other games but Endwar, they are still good looking games. Why do I go balls deep into gaming? well I don’t exactly excell at R(eal)L(ife) sports. I know I wasn’t good at any, because P.E. showed, so I disliked them.

I began playing at a somewhat competitive state when I first got Xbox Live, which was when I was in 6th grade. First game I touched online was Ghost Recon. I never really knew a lot of people, but one day when I played Ghost Recon: Island Thunder, I met a guy named HANGTOWN. He was a pretty cool guy, never really got mad, and was teamwork oriented. I began to play him a lot and met all these other guys like Paco, AtomicDrop, Ainokeatoo, Lambfogod (purposely spelt wrong), and some other guys. We played Ghost Recon 2, Ghost Recon: Summit Strike, Mech Assault 2, and a bit of Project:Snowblind. I don’t know what happened to him after that, but I heard he played Forza 2 recently.

Back to my competitive gaming, the reason I liked it was because pro guys were, uh pro. When Halo 2 dropped, I was into it for awhile. I wasn’t any good, but loved watching pro games. After that, I began I wasn’t very into games, untill I played Command and Conquer 3 on xbox live. I would spend nights playing that game, for the sole reason to get the “No Life” achievement where you play a total of 100 hours. It seems easy, but it wasn’t since my matches would last around 5 minutes. I totalled up to 110 games played, winning about 105 of them. Yeah I didn’t get it, but that wasn’t it.

I then tried to play Starcraft on the PC. Of course getting good in that meant countless months of training, but I tried anyway because I was so amazed at what pro players could do. I would soon would sleep at 3PM, wake up at 2AM, then starcraft the night away till the afternoon. Although I barely played any games, I pain stakingly watched replays of pro gamers. I also read a lot on strategies. I came to think this game wasn’t right for me, as people have been on it for years, and trying to hop in a game with that much pros is hard for a noob. I found it more of a spectator sport of sorts than actually playing it.

The next major RTS game I’m putting my focus on is Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. This game a lot easier to learn and get good at, since most people that play are pretty noob. I follow the same pattern as I did with Starcraft, only now I have less time to play C&C. I’ve only had this game for less than a month, but this never stopped me from being an aspired competitive gamer in it. It seems to be more micro intense ( The ability to use your units at its maximum efficientcy) than Starcraft sometimes a lot sooner. I currently get advice and play with a known ZH gamer called GooDyeT^. I want to make a new name, which is gonna be BitTeR` , It seems pro, but back to the case at hand.

Not too recently my friends, Dylan A., Kenneth C., David L., and I tried our skill on a tournament for Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360. We played Gamebattles and practiced up throughout the time we had. We practiced atleast 3-5 hours a day, but unfortunately not everyone could show. For about a month or so, we played all the maps in the playlist, and got accustomed to the system link weapon classes. We got to Honolulu, where the tournament was held and we were from Hilo on the Big Island so yeah we had to put up $100 then the $20 fee. Our team, Natty Dreads, dominated the first game we had, winning by about 20+ kills. Second round was an upset, for reasons because we weren’t exactly adjusted to 50”+ TV’s, and we were previously playing on 20” screens. 50” makes your sensitivity ramped up times two from whatever it is, so I was jumping all over on the “high” settings. We got Bog on our first game, and got it again. They on the other hand, knew how those TVs worked since they played in the Halo 3 tournament held in tandum to the Call of Duty 4 one, which used those TVs for 4v4’s. So enough excuses, we lost by 3 or something that small kills. It was a single bracket type tourney so we got knocked off. Never again will I waste my time at a Circle Hawaii held Tournament. Not only did they not listen to us, they were very rude and not very professional. If you ever come to Hawaii or plan on a tournament held by them, DON’T GO, its really horrible.