“In The Beginning….When The Blog Attacked” JD Richgels

“So here it is, the first blog post…my god.”

WHY HELLO EVERYONE!
Uh, so hello and welcome to the verbal wave that is my brain at 8:30 in the morning. It’s actually really weird, because I have never actually blogged before so who knows how long this is going to go on for…hopefully not for-e-var.

Anyways, I don’t really know where to begin with my first blog about my story. I don’t know how to start it and I don’t know what I could say that would be super interesting, except maybe talking about Faulkner and how his writings have changed me and made me want to become an English major, but that’s only a recent event within this year. So I suppose that the end of that story and how I’m here in Chico. So nothing particularly interesting…

However, I can tell you what I’m looking forward to. Currently I’m waiting for the release of “Metal Gear Solid V” and “Mad Max”, two video games that I hope will last me for the next couple of months. These two will be coming out September 1^st, and the reason why I tell this is because I grew up with video games.

The first video game console me and my siblings played on was a Nintendo 64, my older brother and sister ‘shared’ an original PlayStation before that, but that’s beside the point since the Nintendo 64 was the thing that we played together. It was our sibling rivalries in the form of ‘Mario Cart’ or adventure in the form of “Donkey Kong 64”, of which I still have fond memories of. Later on, when our sister had moved out of the house, my brother had introduced me to a little game called “Halo” on the Xbox, and we were hooked. “Halo” had become our next form of sibling rivalry and play, and it had also unintentionally opened the door to my great love and ‘belief’ in video games.

I remember getting an Xbox for Christmas one year, since my brother was moving out and taking his. I remember the times of inviting friends over and system-linking our Xbox’s so no one could ‘screen peek’ and cheat in a game of no actual in world prize, except bragging rights which could be argued more valuable than gold itself. I never had a lot of money so birthdays and Christmas were that much sweeter since it always meant a new game. A new rivalry to begin between friends, a new adventure of puzzles and platforming, and a new story.

That was the lasting effect of video games. A story that grabbed you and wouldn’t let go. It was impossible to compare the feeling to that of the passive observing of books, shows, or movies where a story is told to you. Video games opened a book for you and invited you to jump in. The story was ‘you’, or at least a story you were active in how it played out or if the end would ever come. The world created was open to explore and discover. It hooked me in and it has not let go and I don’t know if it ever will, to such an extent that I kind of hope it never will.

Now, you may be wondering why I described my life with video games. Well it’s because, like from our reading with Szwed, video games are the thing I read and write about the most. I read a surplus of reviews about what people thought about an upcoming video game, or about news in the video gaming world. I even read critical analysis of specific video games and their background themes. Szwed also shows us why we consume what we consume and I consume video games because I enjoy being immersed in a world that would otherwise not exist or even be impossible to exist. This then brings me to what I write which is about video games and ‘sort of’ reviews about them. There is something addicting to reviewing an experience with a crafted world that, I don’t think, will ever go away.

Szwed talks about the power of what people read and write and what they gain from what they read and write. This, to me, was the most interesting since it describes the idea of the creation of mini-cultures where people build their lives around a specific medium. People come together in celebration of “Harry Potter” as others do in the celebration of video games. It such a weird idea that entertainment creates an area for people to, who otherwise would never meet each other, convene.

It’s a fascinating idea that will always be fun to mull around with, and while I do that I highly recommend that others mull around with a video game called “Kentucky Route Zero”. Trust me, it’s as ambiguous as the title lets on and it is an incredible story, one that will immerse you. 

Until the next blog just know I will be playing all the Metal Gear!
-JD Richgels :D