Gamestopper

I got exposed to video games in the late 90s. Like every kid in the 90s my first exposure to video games was 8 bit gaming consoles. I played innumerable games, bought game cartridges. After that I got introduced to arcades where you could play arcade games and playstation games like Tekken 3. In the early 2000s I got introduced to computer games. It started with game demos that use to come in complementary CDs of tech magazines. There was no steam back then and only relation to steam I had was that it was a company that launched one of my most favourite game series Half-life. When I got a computer, I started with games like pinball and DOS games. There were DOS games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and other DOS games. I spent a lot of time playing games like motocross madness and it is probably the reason I have an inclination towards freestyle motocross as a sport. I remember I had visited Nehru Place to get a joystick, and I used that joystick to play games like Crimson Skies and Motocross Madness. I also played Midtown Madness, but I liked Motocross Madness better. I spent a considerable amount of time on Zoo Tycoon, a game where you had to build a zoo and run it while taking care of animals. My all time favorite game however is Half-life, especially the first game of series, including the game Blueshift and Opposing Force. Its protagonist Gordon Freeman PhD was a character that inspired me. The character Gordon Freeman is PhD in theoretical physics. It was one of the reasons I wanted to do a PhD later in life. Another great character from that game was Adrian Shephard a US marine in his late teens. There was a team that was with Adrian Shephard which included a medic and a welder who always had a cigarette in his mouth. I didn't like Half-life 2 as much as Half-life but technologically speaking the game was ahead of its time and when it was released and had a great physics engine. There was another game that was launched at the same time and was actually great was Doom 3. It was a horror game, though new games in the franchise stick to the run and gun approach of earlier Doom games. I used to play Tribes 2 and miss that game and I was glad to know that there is a community of gamers that likes that game on YouTube. I loved Age of Empires back then and used to play it with my friend on a dial-up LAN connection. I played games like Max Payne, Matrix Path of Neo, Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas. In my late teens I stopped playing games and only reconnected with gaming in my late 20s. I have played countless games, and now I collect games on Steam to make up for my disconnect with gaming from my late teens to late 20s. I don't play games often, but I collect the new games hoping that I would get time to play them later. I collected the games that I couldn't play back in the day, like Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Far Cry, Crysis and many others. I had played Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 back in the day, but kids now play games like Call of Duty online. Call of Duty is a great franchise and back then there were games like Medal of Honor too. I still wait for a new game of Half-life franchise. The options today are numerous, but nothing can match the vibes of the games back in the day.