NON-TOXIC GAMING

It haunts us... Mocks us... Taunts us... Makes us question why we spent the money in the first place. It's our gaming backlog. Naturally, the first thing to come to mind is, geez, FF, that's a massive first world problem. I agree wholeheartedly. We are, generally speaking, our own worst enemies though, and it bugs me that I've 'wasted money' on games that I have yet to play. (Steam and humble bundles , I'm looking right at you.) My wife reassures me that I'll eventually  play them. Even if that eventually is when I retire in forty(?) years. Yes, this is the reason I've never sold a console system; I feel the shame strongly and don't want to lose the ability to play them someday . It's also why my launch PS3 is still connected to my TV since it can play PSone games. Time to fess up then. What is my oldest lame claim to shame? Final Fantasy VIII. I'll admit right now that I haven't played Final Fanta...

The first time I remember picking up a gaming controller it seemed like such a foreign concept at the time. I was used to going outside and playing with friends and putting all our action figures together to have them fight wars, participate in heroic clashes against some of the most villainous characters, and that would create such epic battles only in my head. When I held that controller I did not have to imagine what the battle looked like because it was being transmitted to the television in front of me. The game I can first recall playing was a game that had been released many years before this was written, November 29, 1972 to be exact; a game that was so simplistic in nature but could be played for hours with many different outcomes. Pong may have been the first game I remember playing but it was most certainly not the most intriguing of games, intrigue would come later on. Now I did not actually play these games until the age of 5, or thereabouts, and at the time there had a...