Apparently yesterday was National Video Game Day, something I heard on the radio in the morning which immediately made me smile, because for as long as there have been video games I have been a gamer.
My first game console, bought by my Father in I think the late 70s, was a Binatone Pong game which plugged into our TV and had two dials on wires that you used to move your bats or paddles.
It look like this on your our TV screen:
It is generally credited with being the first video game and if you want to try it out and you aren’t reading this at work, there is a reproduction here. I just wasted a happy few minutes not writing this blog and not being very good at pong either.
Fast forward twenty odd years and I discovered Virtua Cop in my local arcade, I wasted a lot of time and money and eventually decided it would be easier to simply buy a Sega Saturn game console, which I did, and a lot of my stress management involved coming home and shooting bad guys.
To this day I still prefer light guns for shooting in games, at the time it had the slightly odd side affect of making me a quite good shot, as I found out at the Houston Sheriff’s Department gun range when I was visiting friends in Texas. I must try and find a picture of the target.
After that I got a PlayStation, then a PlayStation 2, then my ex-husband switched his loyalty to the XBox 360 and courtesy of Red Dead Redemption, a western game set at the turn of the 20th century, I was quickly hooked. Red Dead Redemption is the only game I have achieved 100% completion on and I think I was sad enough to take a picture on my phone – I guess that’s another thing I’ll be looking for this weekend.
These days I’m addicted to Skyrim, where I play catlike character that roams the world doing almost good deeds and killing dragons. There is no word for just how addictive Skyrim is but it is not unusual to play for several hours at one sitting and them compare adventures with my stepson. If you only own one fantasy game, own this one.
My newest excitement is the once-again rumoured launch for Red Dead Redemption 2, next January, apparently only due to be launched on Xbox One, so it looks like I will be upgrading my gaming system. Also while Googling the links for this post, I found a working Virtua Cop 2 gaming system on eBay, you can be sure I will be being extra good for Santa this year and keeping my fingers crossed.
If anyone has any game recommendations I am always looking for new addictions. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.
How To Train Your Dragon is a 2010 DreamWorks movie, you can buy a copy here.
Trumbley, Madly, Deeply 
MK X can be played on the xbox 1 too
Oh.Mi.God. I had a pong game growing up, too. What a fun blast from the past. And hey! I just noticed I’m on your blogroll—thank you!
haha fess up how much time did you spend on the online version?
You know… not one minute! I didn’t click the link. But now that you tell me it’s there I have a feeling my day is DOOMED…. (: