MY HISTORY OF GAMING PART 1

Ah where to begin.  I suppose the real beginning was when I was four or five years old.  I went on a family holiday to the Isle of Man which started off bad when the guest house we were booked into turned out to be worse than Fawlty Towers.  My parents quickly found another location for us to stay in which turned out to be a rather posh sea front hotel.  You could not imagine a more stark contrast between those two locations.

Anyway, this hotel was also rather modern for the time.  It was kitted out with a games room and and a gym.  In the games room was a couple of strange looking devices which I would later discover would be Space Invaders arcade machines.

It was my sister who really started it all as she would sit with me whilst I played on this electronic wonder for what felt like hours although I suspect that it more like minutes.  In any event it was sowing of the seed in my mind of my passion for video games.  Without doubt that was the earliest encounter I had with an electronic game of some sort.

I have always regarded myself as being lucky to have experienced playing video games right from the very beginning.  Not long after returning from the Isle of Man my mum and dad went out and bought the family a Pong console.  Ours was made by Binatone and the most distinctive thing I remember about it was the two black and orange controllers and the rather primitive switched you used to select which game you wanted to play.  It was advertised as having a number of sports games such as football, basketball, ice hockey and tennis to chose from, but in reality they are all just variations on the Pong theme.

Although it was a digital marvel in it's day it was rather limited and it also required to players to play on it.  The initial interest shown by my parents quickly died and my sister was more interested in going out with her friends (she is a few years older than me) and so interest in the Pong console died out.

My interest in video games did not die out though.  Another craze had started which was the Game and Watch series by Nintendo as well as table top electronic games by a company called Grandstand.  Whilst one of my friends was more into the Game and Watch, I went for the Grandstand games and one in particular which was called Scramble.  This was unlike the arcade game of the same name but it was a challenging game that required you to take out a series of alien craft in increasingly difficult waves.  It took me a while to beat it but I eventually did to be confronted by a bizarre 'hhh' in the score box which flashed signalling that I had beaten the game.  To this day I had no idea what the 'hhh' meant!

The limitations of these games was clear.  There was no way of playing anything else on them without having to buy a whole new unit and that was not practical.  However my mum and dad were about to buy me something for Christmas in 1983 that would completely change the game for me.  From then on gaming would not be a thing that was restricted by having to buy new consoles each time.  I was about to get something that would draw my interest in and 28 years later still hold me in it's grasp.

But that will come in part two...

CALL OF DUTY VIDEO REVIEW

Finally got my latest review uploaded.  I have been limited by a bad cold and chest infection so today was the first day I was able to record the voice over for the review.

A WEEK WITH THE 3DS

Well after a week of playing with the 3DS I think it is safe to say that once again Nintendo have knocked the ball out of the park.

When it comes to hand held gaming devices it is fair to say that Nintendo have it down to a fine art.  Sony may have suffered some unworthy negative press with the PSP, but Nintendo do deserve the plaudits that they get.

The 3DS works so well.  The 3D is fantastic and it really works as well.  It is not gimmicky or cheap but proper 3D.  The fact that you don't need to wear glasses to experience it only adds to a great job Nintendo have done with this.  The 3D is also scalable thanks to a slider next to the screen which allows you to adjust the 3D effect to suit your eyes or you can turn it off fully.

At the moment I have four games.  Ghost Recon, Ridge Racer, Pilot Wings and Pro Evolution Soccer.  All of them a great games and are perfect for the platform.  What I mean by that is that they are not trying to ape their big brother console counterparts.  They have been designed with a hand held in mind.  Ghost Recon for example is a turn based shooter using an isometric view as opposed to a 3rd person shooter and it really works.

Also bundled with the 3DS are AR cards.  I don't want to spoil it for you, but honestly, what they do is fantastic.

With regards to the possibility of side effects from playing the 3DS, I cannot comment because I have been lucky enough not to suffer from any.  I am also not going to patronise people by saying that they should simple adjust the slider or not play it for so long as it is down to the individual as to how they are affected by it.  All I can suggest is that you try it before you buy it and see how you go.

With the prospect of a couple of cracking looking Resident Evil games on the horizon as well as reboots of Zelda and Mario Kart I am really glad I invested in this.  I have not nearly covered what it does in any type of depth but rather what I have been playing with so far.  It's a belting console and well worth investing in if you are looking for a hand held gaming device.