Blog Banter: Gaming Together, Maybe?

Welcome, welcome to Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by bs angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deeply insightful to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

I’ve always been a bit leery of letting others know what my favorite activity is (besides eating gummy bears and watching movies with Clive Owen, that is). Now that I’m trying to write about video games professionally, I really can’t avoid it. At parties, or dinners, or meetings, I always end up having to discuss “what I do.” Mostly I half-ass it, telling them I’m an “entertainment journalist,” whatever that is. When one lives in a college town, and one talks about one’s video game journalism career, the blank stares one receives on the topic are surprisingly many.

I’ve been lucky then, to be with a person who not only respects my choice to write about games, but entertains my obsession with them. She is not, for the most part, a big gamer. When she plays games these days, it’s something to pass time (procrastinate) when she’s working. Aside from Spider Solitaire, apparently the falling sand game is fun? Anyway, this isn’t to say that she has never been party to other forms of gaming. She actually started gaming at a much younger age than me. My first system (if you will) was a Mac, running OS 7 or something, on which I played Dark Forces, Descent, Heroes II, X-Wing, and others. Her first system was the Atari which she played throughout her early life. Apparently she played a lot of games on it, but it’s never been a particularly important set of memories for her.

These days, I’m not exactly champing at the bit to convince her to play games. If she wants to, she will, and every once in a while she tries something out that I’ve just picked up. Most notably, she beat Professor Layton, something I’ve never done, she plays Rock Band a good deal (when the band is together), and she really liked Motorstorm (which was a shame, given that it had no splitscreen). Oh, and she’ll play a bit of Mario Kart and Boom Blox, if the occasion calls for it (and who wouldn’t?). She is mostly amused by my games (and how could she not be, seeing me play Crackdown or Saints Row 2), but it’s much more important to me that she accept my gaming than that she be enamored of games themselves. Even she admits that her completionist nature might be dangerous, if she got sucked into games. She, after all, can’t give the excuse that she’s working while playing them. We haven’t exactly played a lot of games together, per se, with the exception of Mario 64 DS‘s Shell Bowling (we took turns). It’s quite possible that some day in the future she’ll pick up some game, realize she likes it, and kick my ass at it. Gotta pick up that Pacific Rift demo, I think.

Other participants!
Gaming with my wife, You could be doubling alone, Next Gen Killed Our Gaming Relationship, Forced Perspective, Playing With My Toys, From Gaming Geek to Heroes Freak, My Lady and Gaming, Gaming with your significant other, Gaming Together, Maybe?, Girl Gamers = Hawt, Gaming with my significant other, Move Over Hott Boy, I Want to Play, Valentine’s Day is for Gamers, Frag the Girlfriend!!, ‘Til Mongoose Do Us Part