Career Paths

When you're young, you're full of ideals. Some of them are placed there by your parents, some you acquire along the way.

What did you want to be when you were growing up? Chances are, if you're like the other 98% of us, you're not doing it today. Maybe you realized that whatever it was that you wanted to do was absolutely no fun at all. Maybe you realized that the chances of your being able to do it was close to nil. Maybe you smoked too much pot in high school. Who knows?

Just the same, here you are.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a cop. Then I wanted to be an astronaut... then a lawyer (you can blame my mom for that). Then sometime around high school I didn't want to be anything. And now that I'm in the real world, and I've done enough different "skilled" jobs to make a Con-artist sick (all without a college education, I might proudly add), I think I've come full circle.

But that's another story.

There was a time around the 5th grade, when Nintendo Power was at the height of it's popularity, I was a student of Tracey Elementary School, a girl named Anna had my attentions, and I had hers (though I was too stupid to make use of them). Awkwardly, one of my better friends at the time was her brother, whom I will not name, though we had much in common, and often traded nintendo games with each other.

The prolific "Nintendo Power" we were so fond of would make no impression as a serious gaming magazine these days, but gaming, still technically in its infancy, was a bit of a different world. Authors of reviews would offer primitive descriptions of games with fancy details about levels to prove that they'd actually played them. What constituted a good game was a finer line than today when more was left to the imagination that the graphics hardware.

Still, you'd dream of a job where you'd get paid to write down your thoughts regarding a specific video game title. Getting paid to play games? Who wouldn't want that? Since you currently pay to play games, it was a trifecta of awesomeness. You didn't have a crappy job, you played games, and you got paid to play them.

Of course, whenever we did get the idea to review games, it seems we weren't quite eloquent enough to hold our own attentions, much less that of the reader.

Still, there were those of us that would try. And fail.

The videos below show a nineties era game review. Notice how in the first one, regarding Goldeneye, he states that the game is too hard, and that the game gets boring, and that he wants more cutscenes. Also note that he says he didn't play multiplayer, and that nobody buys a game for multiplayer.

Then think about how Goldeneye ushered in a new era of multiplayer games, and changed the shape of party gaming.

Now watch this:



Then watch this (which has nothing to do with goldeneye).

About halfway thru this guy's review does he say something so surprising I had to stop the video and listen for it again:



It all makes me think I should have gone and done it anyway.

Still, here's more of this crappy review company, in case you're interested in revisiting the past. (If you want to get a look at the guy whose annoying voice you've been listening to, try this link.)