Stepping into the World of Gaming...

In the grand scheme of video gaming experience, you know--beginner, novice, expert, n00b, pwner--you can probably consider me an infant. I am by no means a gamer (as of yet), but maybe I can get there with a little help from you.

Allow me to introduce myself...I am w0lfspirit, and I will soon be investing in my very first Xbox360. Up until now, I have only had experience with the old school stuff: NES/SNES, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, N64, PS1/2, Wii, Gameboy Colour and I have very recently stepped into the wonderful world of NintendoDS and Pokemon TCG. I assure you that I can pwn you at Super Mario 3 for NES; however, give me an Xbox360 shooter game and I’d probably shoot myself first before understanding what happened. But I’ll get there eventually, have no fear.

When my good friend LadySnip3r approached me to co-blog, I had no idea how I could possibly contribute. I thought maybe some reviews; but since I’m so out of the loop, reading my review on Black-Ops would be old news, and I could not possibly do a better review on Pokèmon Black and White than LadySnip3r herself. She asked me to think about gaming and what it’s like getting into it. So what, maybe I’m not a crazy gamer right now but that’s ok with me. I still have the passion to take this wherever I want to go and learn as much as I can along the way. In the mean time, it turns out that I could write an entire blog on what it’s like starting to game and thus far this is what I’ve learned....

Lesson #1: Time Management

I am a typical university student; I have a lot of stuff on my plate and I usually feel like essays and readings take up the majority of my life. That is exactly where time management has come into play. I have recently invested into a Nintendo DS and have started to play Pokèmon Black. Thus far, I love it. It makes me nostalgic for my childhood, when Pokèmon Red/Blue/Yellow owned my life. However, playing Pokèmon Black at my age is a completely different game considering I now want to train all my Pokèmon to equal ability and win every battle so I can earn lots of Pokèdollars. I’m already 20 hours and 55 minutes in and I’m not even close to being the very best like no one ever was. Where did all that time go?!

Currently, I’m in the middle of exams and it has been tricky to get game time in while balancing the very important studying that I have to do. What has worked best for me is a very silly reward system. For example, in preparation for my English exam a few days ago I needed to read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. At first I really couldn’t concentrate. I was in the middle of trying to beat the Nimbasa City Gym and those Emolga were getting the best of me every time. The only way I could get myself through was with a silly little calculation...

5 minutes of reading my way through the Darkness and then 5 minutes of kicking some lightning gym butt. The reward system works well in any situation. If anything, it will help you get through that other, non-gaming stuff so much faster. As long as you have the discipline, this works great.

Really, how lame is that? Why am I writing a blog about how I manage my time? I guess all that I really want to prove to you and to myself is that game life + real life is doable. I’m learning things like that right now. They may be simple and maybe even common sense, but an infant needs to grow into a toddler at some point. Keep following me through my journey into the world of gaming. It’ll be quite the adventure.

Until next time,

w0lfspirit