I love video games. If owning a copy of Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu for the Game Boy Advance isn’t evidence enough of that fact, then, frankly, I don’t know how else to convince you, dear reader. However, when looking at my gaming habits as a kid and the jumbled and nonsensical mess that was my library, I don’t know if today I would consider my younger self a “true gamer.” 

Now, obviously, that term is and rightfully should continue to be mocked with many an eye-roll against anyone who uses it unironically. Video games are video games, and anyone who plays them—whether that’s Ninja Gaiden or Fruit Ninja—has the dishonour of calling themselves a “gamer.” 

That being said, it was something that I would think about once I got back into video games a little over a decade ago after taking a bit of a hiatus from the hobby. This notion that I simply didn’t know enough about this medium that I’d fallen back in love with. That in order for me to be accepted into the community I needed to be well-versed in video game history. This is a silly thing to think, of course. But I was a silly guy in my early twenties. 

If I’m honest, though, this mentality–or, at least, the side effect of it–wasn’t the worst thing. Because it opened me up to a swathe of games from different genres and eras that I likely otherwise would’ve never considered; experiences that all, no doubt, contributed to my eclectic tastes in games today and my openness to try weird and wacky titles, irrespective of their genre or release date. The mentality of “I gotta play this or else I’m a fraud” is obviously not healthy, but having a curiosity about gaming’s history, and going out of your way to try beloved niche titles and classics is something that, if you really do love games and are financially willing and able, is enriching and will only further your love for this hobby (this goes for any other medium of art, too).

So, allow me to take you through my journey from being a kid that only ever played Dragon Ball Z games to then returning to this medium with a fervour to devour all it had to offer by spending way too much money and not getting much sleep.

Love, Laugh, and Kamehameha

So if I’m, as the kids today say, “keeping it a band,” I only started playing video games because of Dragon Ball Z. Sure, my parents had gotten me a Sega Genesis for my fifth birthday, for which I had Sonic 2 and some Superman game I can’t remember the name of. And sure, I had friends who had N64s with whom I’d play Smash and Mario Kart. But my entire personality as a kid revolved around teary-eyed Gohan fighting Perfect Cell. As such, the ability to take control of these characters I loved so much and play as them, virtually, was a dream, which is why I was obsessed with playing any and all video games with Dragon Ball in the title. I didn’t care how good or bad the actual game was; if it was Dragon Ball, I played it. 

This would take me on a journey through a few decent games like The Legacy of Goku series and Hyper Dimension, and out-right terrible titles like Ultimate Battle 22, with my journey peaking with the Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi series for the PS2 and Wii. I still remember staying up late at night, endlessly browsing on my dad’s computer researching about Budokai 3 as I eagerly awaited the game’s release; pixel-peeping every screenshot and being blown away by the game’s graphics. That’s how I judged an upcoming console’s power, by the way, by seeing how much better the graphics were on a Dragon Ball game. 

Now, for as obsessed as I was about Dragon Ball, it wasn’t the only game I was playing on my PS2–a.k.a the first console that I actually started to have a “proper” library. I had other games, I just never played much of them. I thought the original Kingdom Hearts was kinda weird but cool with a banger soundtrack, but got stuck with a fetch quest in the opening beach area and quit. I played a lot more of the sequel but couldn’t get past the Olympus Coliseum tournament. I loved the Prince of Persia games and played a ton of the first and third titles but never got around to finishing either (Warrior Within was too dark and scary for ten-year-old me so I never played much of that). And I tried the tutorial area of Final Fantasy X but couldn’t comprehend how a turn-based JRPG worked so I never got past it. I also had Dog’s Life. Make of that what you will. 

I could go on, but the prevailing thread is that video games, unless they had a gaggle of spiky-haired anime dudes shooting laser beams from their palms, often didn’t keep my attention as a kid. I also didn’t know much about the industry at large and didn’t keep up with news feeds on GameSpot and IGN. Though I had a PS2, I didn’t know about Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid, Devil May Cry, or God of War. It didn’t matter, though, because it would only be a couple of years later that I would dive into what I still consider to be the greatest generation in gaming. 

Edgy With A Chance of Wii Sports

The seventh generation of consoles was something special. The Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 will always have special places in my heart as each of them, the Wii and 360 in particular, are responsible for some of my most cherished gaming memories. From playing Wii Sports with the family crowded around the living room to staying up all night with the boys playing through the entirety of Halo 3’s campaign, this was a great time for teenage me. 

I’d gotten a little out of my Toriyama comfort zone as well, trying out the smattering of edgy, iconically brown-and-yellow action games that made up so much of this era of video games. From Gears of War to Modern Warfare to Assassin’s Creed to Red Dead Redemption, I was finally playing different types of games. Even if I still wasn’t finishing many of them–mostly because I was living in Bangladesh at the time and all my games were $2 bootlegs so I could afford to just keep buying random games–I at least gave them a solid college try. The Wii, in particular, quickly became my favourite console with some of my favourite games like Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3–what? You thought I stopped playing Dragon Ball games? Oh, ye of little faith. 

This run wouldn’t last for too long, though, as with senior year approaching and college applications looming heavily on my head, I didn’t have much time to play games. I didn’t know, however, that this little break would end up being a multiple year-long hiatus from video games as a whole. 

The Hiatus & The Return

After high school, I moved to New York City to pursue my love of filmmaking and acting. Being caught up by the spectacle that is The Big Apple and overwhelmed with excitement at studying something I love and meeting new people, I didn’t have much time, nor did I really care, for video games. I didn’t even own any consoles during this time. Two years would go by without me even touching a controller or even visiting Gametrailers.com, a site I would frequent daily during my adolescence. This would all change during a summer break, though. 

Upon arriving in NYC, I’d give my Xbox 360 to my uncle knowing I wouldn’t have much use for it. He wasn’t much of a gamer but loved Fifa so was happy to accept. During the summer a couple of years later, he would come visit me and asked if I wanted the console back. For whatever reason, I said yes. Seeing that classic grey/green console back with me and sitting atop my media cabinet in my apartment made me feel so nostalgic. I went out, for the first time in years, to Gamestop, and picked up whatever game I thought looked interesting. I had no idea what was happening in the industry at this time, so knew nothing about which games got reviewed well or didn’t. The universe was guiding me that day as the game I picked up would be the one that would spark a passion to begin a journey back to the world of video games: Bioshock Infinite.     

Now, critiquing Bioshock Infinite all these years later I can acknowledge that the game is far from perfect with incredibly questionable politics and thematic messaging. Nevertheless, at the time, playing through that game was like playing a video game for the first time. The narrative, atmosphere, voice acting, and characters had me hooked from start to finish and made me realize just how much I’d missed playing video games. But I didn’t want to just get back to playing games on a casual basis, no, I wanted to catch up on not only the games I’d missed in the past couple of years but all the titles I never played that came in the decades prior.

A Decade of Greatness

From 2014 to 2024 I spent many of my waking hours either playing, planning, thinking about, or writing about video games. I would start the first year or so of this journey by going back in time to the punky, leg-warmer-wearing decade of the 80s and the oversized sweaters of the 90s and playing some of the classics from Nintendo’s first couple of systems. Going from playing relatively modern titles to seeing Mario in all of his 8-bit greatness was a little jarring, I won’t lie. And if I’m honest, I didn’t love my time with some of these NES titles as so many of them were just brutally difficult. That being said, both Kirby and Mario proved to be a great time and it was really interesting to see early game design elements and how much they would go on to influence later developers. 

The SNES would be the generation in which I’d find some of my favourite games; games that I still have in many of my “all-time” lists. Games like Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Link to the Past are all masterfully crafted titles that still hold the test of time. I consider the 16-bit era to be one of if not the greatest in gaming history and it’s no wonder the aesthetic is going through somewhat of a renaissance today with indie developers.  

Now, going from what I consider to be the greatest generation of gaming to the worst, let’s talk about the fifth generation of consoles–mostly revolving around the N64 and PS1. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I don’t like this era of video games. Even though it’s responsible for a few of my all-time favourites like Final Fantasy VII, the original Metal Gear Solid, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, I think this was the generation that developers were trying to grapple with how the heck to make video games in the third dimension. I didn’t spend a lot of time with this generation during my journey, only finishing Symphony of the Night and that was mostly because it was still a 2D title. 

Every time I’d boot up a game from this era, it would be really hard to look past the terrible, blocky visuals, and incredibly janky and stilted game mechanics. Don’t get me wrong, Mario 64 was brilliant and impressively modern, but most of my time was spent with the PS1 and a lot of those games just didn’t do it for me. I did, however, finally get around to playing MGS1 and the original FFVII a couple of years ago and can happily admit that they’re both all-time greats, though they both still have some seriously dated design elements that don’t hold up. 

I won’t go through all the games I played throughout each generation over the past decade as that would be ridiculous. But, fellow gamers, take solace in the fact that I have dutifully ensured to cover most of my bases. From long-running franchises like Xenoblade and Zelda to Gabe Newell’s jewels of Portal and Half-Life; modern niche titles like Gravity Rush, and indie gems like Hollow Knight and Limbo, I’ve played a lot of incredible–and some not-so-incredible–games across a variety of systems, eras, and genres, and feel very proud with just how committed I’ve been with this silly experiment.

I’ve taken it pretty easy over the past few months, mostly focusing on more modern titles and games from my backlog that I only really want to play. I also don’t force myself to finish games anymore; if I’m not enjoying something, I’ll move on–something I definitely wasn’t doing a few years ago as I bashed my head in getting through games I was actively despising. I think the biggest thing this past decade has taught me is how many incredible games there are out there, from generations past and from lesser-known developers. It reminds me of a quote from actor-director Peter Bogdanovich who said, “There are no “old” movies really–only movies you have already seen and ones you haven’t.” 

I don’t know if I’m going to walk around with an air of pomp, touting myself as a “true gamer” now. Frankly, I think 10-year-old me playing through Budokai 3 for the umpteenth time is equally deserving of the title. What I would much rather do is, with all the experience this past decade has shown me, reiterate more vehemently the same words from whence I started this video/article: I love video games.