riri’s webpage

a blinky image saying 'sleep deprived'

my gaming history – a retrospective

estimated reading time: 3 - 4 min

growing up, i really didn’t have much. i did not grow up with many consoles, unlike people in the west. in fact, i wasn’t even aware xboxes or playstations even existed. in the early-to-mid 2000s, i had a famiclone that resembled a keyboard with a catrdige slot, likely some version of 小霸王 (xiǎo bàwáng). but it could as well be any other, keyboard-looking famiclone, i really do not remember anymore... as a kid, this was amazing for me, and i spent hours playing those nes games! for some reason those cloned consoles were known as sega mega, even though they were nintendo clones. i remember one pirated game on the cardige was less than one euro in those chinese owned department stores that sold products of dubious quality.

subor sb-486

image by 20thcenturyvideogames

the humble beginnings

we could never afford the latest and greatest, so my ability to play games was quite restricted growing up. my first computer in the mid-2000s was anything but great. single core processor, 1.5gb ddr2 ram, onboard graphics card. the number of games i could play on that hardware weren’t great, even in that era. unfortunately for me, i had that computer until mid-2010s. so many great games went, came, and became irrelevant in that span of time.

between 2014-2016, i don’t remember the exact year, i got a new pc, but you guessed it, that pc was also so fucking shit! my parents truly tried their best, but what they could afford was weak, and sadly barely usable even by that time’s standards. pentium g3260 and 4gb of ram with no gpu wasn’t exactly the powerhouse! my biggest memory with this pc is playing “elsword”, “lovebeat” and “osu!”. the worst memory is league of legends, the only game that ever made me cry, people are too mean in that game. i played many other games, both on this and my previous computer. although those were usually older, or less demanding games. so, i couldn’t play most of the things people my age were playing at that time.

believe it or not—i still use this pc to this day, although slightly upgraded. currently this computer has 16gb of ram and xeon e3-1265l-v3. at one point, around the time of ram and cpu upgrades, this pc had a graphics card. an rx 580, which unfortunately died due to weak power supply...

cloud gaming and hope

if anything is redeeming about eastern europe, it’s good and stable internet connection. so, this was actually a viable option. while many westerners were complaining how laggy, buggy, and not ready it is. yet, it worked fine for me. this was the first time i could play games. fortnite, overwatch, and similar. i could finally play all those games everyone else was playing! however, everything felt so difficult, frustrating and hard, as i didn’t grow up playing that many games. attempted pc upgrades, and cloud gaming eras overlap, this is a time from 2019-2024.

alas, a modern system

summer 2024. some time ago, i finally bought an xbox series s with my own money. i finally have a system capable of playing games. the only risk i took here is getting it imported from a local seller on a local website, as proper stores have unrealistic and greedy pricing. but hey, i didn’t get brick in a mail, taking this risk, so all is gucci, isn’t it?

picture of console in box

now i can finally try and play many games, while gaming is still frustrating at times, due to my lack of skills, but with combination of games my pc could run, cloud gaming and now my xbox, i’m slowly starting to grasp things. and while i still may be falling behind, i don’t care anymore. you can’t be flamed, if you can’t hear them! (if it’s an online game, i always disable all the comms, for my own sanity and peace of mind). if i just play my games, mind my business, without a care if someone on other side might be angry at me, because i can’t hear their anger, i’ll actually have fun. as they say, delulu is the solulu.

one thing i don’t understand is people’s obsession with keyboard and mouse and saying it’s “better and easier”. and even connecting them to their consoles, as some games now support it... you have no idea how comfortable, and better-feeling it is playing with controller! maybe it’s because my hands aren’t big? i no longer need to stretch my poor hand to manage to move with wasd and hit ctrl/shift and space all at the same time. this movement shenanigans are way easier on the controller, and i'll give away the kbm precision over comfort anytime!

i still haven’t had the chance to play many games on my xbox quite yet, but i’m sure this will be an amazing journey that just begun. from a kid that couldn’t play games, i’ve grew up into an adult that finally fulfilled my childhood dream. i can finally, really, in actuality, play games.


got more to say? email me: hi[at]riri[dot]my

posted on: 2024-08-15 03:19 AM