First!

Ok folks. It's time to do it real style, whatever that means. Welcome to my blog!

This post is gonna be a big one and it's basically a cut and paste from a little thing I wrote and sent to a bunch of gaming websites. As you will see, I'm trying to break into gaming freelance writing and I thought to myself, "hey, I should make a blog about it!"

So here goes nothing!

I am a 23 year old kid who never wants to grow up. I have a degree in molecular biology and anthropology (odd combination, I know) and work full time in environmental health and safety, but my passion is video games. In fact, I have said more than once that if I could go back in time and speak to my younger self, I would encourage him to go into programming/design so that I/he could work in the industry. While I love gaming with all my heart, I am not one-dimensional. I love other things as well. I love all things science fiction; books, movies, games (both video and traditional). I love high fantasy and tabletop RPGs. I love trying new things and forming opinions about those things. A natural extension of that is my love of expressing those opinions to others in the form of lively debates or intense discussions. Additionally, I love to write. I am currently working on my first novel and have been wanting to try freelancing since I graduated university and I thought to myself, “What better arena than the one I am most passionate about?”

My desire to participate in the industry is even stronger now that I live near and work in New York City. I walk down the street and I see all kinds of things related to gaming; people wearing gaming related apparel, small gaming shops, advertisements. I just began working here, so I haven’t had a lot of time to explore yet, but I know for a fact that many developers have offices here, not to mention Nintendo World. Which brings me to my next part: Nintendo. I am a huge Nintendo fan. I own every iteration of Nintendo handheld gaming systems and can’t get enough of the games that they develop and publish.

Interestingly, for the vast majority of my gaming career, I considered myself a PC gamer. I respect consoles (I own a 360, but I am going to upgrade soon), but I always found myself back at my desk, headphones on, furiously clicking away, engrossed in the latest battle. My rig is custom built and very up to date. I say that this is interesting because since I went to college in 2010, I made the shift to handheld gaming. This is when I discovered my aforementioned love for Nintendo. Since about 2011, I would consider myself more of a mobile gamer, due primarily to the fact that I am constantly on the go. I never leave home without at least one handheld console (sometimes two! I have a Japanese 3DS that I use to play Japan-exclusives) and while I have very strong opinions on the topic of smartphone mobile gaming (particularly current mobile gaming business models, I’m looking at you, “freemium”), I nevertheless find myself on QuizUp or some tower-defense game, draining my battery for a few precious minutes of gaming. Mobile gaming, in all its forms, is what I most want to write about, as it is what I mostly do, but I want to write about PC gaming and other gaming topics as well.

Systems I own:
-Custom, high end, gaming PC
-Every Nintendo handheld
-Xbox 360
-A modded Wii (this was a very fun project which I will write about later)

Interests:
-Strategy games (turn based, real time, it matters not)
-Action RPGs
-“Pure” RPGs
-Casual games
-Puzzle games
-The occasional shooter, if it is crafted well
-Platformers, particularly of the indie variety (Shovel Knight and Steamworld Dig come to mind immediately for me)

I'm gonna keep the content flowing so I hope you enjoy!