Answer: I started when I was about 5. The first game I played was the original Mario Bros. You know? The one that was hard as hell. It wasn't my console it was my brother's but yeah my brother or sister always had a console for me to play.
Question #2: What was the first console that you owned?
Answer: It was the Sega Genesis. It wasn't mine at first but gradually it was passed on to me by my brother and sister. I remember playing Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter 2: Hyper. For the most part that's about it we had other games but those we're probably the two I played most.
Question #3: What is your favorite genre of video games and why?
Answer: Action/Adventure. Anything along the lines of Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham City or Legend of Zelda. I like them so much because they're so versatile, you know, they can encompass many different things in one game. One of the most memorable moments in an Action/Adventure for me would be getting past the Water Temple in one of the Zelda games. It's so doggone difficult to beat those things, most of the time just because of how confusing they are.
Question #4: What are your top 5 favorite video games?
Answer: Resident Evil 4, Batman: Arkham City, Ocarina of Time, Silent Hill 2 and then Pokemon: the original Gold & Silver.
Question #5: What's the most agitating thing to you about the video game community nowadays?
Answer: The fact that most young gamers don't know the history of video games. It's like most of the games are changed to the action/adventure genre, which diminishes the strength of other genres. While action/adventure is my favorite genre I don't want everything to be blended together. Shooters too, I mean heck, lately they've just been combining the two because of the popularity of both genres. A perfect example of this taking away from an already great franchise is Resident Evil 5. It's just that I expected the game to actually be scary, or at least closer to Resident Evil 4 where action and horror were blended together in an acceptable way, not 99 percent action and 0.5 percent attempt at horror. The other 0.5 percent they just kind of gave up.
Question #5: Most disappointing aspect of video games nowadays in your opinion?
Answer: Just the fact that it seems like while games are more able to become an art form and be creative, developers are just taking the easy way out and making something they know will do well in this market. There's no innovation right now because developers want to make games they know will yield a strong profit and because of that so much creative potential is being wasted. A perfect example of that would be call of Duty. When Modern Warfare 1 came out it was interesting and new, but ever since they found a formula people responded well to they've just been milking it ever since.
Question #6: What's one of the best indie games that you've played in the past year?
Answer: It didn't come out a year ago, but I'd have to say Limbo. It really brought back the sense of the old days when people were playing nothing but platformers and added in a darker vibe.
Question #7: What are you looking forward to most, game-wise, in the next year?
Answer: It's between Resident Evil 6 and Assassin's Creed 3. I expect Assassins's Creed 3 to be game of the year, enough said. I expect Resident Evil 6 to bring much the same to the table that RE4 did in terms of blending horror with action so fans of both RE4 and RE5 have something to look forward to.
Question #8: What's the game you feel you are the most skilled at?
Answer: I'd have to say Street Fighter because I've literally been playing it since childhood. I'm also really good at first person shooters, whether it's Halo or Battlefield and the only reason I'm good at them is because I put the time in, I mean, shooters aren't terribly hard to get good at as long as you put a little time in. Being good at fighting games is harder though because you have to go beyond the instruction booklet. You have to know such technical aspects like frame advantage and specific match-ups so you're almost never fighting with the same style or mindset, especially with all the online players.
Question #9: Why do you still play games? What about them draws you in?
Answer: Out of all the art forms out there, whether it be TV, Movies, paintings, music or books I feel it is the one form that is growing quickly and ascending to a point where other art forms are not. Movies seem to be generally getting worse every year and even though many people think games aren't art you can definitely tell by the amount of people games draw to the type of creative minds working for game companies that gaming is truly grabbing people's attentions.
Question #10: PC gaming or console gaming and why?
Answer: Console gaming. I never really had a strong enough PC to fully appreciate what PC gaming has to offer and I've always felt more comfortable with a controller in my hand than a mouse when it comes to controlling a video game.
Anthony Pickens is a Journalism major from St. Louis that attends Southern Illinois University. He hopes to someday be a video game journalist and write for the magazine Game Informer not just doing video game reviews but write cover stories that are featured on the front page of the publication. He wants to write gaming articles nobody else has knowledge of because he believes it carries more weight than just the typical review. He can be reached at apickens5@siu.edu and will be writing a Madden review for this blog as well as some other game related pieces in the near future.
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