Author: Luis Gonzalez

When most people think about video games, they think about Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft and Sony. They think about controllers and consoles, computers and keyboards, but video games haven’t always been played like that. Remember Tiger Electronics? Yeah, so do I. I grew up watching my oldest brother play Street Fighter and Sonic on those sturdy plastic bad boys. But me? I never had one of my own. In fact, I hardly ever played them.  By the time I was old enough to understand what the hell was going on around me, physical electronic video game systems like these took a very different turn. What did I play with? I played with Scannerz, Digivices, and Tamagotchi.

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I caved and bought a PC just under a year ago… and, to tell you the truth, I can’t even remember why I did it. There was probably a pros and cons list involved, though. “Oh yeah, I need it for work” was most likely at the top of that list. To be fair, I’ve been very productive with it since I’ve had it. I’m writing this from it right now, actually. So maybe that “pro” was more justified than I thought. But the real reason I bought a PC was to take my gaming to the next level. I’d spent years looking on as PC gamers played games I’d never get to and I’d been keeping tabs on them ever since. My first few months as a PC gamer were spent exploring this enormous backlog.

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Introducing Rivals, The Inner Gamer’s newest blog series. Rivals is all about eSports; its history, its players, and its fans. This growing industry represents some of the most passionate video gamers in the World and it is our mission to tell their stories. Every few weeks, a member of our staff will examine a current or historical eSports topic and articulate their thoughts on it to you, our readers.

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The early 2000s are home to some of my fondest childhood memories. Organized sports, slumber parties, the Cell Saga and, admittedly, Total Request Live. The turn of the century was a cultural apex to which many of my current tastes can be traced, including my obsession with video games. This era was dominated by the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but at the time, I gravitated toward the familiar. The Nintendo Gamecube and the Sega Dreamcast were my childhood consoles of choice and I played just about everything on those bad boys, from Soul Caliber to Zelda and back. But of all the games I played in these very formative years, it was Sonic and his unlikely companions that have stuck with me the longest. And no, I’m not talking about Tails or Knuckles or Dr. Eggman. I’m talking, of course, about Chao. Continue reading

Introducing The Indie Minute, a new short-form blog series about our favorite independent video games. Every few weeks, a member of our staff will write a 300 word-long blog post (a roughly minute-long read) about their current indie game obsession. Each post will highlight a different independent video game, its premise and what about it makes it so excellent. Our goal with this series is simple: to provide insight into the largely unexplored world of independent video games to you, our readers, and to grow as gamers in the process. Continue reading

I’m headed to the airport now. Billboards whizzing by, nerdy reminders of what brought me to Los Angeles. The promise of huge games, bright lights and awesome tech. I’m nearly 24 hours removed from my E3 experience and you know what? I can confidently say that it wasn’t great. No, this doesn’t mean I hated it or that it was all for naught, but what it does mean is that, holistically, it didn’t sit right with me. Believe me, I wish that weren’t the case. Last year’s conference was an absolute blast and I had high hopes that I’d find myself feeling the same this year. Not this time. Not even close.

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E3’s developer conferences have all come and gone and the show floor is now open for business. I’ve had a bit of time to sit on the announcements of the last few days and am collectively both surprised and disappointed. I went into this year expecting a lot from certain folks and less from others but have found those realities to be completely flipped. Overall, this year’s conferences were “OK.” These are my thoughts.

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