Here Comes a New Challenger!

by Marcello Goldberger

Hello Internet!

I'm a native Washingtonian with a mind for pop-culture and media and a major in cinema studies. My lifelong loves are film, comic books, and of course video games. I live hard. I dork hard. I will be contributing to the site primarily as the audio/video producer. Press Pause to Reflect will be wielding podcasts and videos like they were Link's Master Sword and Hylian Shield.

I started gaming as a wee lad and show no signs of stopping. I have owned in my lifetime, console-wise, a NES, Sega Genesis, Playstation, Nintendo 64, PS2, Gamecube, Wii and PS3. On the portable front I have owned a Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advanced SP, DS lite and I hope to acquire a PSP for my forthcoming birthday. You know, that is a lot of gaming systems when you stack it up like that. Sweet!

I spent the formative years of my gaming life being primarily a lover of platformers, especially Sonic 1, 2, 3, & Knuckles. When I visited my friend who had a SNES I was introduced to the epic majesty of the RPG and spent much of my teenage years Final Fantasy-ing it up. RPGs and my love of film and comics have made me crave a strong story and characterization from games more than anything else. As I've grown, my tastes have matured a bit and I'll basically play anything that offers an interesting experience. I am always game for a solid beat-em-up like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden or puzzler like Braid or Portal. I'll play fighters but nothing gets me more pumped than playing co-op with some friends. As far as I'm concerned video games have always been a social experience and the rise in online multiplayer and a dedicated presence online has done nothing but enhance that a hundred-fold.

I'm digging into this blog because I find that there is a distinctive lack of focused critical discourse on video games in general. While there are, of course, plenty of people doing good work out there on the nets I think the more maturely we present ourselves as a group and the more willing we are to critically examine the games that we are playing, the easier it will be to make the industry grow up along with us. Hopefully with the modern tools of blogging, podcasts, and videos we can help gaming move that much further forward.

Video games, I challenge you!