A little man in a jumpsuit riding a rat bike,  zooms in and out of traffic on some highway in Kenya,  nearly hitting a cow that, for some reason, has decided to take a nice morning stroll in the middle of the road, and just when he thinks he is out of dangers way,  another motorcycle pulls up beside him and he get a face full of a led pipe as the new racer swings away with astonishing fury and vigor. The force of the blow sends the little man and his bike flying off to the edge of the road, but he corrects in time to get back next to the man with the led pipe, and when the pipe starts swinging again, this time he reaches up and takes it from the guys hand and gives him the thrashing he rightfully deserves.

Road Rash is one of the memories of the times of Sega Genesis that I remember a touch more fondly than most. My Dad and I used to play that game almost endlessly during the early springtime of my life. I couldn’t have been much older than five or six at the time, and my introduction to the Racing Game genre set me up for many disappointments by raising my standards to a point that I had to have some sort of senseless violence built-in with it. Racing games never did get up to par for me until at least the time of the Sega Saturn, with Need For Speed when I could functionally go through and run other cars off the road without my car exploding as a result. Of course these days that kind of racing experience is a dime a dozen, because any one of the genre will allow you to drive recklessly (however, if you are online people get upset, which is why I don’t play Forza online). I watched many genres of games evolve into something much greater than what they really were, and I’ve even watched genres appear out of thin air on occasion (Like GTA), but that’s what anyone born in the 80’s would have seen.

The FPS (First Person Shooter) genre is another one that I can look back on fondly, and it all started with shooting demons and zombies in Doom, for me. That was one of the first games that truly amazed me. All the blood, monsters, labyrinth style maps that you could easily get lost in for hours, and some of the coolest music of its time (goofy sounding computerized versions of what sounds like Metallica), kept me busy from the time my uncle David introduced me to it, to the time that Soldier of Fortune (SOF)was made.  Both games were extremely revolutionary, in the fact that they both had rather immersive 3D maps that you could explore. In Doom you could find hidden passages filled with cool stuff and new enemies that got increasingly scarier for a kid my age. SOF was fun just because it was the first game I played that allowed you to freely aim your weapon, and the bullets were interactive with the body part you hit, if you had the Desert Eagle equipped you could blow a man’s head off, and furthermore, if you had the 9mm all you would do is put a hole in his head. SOF was way before it’s time however, because the only game quite like it was Cold Winter. Call of Duty and Medal of Honor never really got into blowing people’s body parts off, and I think that would still be a good addition to their physics engine.

Last but not least, is the genre of RPG (Role Playing Games). David also introduced this to me, but I didn’t like them at all first. They were way too boring for a little kid I think, and i never really got into them until Bethesda the Awesome, took away the stupid turn based fighting, and made it into a new first person type of game. Morrowind and Oblivion were both amazing games thought up by Bethesda, they both had extremely large worlds that were highly interactive. Oblivion itself was only surpassed by the recent Skyrim. I still don’t think I’ve done everything there is to do in Morrowind or Oblivion, but I also have a tendancy to mod, (so expect an article about modding) which may be the reason I’ve never fully completed these games. I would like to talk about Fable, as well, which I think has been unappreciated by most of the mainstream gamers. The game makes choice it’s core development, and thus makes the world even more interactive than you could realize at first, especially in Fable 2 and 3. It is unique every time you play it, but more than that, I believe it is the most successful merging of RPG and Action gaming ever invented and I will always hold Lionhead Studios in high esteem for it.

I’ve seen video games come from, a squiggly little frog running across the road, to the massive interactive worlds created by the last three Elder Scrolls games, and Grand Theft Auto. I’ve seen games go from 2D to 3D and from simple like Double Dragons, to complicated and bizarre like Spore. I don’t know where they will go next but I honestly can’t wait to see it (no matter how corny that sounds).