Non-Gaming Fandom Thru Video Games As A Medium

[Doomsday519]

One thing that I think about every now and then is how things would have turned out if I hadn't picked up a handful of video games. Well, not picked up but more given for free like hand me downs. See, I'm a big wrestling fan. Been watching since 2000, watched a lot of the PPVs thru an illegal cable box which is where I also found out about TNA and WEW(don't look that one up ), went to a good amount of ROH & EVOLVE shows in the 2010s, even went to Wrestlemania 40 Night 1. Some of that I've stated on here a few times already but one thing I never got into is HOW I got into Pro Wrestling.

Back in 2000 my family had JUST gotten a PSOne(i'm talking the slim one and it was our first PlayStation) after having a Sega Saturn with a handful of games for a few years. But we would always visit our cousins' house(play cousins but we grew up like cousin cousins lol) and they always had the coolest stuff. The best Optimus Primal & Megatron Beast Wars Transformers toys, wrestling action figures, and the like. But what caught me every time I visited was their PlayStation. They had a regular one that also came with this adapter which allowed for them to play Japanese games and at their house was the first time I ever played a Japanese import in Dragon Ball GT Final Bout but I was already a Dragon Ball Z fan at the time so them having that just enhanced my fandom. But the things that really got me were their wrestling video games.

My cousins had WWF Attitude & WWF Warzone. Two games that were absolute dogshit but those were games they gave away to us and tho they were trash, I actually look at the time owning them fondly. But then they also gave us the first Smackdown! game and THAT was a game changer. I was obsessed with that game. The season mode, being able to follow a very loose storyline, unlocking wrestlers, creating cobbled together wrestlers. It was everything and at that point was when I officially fell in love with Pro Wrestling. Before that I was doing crotch chops in elementary school and "too sweating" my best friend in elementary school on some NWO Wolfpac shit but knew next to nothing. It wasn't until those video games that I really "got" it and embraced it. Wasn't until some time later in 2001 that I'm watching the final episode of WCW Nitro switching between that and RAW. Watching a movie like Ready To Rumble which furthered my love despite how goofy it was and how much it kinda "exposed the business" to me when I was young.

But enough of all that. Is there anything you got into because of video games?

 

[Pearly]

Most things I got into because of games actually. Warhammer 40k wasn't really something I came to love until all the awesome games started coming out.

Between the ages of 4-14, I kind of played a lot of licensed games based on anime, but it was a golden age where almost all anime licensed games on ps1/ps2 were at least good, with many being phenomenal, this kind of confused me when people thrash licensed games as I had largely only played ones that are actually pretty great. I eventually released they meant licensed shovel ware slop.

 

[qw90700]

Starting gaming when me uncle one day bought a fake NES to my home with only one game: Duck Hunt and its light gun because everyone knew I liked guns so much I was crafting my own guns that shoot rubbish lol (let's not talk about the day I was burning random shit with my makeshift flamethrower to satisfy my pyromaniac ass lol). Before that I had Atari 2600 and played in arcade places. I quickly got bored with them. Atari 2600 games really sucked hard. They were short and nothing meaningful the play on. Arcade games was decent but the logic of paying to play it was stupid for me.

And then I explored NES games, didn't really like many NES games I found at the time except for Bomberman. I liked to burn stuff but I started to enjoy demolishing stuff. Also let's not talk about the day I demolished part of a building that was abandoned half finished for years lol. The only game I really liked a lot was Conta Force because you could play as a guy who can demolish stuff despite nothing really fancy. I really liked to demolish and burn stuff. I always did and will do. It is way better than boring pew pew shooting!!!

Then I bought Sega Genesis and it was when gaming started to mean something real to me. Games were significantly important. They had good graphics, good music, fun meaningful gameplay and all. Before I played Top Gear 2 I didn't care about cars and the concept of racing. In Top Gear 2 you drive a cool car and even modify it. I learned the concept of "turbo" that your car pukes fire and goes faster. I liked this idea a lot ("ｂａｎｚａｉ　ｍｏｔｈｅｒｆｕｃｋｅｒ！！！" lolol). I liked the sense of taking something you have and making it better by changing it in the way you like, I started to love that concept way more than burning and demolishing things via explosion. I started to draw cars despite I really disliked drawing back then. I was coming up with crazy visual modifications for cars. I may have lost interest in drawing cars a long time ago but I got serious enough to make digital artworks as a hobby. I guess I always had it in me but triggered playing Top Gear 2 lol.

So check my profile picture for example, I painted it. You just see an ordinary guy in it but in reality it is my version of how a fire and explosion had a persona there. Hard to explain but whatever I love to do it always involve fire and explosions sometimes literally and metaphorically, even my sense of humor lol.