About

The idea behind this blog is to share some of our thoughts and opinions on the gaming from the perspective of average Joe gamers, and maybe generate a little discussion along the way. Here’s who you’ll find contributing their thoughts from time to time:

Ben (UK – Site Creator/Writer)

I’ve been playing games for about as long as I can remember, more or less, harking back to the days where we had a Spectrum, Commodore Plus/4 and a Commodore 16. I imagine my parents figured gaming was something I’d grow out of as I got older, but the gaming industry seems to have grown up with me and I’m still an avid gamer to this day, perhaps more so now as the whole ‘job’ thing allows me to pick up more games than my pocket money used to fund (and as it happens, amusingly my parents have become gamers themselves in recent years).

Over the years I’ve tried to have access to every system going (I don’t really subscribe to the whole fanboy way of thinking), owning everything from a MegaDrive through to the current-gen consoles (including the lovely Dreamcast, which remains one of my favourite consoles). In fact, the only current-gen console missing from my line up is a Wii, which I’m still holding out on despite the temptation of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. When you factor this in with my complete lack of will power when it comes to buying games, it becomes understandable why my backlog of games looks the way it does.

Dave (USA – Writer)

I’ve been a gamer for about 20 years now. I started with an NES action set that came with a copy of Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt, two controllers, and a light gun, back when systems came bundled with things by DEFAULT. My favorite game of all time is Mega Man 2, which was the first game I fell in love with back when I was a young’n.

A lot of people have their favorite system, but I truly can’t pick one. The original NES harbors so many early memories, while the Super NES probably has arguably the greatest bunch of games ever crafted, while the PSX and PS2 have probably the biggest and most diverse library, and bigger overall number of great games.

This generation, I own an 360 and a Wii, and am much more selective about games now than I ever was. I’m far more fussy about spending $60 than I used to be back when I didn’t have rent to pay. Regardless, gaming is still one of my ultimate passions, and I feel like a kid at Christmas every time a new Mario, Metroid, or Zelda game comes out. And with Mega Man 9 on the horizon, it’s going to be an extremely welcome blast from the past.

Skills (Canada – Writer)

The mysterious Canadian. Actually, not so much mysterious as lazy and angry.

Jay (USA – Writer)

Jay, along with talking about himself in the third person, quite enjoys just about anything to do with video games.  He subscribes to the “wide but not deep” school of gameplaying, so while he’s played a significant chunk of games, he’s rarely finished them.

He likes to think this gives him a wide-ranging view of different genres, but in reality it just makes him a loser.

He’s also just finished a 4-year stint selling video games to children and their clueless parents, and is ready to rant about what is broken in the retail end of the industry just as quickly as the actual games themselves. Be warned…

Devin (USA – Writer)

As corny as it sounds, gaming has been my life. I started doing it at a young age (I was around 3 or 4 when my sister and I got our NES), and I’ve been doing it ever since. It may have taken a backseat to other obsessions at times (toys, anime, TV, etc.), but it’s never been completely out of my life. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t playing a game. Even when I was a kid growing up pretty poor, I would just replay all the games I beat over and over again, just to be playing a game.

As it stands now, the only current systems I own are the DS and the PS3. I’ve always been one for few systems and lots of games rather than all the systems and not that many games, so even though I only have those two systems, I own a lot of games for them (most notably over 200 for the DS). It’s not that I don’t like the other systems out there, I just don’t feel there’s enough unique titles out there to justify owning more than one at the moment. And it’s not a new thing for me either, as over the years I’ve always only owned one console (starting with the NES, to the SNES, to the PS1 and then to the PS2 until finally now with the PS3) and usually one handheld (GBC, GBA SP, and now DS).

Lucas (Canada – Writer)

The year is 1990. A seven-year-old boy sits, in rapt attention, before a tube TV with knobs on it; hands quivering as he holds the rectangular mass that is an NES controller. He’s played video games before. Star Tropics, Super Mario Bros, sure. The classics. But never anything like this. He’s just signed on as a Light Warrior, setting off to bring the glow back to the elemental orbs, darkened by the elemental fiends. His band of intrepid would-be heroes set off from the city and trekked north, laying waste to Garland and saving the Princess.

After that inciting incident, I just never looked back. I liked video games, but RPGs brought me into a lush world that just wouldn’t let go. I’m not afraid to admit that first taste transitioned into an obsession that haunts me well into my twenties. I own most every console since the NES, and I look back on those classics with the sepia-toned nostalgia that just never quite fades, and I’m constantly searching for that next hit—the game that will suck me in and give me that same sense of awe, discovery and wonder that the earlier titles did.

A bit of a genre troll, I admit, and my backloggery will attest to, I still branch out from time to time and test the waters elsewhere, but always with my main focus being on story and how it comes across within the medium. Between academia, drinking, drugs—stay in school kids—I’ll do my best to update people with my opinions. Cheers.

Chris (USA – Writer)

My parents may have made a huge mistake in 1987. They bought an NES, and they let me play Super Mario Brothers. I was three years old at the time, and it set me on a path towards video gaming probably for the rest of my life.

Not that I’m complaining. Video games, from the lowliest little Flash games to the newest blockbuster console games, have kept me sane and out of trouble for all these years. Nowadays, they’ve taken a slight step back from the limelight, now dominated by work and building a family, but I’ll always find a chance to play something in my downtime.

Unlike most people my age, however, I’m almost strictly a PC gamer. A lot of that is due to the aforementioned family-building (no complaints, honestly) and a little to do with the fact that it’s so much easier to pirate PC games. I guess I could be part of the reason PC gaming is considered to be “dying”. Nevertheless, I still play my GameCube, my PSP, and Game Boy Advance, and, every once in a while, my Genesis or even my Dreamcast.

Eric (USA – Guest Writer)

Eric is the site creator of, and a writer for The Fundamental and will be writing some guest pieces for us from time to time.