Mattc0m

I’ve been playing video games for many years. It started when I was young, around 8. My first games I played where Putt Putt, Monster Bash, and SimCity 2000. I remember it was a big day when we finally got Win 95 on our computer, and that was my first glimpse in the software world as well.

First Games

My first game I bought for myself was Command and Conquer. I was completely addicted to it, and went to buy Red Alert when it came out, as well as all the expansion packs. Not much later we got a Playstation (one) for the family. I started my collection on that as well, the favorite of my collection being NFL Gameday ‘99. Though I never owned them myself, I remember Resident Evil and Tekken 2 in particular when I went to my friends’ to play them. Those were my early console memories.

Going Online

Though I played in multiplayer C&C, even dialing up to my friend’s modem on occassion, I never played as a team. My first clan and online FPS was Starsiege: Tribes, and the gameplay quickly grew on me as it became one of my favorite games of all time. I got my best friend, Eric, addicted to it as well. Now we’re both full blown gamers. We joined seperate clans off the bat, though we crossed paths a few times as we joined different teams, neither one of us being a part of a stable organization. Still, we had both become fairly talented in the HaVoC community. I put more hours in Tribes than I have any other game to this very day.

The Next Generation

Not too much later was when the “next generation” of consoles were coming out. I was definitely going to get a PS2, just because I wanted to play all my PS1 games. However, that all changed one day. I went over to Eric’s house, and we loaded up a brand new FPS called Halo. I had actually told him about it was suppoused to be going to the PC, and got us both interested. But when it came to Xbox, I made up my mind as to what console to get. We both got Unreal Championship for Xbox Live, and started our clan called [DA]. It lasted a few months, but we recruited some great players and had a lot of fun. We weren’t a top team, but we were known by top teams for having some crazy “rocket whores.” This entire time I was also going through a huge event in my real life – moving to Thomas, WV. I went from a large college town in Morgantown, to a tiny rural town in the mountains. Still, we were able to keep in touch through Xbox Live, and that was a heck of a lot of fun.

Unreal Championship had its run, and then Return to Castle Wolfenstein came out. Eric and I picked that up, in hopes of reforming [DA]. Alas, it required less personal skill and more teamwork, which our clan wasn’t quite mature enough to deal with. Still, we did well individually, and made a name in the community. I did this by holding the first Xbox Live tournament on RtCW on Xbox Sector (a website), which was ran by Kimo. It was a blazing success, however we weren’t able to follow it up, and Xbox Sector eventually died because of that. Once RtCW had its run, we picked up Soldier of Fortune: Double Helix. Big mistake, it sucked and we quickly dumped that. At that point, there wasn’t much else to play anymore on the Xbox Live. I had some great times playing Morrowind, as it quickly became one of my top games.

Called to Duty

So, every so often I would visit Eric in Morgantown. One day, he was playing Call of Duty for the PC, having quit Xbox Live for a bit. I liked playing with my pal Eric, so I too followed suit and picked up my very own copy of Call of Duty. This presented another challenge, though. I had a crummy computer, and I needed a new one. So I built my first customized PC, a AMD Athlon 2000+ XP, 512mb of RAM, 80gig harddrive, and a GeForce 4 Ti4200 for under $500. That was a very exciting day for me, and loading up my first game of Call of Duty was a moment to remember. Clans again were the focus. Eric and I went our separate ways, but at that point I was fine since I was loving Call of Duty’s multiplayer.

I spent more and more time, and got better and better. Finally, I joined a clan called The Ignoble Order, -=TIO=-. I was a part of the clan for awhile, and I loved Call of Duty’s competitive gameplay. Played in a few matches, and soon I was a competition addict again. However, World of Warcraft came and suddenly the clan turned into mush. And at that point, I had played CoD for about a year, and wanted to apply my skills else where. While things were slowing down with TIO, I started a fansite for Fable (an Xbox game) called FableSector. The site launched about one month prior to the game releasing, and the site was a huge success. It was only one of a handful of Fable fansites, and it was linked to from Fable’s website, Xbox.com, Lionhead’s website, and more. This got me more active on the Xbox for a time.

Master Chief is back!

Then Halo 2 happened. Since FableSector was such as success for me, I started up Halo2Sector. Sadly, there was so many fansites out there it was hard to be noticed, and so it was doomed from the beginning. Still, the FableSector community transferred over, and we joined a Team called “Halo2Sector” for Halo 2. We never played actual matches whole lot, and never got too high. Still, we did play a lot together and had a blast of a time. Halo 2’s matchmaking and multiplayer were amazing, and it was an amazing experience online.

My visit to Halo 2 was short compared to most of my other games. Halo2Sector slowed died off, and so I was left with an inactive team. Still, for the first few months of the game we had a lot of fun. I started looking elsewhere, though, and that’s when Christmas came.

Uncle Sam Wants You!

I got Call of Duty: United Offensive for my Christmas present. I first started playing it just for fun, to test my skills I had gained in the original Call of Duty. To my surprise, I was actually still quite good. Over time, I started coming in first place on servers more and more often, when I realized I should think about joining a new clan. That’s when I first met <505>, and as well as my first clan that I was able to join that had an 18 year age limit. Me being only 16 at the time, my application was denied. Luckily I met an old chap made Walton who was impressed by my skill and attitude, and stuck his neck out on the line for me. This trait has somewhat stuck to me, as I’ll stick up for younger players as long as they give a good performance.

<505> did well, and I played with them for about 6 months. I did very well in our public servers, and quickly was in the competition roster. I soon because the top gunner for the team, clearing out trenches and handling all the short range situations. I made some great plays, and this is also when I started making amateur game footage to spotlight some of my better plays. I was a bit cocky, but not overly so. I also got my first taste of a bit more real competition – namely PUG games. PUG stands for Pick Up Game. It’s essentially a bunch of talented players who sign up for a game, and the teams are randomly picked. I did decent in those, but I quickly realized there were a lot better Call of Duty gamers out there.

Get to the Battlefield!

I was getting bored of Call of Duty, in total I had played the game for over a year. One day while reading PC Gamer, I stumbled on a Battlefield 2 preview. I decided I wanted that – wide open battlefields, much better variety, and more tactics in the gameplay. And the graphics blew me away. I ended up leaving 505, and joined a clan called Hells Katz Squad. They had a huge history of past Battlefield games, and they seemed talented enough.

First few seasons were rough with hk|-. Time went on both the clan and myself started to do better. I eventually wound up as Co-Leader of the team, and our team was a top team in many forms of competition. This was by far the highest level of competition I had played in, playing some of the best gamers in the world at some points. In our career, we were invited to CAL-M for 8v8, were Tier 1 Playoff team in 5v5, were the #2 seed in 5v5, got to Round 2 in the World Tournament, and more. This was a lot more recognition than I was used to, but yet I was a solid infantry player, and made a lot of quick calls on the ground that resulted in wins.

The Future

My next game of interest for competition is Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. It’s a tactical team-based shooter that focuses on fast gameplay and solid team strategies and tactics. The competition looks to be a step up on what most online games currently offer, and the Battlefield community is eagerly anticipating it’s release, as well as myself. I’m currently in a Beta for it, and I’m really enjoying the gameplay!

Other Games

A game I always seem to play is Counter-Strike. I upgraded to Counter-Strike: Source fairly early on, and have been playing that quite a bit. It has some great net code that makes multiplayer more smooth and enjoyable than most games.  I’ve also played multiplayer in Quake 3, StarCraft, and Unreal Tournament 2004. I’m a big fan of single-player games too, with some of my favorites being the Halo trilogy, the Elder Scrolls series, the Half-Life series, OutCast, and many of the Grand Theft Auto games. I play games for both entertainment, for competition, and also as a critic.

I find video games enjoyable on many levels, and I enjoy them on many levels. I play anything from The Sims 2 to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and you know what? I like good games – nearly any game with good production values is a game I’m going to enjoy, despite the genre.

Summary

I’m very focused in PC games. I’ve played Console games, and they offer a certain amount of fun. PC is home to greater competition and games that offer longer legs thanks to the ability to add mods and additions to them. I’m definitely a PC gamer at heart, and hope to continue competing on the PC as long as quality competition-focused games are being released at regular intervals. Like any PC gamer, however, I take pride in my setup. Though it’s starting to get behind the curve, and an upgrade may be in order shortly.