I’d like to start off my blog here at CAG by talking about my background a little bit. I am nineteen years old, and I have developed a serious love for gaming. Of course, I was not always a gaming addict, but it did not take me long to get here.

My first passion in life was music. My father is a musician and I started playing drums and guitar at a very early age. I picked up the saxophone a bit later and in high school, jazz music become my number one passion. I was set to play music the rest of my life, and by the time of my senior year, I was torn between attending Rutgers University or Capital University, a small liberal arts college in my hometown. It came down to money and I chose Capital. After only about two weeks, I knew I had to get out. I put in a transfer application to THE Ohio State University, and I have not been happier.

Throughout my entire life I have been gaming, but recently it has taken a big upswing in my life. When I transferred to OSU, I changed my major to history, which I also love. After years of spending a large chunk of my day with the saxophone, I developed a case of TMJ, or temporomandibular joint disorder, which I let go for multiple years. The damage finally caught up with me and I began having serious pain in my jaw that rendered my saxophone playing nearly useless. I have been fighting this for the past nine months or so, and it has had its ups and downs. Without my five or six hours a day spent in a practice room, I needed to fill my void elsewhere. I quickly realized that video games could fill this void.

Unlike ever before, I began playing games upon games. Anything I could get my hands, I wanted to play. I branched off into RPGs, action-adventure, anything really. With so much extra time on my hands that I had never had before, I was eating up games like candy. I was catching up on the games I had missed when I was a kid, and I was loving every minute of it. During this time, I became acquainted with IGN and have been following video game news ever since. I am now a weekly listener of the cagcast, podcast beyond (BEYOND!), and gamescoop. I look forward to games like I never did before. And nine months later, I arrived at extra life.

I first learned about extra life through CAG, and I immediately wanted to do it. I was a bit late to the party, but I was able to reach $156. My original goal was $120, which I later raised to $200. I gathered up a few other friends to do it and we were on our way.

I set out a schedule of the games I was going to play. On the roster I had Alpha Protocol, Star Wars the Force Unleashed, Dead Space, Infamous, Deathspanks 2, and final fantasy X.

I have midterms this week along with some hefty papers that I am finishing up for my history classes, so I decided to spread my time out throughout the weekend.

On Friday night I played about halfway through Star Wars TFU and got a 35% completion on deathspanks 2. Overall I had fun, but I felt like something was missing. The next morning I started at 8 AM and my friends joined me soon after. I put in a bunch of hours to final fantasy X and played through halfway of Dead Space and had a great time getting scared, much to my friend’s delight.

But then something happened that made me realize how much my life has changed over the past nine months. In the spur of the moment, I began playing a co-op game of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light with one of my friends. We played it straight through, and I can honestly say it is the most fun gaming experience I have ever had. I realized that as a person, I had changed and with it, my tastes in gaming had changed. I was no longer the lost, lonely person that I used to be. And for this I owe several things, including video games.

I will continue this blog in the upcoming days. I plan on going in depth of how my gaming tastes have changed with my personality, and how my mood also affects my gaming taste. I would like to start a tradition of finishing up my blog by stating what I am excited for for the week. In this week’s edition….

Fallout New Vegas. I really cannot put into words how excited I am for this game. Fallout 3 was an amazing experience, and I plan on putting in plenty of hours in later this week. This is a day one buy for me. How about you all? What are you playing? What are you excited for? How did everyone enjoy extra life? How has gaming changed you and have your tastes changed over time?