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                                         Hello

Yes, my name is Sumo. With that out of the way, let me say, I like video games. I'm very passionate about them. Some would say fanboy, others would say fan. I say Sa da tay! My first taste of heaven was in 1982, when my family purchased our very own gaming console: The Atari 2600 (the 5200 was too pricey for good ole Pop). From the moment my brother and I put in Track & Field, I knew this would be something forever in my life. Sad and amazing I know, but it's true. 29 years later, here I am. Still as in love with games and their creation as I was when I held my first controller, keyword: controller. I've never been a PC gamer. Not for any arrogant douche reason, but an honest to god fact – I suck at keyboard/mouse gaming. With Atari being my gateway drug to many a future dateless night, enter 1989 and the Sega Genesis. Once I beat Phantasy Star II, in true Downey Jr. fashion, the spiral began. I went from (in order of purchase) the Atari 2600 to NES to Genesis to Super NES to Saturn to PlayStation to N64 to Dreamcast to PlayStation 2 to GameCube to Xbox to Xbox 360 (deceased) to Wii to PlayStation 3. I'd list the portables, but you get the idea. I've spent as much as an AIG executive vacation or could've been educated abroad thrice, but nooooo, I had to play my games. While there have been many regrets (LAIR, VirtualBoy, 32x to name a few), the memories of "wow" and child-like anticipation of new releases, to this day, far outweigh the negative.

                                          Body by

It's simple to write off games as pointless distractions, enablers of the lazy, training for terrorists or cocaine for the soul, but I've always viewed them as 10ft tall Salma Hayeks, whose shoulders I could sit upon swinging my legs, whistling the theme to "Good Times"…p-p-personally speaking of course. Right now, console gaming is lackluster and mind-blowing all at the same time. Things like paying real money for points, unlock "keys" for DLC, friend codes, trophy syncing, ridiculously priced accessories and the stroking of NPD sales data share center stage with subjectively awesome games like Halo: Reach, Gears of War, Mass Effect 2, Trials HD, Heavy Rain, God of War 3, and New Super Mario Wii. The Internet is ablaze with pissing contests and sensationalist barking from everything to the PSN outage to Kinect not being a "core" gaming device to hate and hate and more hate. What happened to just…playing games and enjoying them? Now I've bitched like Kanye at an awards show my fair share, don't get me wrong, but I've been off Haterade for a while now. Clean and sober. 

I'm really looking forward to sharing my thoughts and participating in a community that, for me at least, is made up of gamers like me. If you took the time to read this, thank you!