Video game

IGN SEA Says: Our Personal and Amazing Journey in Video Games, So Far – IGN Southeast Asia


We think we speak for everyone when we say that video games are as amazing as they are magical. They entertain, inspire and enthral us in ways that seemed almost inconceivable merely four decades ago. From the humble Pong in 1972 to epic adventures like Ghost of Tsushima in 2020, video games have the ability to transport us to faraway places in the comfort of our own homes.

 

And, just as we evolve, so too will video games. We may not know what the future holds for us but we’re sure as hell and damn well excited.

In conjunction with Video Games Day on Sept 12, the IGN Southeast Asia team share their personal stories chronicling their journey in video games and how their passion shaped not only their childhood but also helped carve their own path in the industry.

The personal accounts you’re about to read may sound familiar and even strike a chord among some of you, and that just goes to show the universal appeal of gaming. We hope you enjoy reading our stories as much as we did writing them.

Natasha Hashim, Content Producer at IGN Southeast Asia

My name is Natasha and some of you may know me as Tashbunny. I’m a Content Producer at IGN Southeast Asia and I am so lucky to be able to work in a field related to video games – something near and dear to my heart.

My journey into video games isn’t as early or as interesting as most of my gamer friends my age. I was only able to jump into the world of video games with both feet when I was 13 when my father got me a PlayStation 2 to celebrate one of my first huge achievements in life – 5As in UPSR (an important examination in Malaysia).

However, I did manage to get my feet wet earlier with other sorts of games. When I was between four and ten years old, my parents would buy me these educational games called Jumpstart to help me learn Math, English, History and Science. The game is heavily based on the American curriculum instead of the Malaysian one, which meant that half the stuff I learned from the game didn’t really translate well into what I learned in school but that isn’t really the point. The point is that it exposed me to video games at such an early age and showed me the basics of what a video game is.

Since then, I’ve always been fascinated by my cousins playing games on their Game Boy Color, the Game Cube and even the PlayStation 1.

Streaming Sora.

If you asked me which game really set me off into the world of video games, it would be Kingdom Hearts. What made the game extra special is the fact that it was lent to me by a girl I became friends with on the bus to school. We weren’t really friends at the time but we eventually bonded over the games she loaned to me.

Prior to that, the only games I knew were mainstream games such as Tekken, Tenchu and Crash Bandicoot. Thanks to her, I was introduced to the amazing world of RPGs and JRPGs. Suikoden, Final Fantasy, Valkyrie Profile, Radiata Stories, Star Ocean – those were the types of games you’d see me play over and over again.

Growing up, I was very lonely. I have always been very chatty. I loved to talk and most kids my age didn’t like that. My parents were strict; they never let me go out and socialize with friends. Of course, my rebellious nature growing up didn’t make things better either – I was almost always grounded, which means I couldn’t go out and have fun with my friends at the park in the evenings.

That’s why I would always turn to video games to escape my loneliness.

 

Video games took me to faraway worlds, introduced me to amazing music and even got me interested in drawing and writing my own novels back in the day. It gave me so much in terms of creativity and inspiration.

Despite the fact that I was also bullied for liking video games, I stuck to it. My parents were often upset that I’d rather be on my computer or console instead of doing activities better suited to a girl.

I think a part of me decided to stick to this path as a way to show my parents and the world how wrong they were about me and video games. Another part is waiting for that feeling I get when I play “the perfect game” and finish it with this amazing and indescribable feeling in my heart.

Either way, I love video games and how they impacted my life. I am so lucky that it has brought me to where I am today.

Zahra AlHadad, Intern at IGN Southeast Asia

Hi! So I’m Zahra and I’m currently the intern here at IGN SEA. I was honestly so excited to start here and I’m honoured that I even was considered. I continually enjoy my time while learning so much because video games are such an important part of my life.

Bratz

My beginning with video games included games on the polar opposite ends of each other. On one side, I did the normal thing a young girl would when she had a PS2: play every Bratz and Barbie game available. On the other, I frequently played against my father and old best friend in games like Call Of Duty, FIFA, and X-Men: Next Dimension.

I used to stay up as much as I could to grind on Bratz Girlz Really Rocks (a strange sentence considering the game itself) and used both controllers to play both teams in FIFA to make sure my team won and my rank in the league skyrocketed. However, I fell out of it when the PS3 was released because my family decided to not get a gaming console anymore.

It wasn’t until I got my first smartphone when I was reintroduced to it by watching gaming videos on YouTube religiously since I couldn’t afford to buy any console or game. I came back right in during the era of indie horror games like Slender and Five Nights At Freddy’s. And then, the release of The Last Of Us with its amazing story sealed the deal. From then on, I was pulled back to the deep end, introducing myself to all these different facets of gaming. I became an avid fan of the Overwatch League, downloaded Dragon Age into my laptop (that could barely run it), and cried at every slightly emotional story in a game. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

 

For the most part, I was never the most vocal about my love for video games due to the fear of judgement and ridicule. (I was called a Fake Gamer Girl one time too many.) But the love for the medium never waned.

Video games gave me an escape just like any other media, but it’s extra special because it puts me in the world so much more easily. It lets me forget about my problems for a while and sets all of my focus on the task at hand – whether it be to punch the living hell out of someone or make the right story choices (and then probably fail at both). I’ve even grown as a person because these games let me become someone else for a while and experience things differently in their perspective, which allowed me to learn and change myself for the better.

I think it’s easy to see that I wouldn’t be the same person without video games and honestly, I’m proud of that. It’s brought me to where I am today, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Adrian Lai, Chief Editor at IGN Southeast Asia

 

Back in 1999, I remember hunching over a computer inside a cyber cafe, playing my first ever multiplayer StarCraft match with a bunch of other kids. Being the idiot that I was, I spammed the chat with my go-to cheat codes like ‘black sheep wall’, ‘power overwhelming’, and ‘food for thought’. You can imagine how flummoxed I was when they didn’t work.

Cyber cafes back in the day were, well, actual cafes that served just about anything a regular establishment would. Hot food, cold drinks, you name it. But patrons didn’t sit at dining tables; they were busy mashing their keyboard in front of CRT monitors with alarm clocks on them.

I didn’t acknowledge it then, but I loved video games. It just so happens they were pirated video games. In 1997 Malaysia, video game stores were a dime a dozen. Being the idiot that I was, I thought my RM5 (US$1.20) copy of Command & Conquer: Red Alert was the real McCoy.

Duke Nukem 3D 20th Anniversary Edition

I also loved the litany of video games that were at my disposal. Sure, what you call retro games today were groundbreaking pieces of technology for a snivelling, weasel-faced 7-year old like myself. I played Duke Nukem 3D, Xenon and Paperboy on MS-DOS; Time Crisis at the arcades; SNES games on pirated cartridges and consoles, Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis; Bomberman World on the PlayStation; pirated 16-in-1 Game Boy games; and who could forget the virtual pets in Tamagotchi and Digimon?

To channel my competitive streak, I’ve clocked over 10,000 hours in DotA and Dota 2, and I currently represent my company at corporate tournaments for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Looking back, video games are inadvertently the poison and cure for my soul but I’m not the least bit ashamed to say that this is the life.

Dale Bashir, Content Producer at IGN Southeast Asia

I don’t think there was a period in my life where I wasn’t playing video games. Starting with emulated SNES games through a computer software called Emulator King, video games were hand-in-hand with toys and cartoons throughout my childhood. In fact, my very first exposure to Final Fantasy was here, with a pirated Spanish ROM of Final Fantasy VI. Only years later would I find out that the “cool robot game” was one of the SNES’s best games.

One of my favourite memories was when I was five years old. My older brother was 10 at the time and he aced his exams at school. As a reward, my father bought him a PlayStation, with a plethora of fake games to go along with it. The first game we played was Beast Wars, an admittedly shoddy arena fighting game, but it was a pretty good adaptation of the TV show at the time.

<h3>23. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped </h3>While we've ranked Crash Bandicoot 2 higher, it's undeniable just how important the entire Crash trilogy was to the PlayStation legacy – and that largely comes down to just how damn fun and challenging Naughty Dog made those first three games. While Warped's base levels may not be as rewardingly challenging as Cortex Strikes Back's, it still offers plenty of extremely fun platforming levels, mixed in with a host of vehicle/riding challenges. Perhaps the most robust Crash of the original three games, Warped uses its time-hopping set dressing to offer a wide variety of levels, enemies, and tricky create locations, but makes them all feel part of a fun, cohesive whole.

Around this time, we also got Game Boy Colours, though my brother had his start with the original Game Boy first. That’s when we were exposed to Pokemon and were instantly hooked to the entire phenomenon. On a family trip to Hawaii and Japan, we bought a bunch of Pokemon merchandise and even tried out Crash Bandicoot 3 at Narita airport.

One day after school, as I was hanging out with a cousin at my grandparents’ house, my brother brought home a copy of Final Fantasy VII, saying it was the best video game of all time. Naturally, when we booted the game up, he proceeded to name Cloud as himself and me as Barret. If only Vincent was available sooner in the game. We then proceeded to Final Fantasy VIII and quickly declared it as the superior game, due to its realistic graphics. Sadly, we proceeded to skip over Final Fantasy IX, deeming it a step back from what came before. Oh, how wrong we were.

Soon came the PS2, which my brother received after getting good results for the post-primary school exam, UPSR. Some of the first games we got for the system was a myriad of Square Enix games, including The Bouncer, Final Fantasy X, and of course, Kingdom Hearts. We actually saw an uncle play Kingdom Hearts on his PS2 during Eid, and it was definitely mind-blowing. I then proceeded to finish Kingdom Hearts 2 entirely in Japanese because I just could not wait for the English release.

The Best PS2 Games Of All Time

The very first console that I owned was the Wii. By then, my older brother stopped playing video games religiously and I was promoted to Player 1. My little brother was old enough to be Player 2 at this point, and we completed numerous Lego games at the time. Around this time, I also got myself an Xbox 360 and a PSP. This was when video games really became a social tool among friends – we organised after-school Halo matches at my house, and everyone brought their PSPs to school to play Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Dissidia Final Fantasy, and Monster Hunter.

If it weren’t for my older brother, I wouldn’t have been exposed to video games at all. And if it weren’t for my younger brother, I would probably have stuck to pirating video games. He was adamant on getting a PS3, which could only play original Blu Ray games. After a while, it dawned on me that having original games let me collect and display them, giving me a sense of pride in owning games and being a video game enthusiast.

Later on, I bought a Wii U and an Xbox One. While the Wii U may have been seen as Nintendo’s lowest point, I had fond memories of the games I played on it, like Smash 4 and Breath of the Wild. Even with the Xbox, if it weren’t for my younger brother convincing me to sign up for the Game Pass, I probably would have gotten less mileage from that console.

Even though video games have been a big part of my life, I never for once thought I would end up as a writer and reviewer for IGN. I think I can firmly say that if I were to go back in time and tell five-year-old me that we get to play video games for a living someday, I think he would be ecstatic for his future.

Amran Rahmat, Video Content Producer at IGN Southeast Asia

<b>A Mega Drive Down Memory Lane</b> <br /><br /> During the freeze frame shot in the opening of the movie, eagle-eyed viewers may notice a road sign reading

My earliest memory when it comes to video games would be sitting and watching my older cousins play the Sega Mega Drive. I wasn’t allowed to play with them since I was only 4 and liable to break the controller (kids need to be at least 5 to play video games or so they say) but I remember clearly being captivated by games like Vectorman, Street Fighter 2, and Fatal Fury. It was definitely something I hadn’t seen or experienced before and I knew then that I wanted to always play games.

Unfortunately for me, my mom was super strict when it came to playing games and we grew up without ever owning a console. But my brothers and I didn’t let that stop us. We used to secretly install Duke Nukem and Doom on my dad’s PC whenever he wasn’t using it (though I’m sure he knew so thanks for not busting us). There was once when we got a classic Game Boy but it was confiscated after a month and never seen again (read: trashed) because we used to fight my brothers to get more playtime.

Being the only kid in primary school without access to a console bummed me out, especially since I couldn’t get any of the gaming references they’d bring up. So I did what any normal kid did and bought memory cards to use at other people’s homes. I specifically made friends with people who had consoles just so that I could play games. Not the nicest thing I’ve done but the thing about video games is that regardless of the fact that I started these friendships with the intention of using their consoles, I ended up forming lasting bonds.

It's a Doomguy!

A lot of my fondest memories growing up had video games involved one way or the other, which I’m only realising as I look back to write this piece. I once broke my right collarbone after falling down a hill and I remember my brothers accommodating to my injury by only us working together in single player games. I controlled movement and someone else would shoot. It was also one of the few ways I’d bond with my much older brothers. We’d finish games together even though we were at very different levels in life.

This is one of the only mediums that allows you to experience fantastical journeys with others. I remember the satisfaction of finishing Obscure 1 and 2 with my best friend from primary school and it would have been completely different had it have just been us watching a gameplay of it online. Being able to actually control characters and what they do to progress the story connects you to the material on a much deeper level.

For me, video games are unique in that you not only get to watch cutscenes and see the progression of the character you play, but your actions dictate whether or not you succeed or fail in the endeavour. Their hardships are yours as well. Every time you’d fall off a colossus, you could actually feel it chipping away at your motivation to keep going and sometimes you just have to give up and rest. But the next day comes and you try again, inching closer to victory, only to find out that there are 11 others you need to beat in order to finish the game.

<h3>8. Tekken 3</h3>The universally-acclaimed Tekken 3 remains one of the most -respected fighting games ever made, but it was its astonishing ability to lure in even non-fighting -game fans that helped make Tekken 3 one of the most iconic games on the console. Adding a third axis to the action and allowing players to dodge left and right, circling their opponents, was a seismic shift for Namco’s seminal slugfest. A cocktail of wacky cinematics, eclectic characters, and bruising beatings, the King of Iron Fist tournament is the undisputed champ when it comes to PSone fighting games, and will always remain up there with the very best fighters in the business. At the very least, it’s definitely the reason an entire generation of gamers knows what capoeira is: cheers, Eddy Gordo.

It’s an exhilarating feeling that I could never repeat with anything else I did in life. Until I found myself making videos. Wrapping up at 3am after several days of shooting a video felt as satisfying as it was to finally beat Devil Jin in Tekken 3. So to find myself several years later being able to do the two things I love, I don’t think I could be any more appreciative of where my life is now. The only thing that could make this better is if someone were to give me a next-gen console which I would appreciate a lot.



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