Gaming: CRYSTALxLIGHT78
I love video games. Always have, though it wasn't until my cousin let me play her Gameboy Color that I truly fell in love with gaming. My mom bought me one the following year and I stupidly traded it in towards a Gameboy Advanced SP years later when those came out. If you see a grape Gameboy Color on Amazon or Ebay, let me know because I do want to re-buy it. But honestly, playing my dad's Nintendo 64 in the late 90's whenever I was at his house primed me to enjoy video games. The real boom I guess you could say happened when my dad bought me the PS2. My casual gaming Gameboy was nothing compared to how hard I fell for console gaming.
Like a lot of 90's kids one of the first video games I ever played was probably Super Mario 64 or 007 GoldenEye. (I need to buy a Nintendo 64 and those two games as well... One day Amazon. One day.) My favorite first game happens to fall into my absolute favorite series. Grand Theft Auto. My mom didn't actually check the game when I asked for it. I mean, the series name says it all. I couldn't possibly do anything serious, crazy, or illegal in real life but game life was free for all. Everything is legal in game life. Game life? Game life. That doesn't sound right because it's not right and I'm blanking on what I should actually call it. Moving on.
Grand Theft Auto is my favorite game series followed by the Sims, Bioshock, and God of War. How did 11 year old Crystal know enough about GTA to ask for it along with the PS2 her father was already thinking of buying her? Well, my longest running best friends brother, that's how. I say this because I'm three years older than her and our moms were high school best friends so we grew up together. Her older brother would play GTA: Vice City in his room. It was by far the most fascinating game I had ever witnessed. I had become pretty decent at race car driving games with my cousins Playstation the year or so before so witnessing a game where you can not only drive but get out of the car and interact with people had me shook. He never really let me play it but I was so into the now horrid graphics that I asked for it. Screw Barbie or Bratz, I needed to hunt my enemies and build my empire. (Remember Bratz dolls? They had no feet. At least Barbie had feet...)
Not only did I get GTA: Vice City, but GTA 3 was combined with it in a double pack. GTA 3 would take me the longest of all of the GTA games to complete because it was such a bad game. Maybe I'll replay it one day, but it wasn't as fun as any of the others and it was depressing. Much like the movie Twilight, the setting for GTA 3 was bleak and rainy and not even breaking the law could make it better.
Not long after that I received the Sims Bustin' Out. One of my favorite Sims games and where I differ from so many long time Sims fans. I didn't start with the Sims on PC like so many others. My mom and I got our first computer when I started high school (more on that later). Thus, my mind was blown when I got the Sims 3 and discovered the fact that second floors and basements were a real thing. I don't remember asking for the Sims but maybe I did or my mom just bought it to give me something that didn't have me plotting out against Lance Vance. Either way, I fell in love with this franchise next and decided that instead of running over hookers in Vice City, running around after my evil "step-dad" Malcolm so I can kick him out of his one story mansion seemed like a viable next step.
From there I grew with the series on the PS2 and then transitioned to only wanting to play on PC after the Sims 3 (the best Sims stage out of its current 4 stages).
Buying the Xbox 360 and branching out to more games and online play for the first time ever had made me thinking I was going to be a gamer or a game designer at first. I loved video games and it's all I did besides read and watch TV shows not appropriate for me. I was actually chosen to go to the Art Institute of Atlanta for a summer program in high school because I seriously thought that this was my life's goal. Video games, a creative atmosphere, and if I had to go to college, it might as well be somewhere fun right? Wrong. I quickly realized on day two that video game design was not what I expected and the kids designing posters for movies in the graphic design program seemed more my speed because it seemed more along the lines of what I actually wanted to do design wise. Hence My first semester of college being Graphic Design. That first semester in college, however, made me realize that I had jumped ship from the Titanic with game design to the Poseidon with graphic design. (If you've never seen Poseidon, you should cause it's a good movie, but it's also a large cruise type ship that sinks and kills hundreds of people as it does. Just like the Titanic, which I hope you've seen.) I went from one sinking ship of a career idea to another before the true and practical life savor that was film and writing came along to save me because it has always been there. Floating on the side, disappearing among the waves for when I realized that only it could save me from my career confusion. (More on how I kept denying film and writing as a passion until college.)
Even though I abandoned that dream, I never abandoned gaming even when college ruined it and the act of reading books for fun.
This is where my soon to be YouTube channel comes to play. CRYSTALxLIGHT78 was my first ever gamer tag for online play. Shout out to Halo 3 for teaching me how to talk trash with the best of them!
When I got my own Laptop and discovered Steam, I chose the same profile and did the same with my PS3 and now PS4. I've never changed it, but thought about it when other friends were realizing that their gamer tags were too childlike or dumb for their older age. It's stood the test of time and yea it may not be that creative since it's basically taken from the drink "Crystal Lite", but I actually use to call myself that when I practiced Karate so it kind of made sense at the time.
For clarification, I called myself "Crystal Lite" in Karate. If I had used my full gamer tag for karate, that would've been questionable and pretentious and just not a good move. I never got my black belt but I was a test or two away from my red belt. I'll go back one day. (cough cough donuts exist so maybe not cough cough)
This is why I have chosen to name my gaming channel CRYSTALxLIGHT78. Because I have always kept the name (even for Minecraft) and what better continuity for gaming videos? This is where the Sims comes back in because I will be first doing Sims 4 house building videos. Maybe even some Twitch live streaming, if anyone cares, too. I had a few houses I uploaded to the Sims 3 community back in the day and a ton of people liked them so that coupled with the fact that I loved the Sims house building videos and the act of house building itself has finally manifested itself unto me doing my own channel! Finally. It's been a long time coming.
I'm excited for this channel and it will be completely separate from my own personal channel that I will start before the end of 2018. This is for fun and to communicate with others in the Sims community about anything and everything Sims related. This does mean that it's a Sims only gaming channel. I'll branch out to other games as I see fit. Whatever game makes me happy and makes me want to share with the world. Thus, GTA let's plays will probably be a thing in the future.
If you're up for watching me play some vid-ja games (Yes I said "Vid-ja") then please come on over and like and subscribe once the channel is up and running. I'll post a link here and have it linked back to my blog as well for easy access once it is.
If you don't like video games or the Sims then I guess you can just eat donuts or have a life, whatever feels right for you.
