Personal

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Thank you for taking the time to familiarize yourself with who I am as a professional. Feel free to keep scrolling if you’re interested in learning more about some of my personal interests, like music, movies, and gaming!

I grew up learning how to play video games on both an original PlayStation and a Nintendo 64. Their evolution from the pixels that I grew up with to the cinematic masterpieces that they are today has been exciting to watch.

Below, you can find links to my Steam profile and my Xbox/PC gamertag. Feel free to check out some of my goofy captures by clicking the Xbox link.

Before I can list my current favorite games, I need to list games that defined my love for the medium. These are games that influenced what I believed could be achieved in a video game. Many of them are games that I grew up on and shaped my love and obsession.

• Fallout 3 - The gratitude I feel toward the Fallout series is unmatched by any game. I’ve spent hundreds of hours exploring the wastelands. Fallout 3 was the start of that.

• Spyro the Dragon - Along with Crash, these two games were some of the first games I played. I couldn’t get enough.

• Crash Bandicoot

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - After years of playing the various campaigns of WWII, COD 4 was a breath of fresh air in the shooter genre. Playing split-screen against my brother and his screen-peeking friends gave me the competency required to play shooters competitively.

• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - San Andreas was my first foray into an adult world I did not totally understand. After years of trying to run people over in Midnight Club, I was finally able to pancake the poor citizens of San Andreas. I was introduced to a game that included great music and a hilarious sandbox.

• Rock Band - I still dream about being a drummer after playing for hours to refine my skills so I could finally play on expert mode. Guitar Hero may have introduced me to the music game genre, but Rock Band completely captured me.

• Mario 64 - Similar to Spyro and Crash, Mario 64 was one of those games that really grabbed me as a kid. As soon as I threw that baby penguin off of the cliff, I was hooked for good.

• Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire - My dad introduced me to Star Wars at a young age and I loved it. Shadows gave me the opportunity to explore pieces of that world in first-person.

• Condemned: Criminal Origins - I grew up in a religious house where horror was pretty discouraged, if not prohibited. A friend brought Condemned over after it had just come out and we spent the night with the lights off investigating brutal crime scenes and screaming at the frightening moments. It was the first game that showed me just how terrifying video games can be.

• The Last of Us - The Last of Us had storytelling unlike any other game that I had played. Before The Last of Us, there were games and movies. After I played it, they were no longer two very different mediums. They seemed closer than ever.

• Rocket League - I typically stay away from sports games because I don’t like sports. But there’s something so addicting about Rocket League.

Below are my current favorite games. While some games will remain classic favorites of mine, this list is constantly changing.

• Fallout 3

• Fallout New Vegas

• Red Dead Redemption 2

• Resident Evil 2 Remake

• Resident Evil 8: Village

• Rocket League

• Wolfenstein: The New Order

• Cyberpunk 2077 (now that it’s fixed)

• Peglin

Like every other person on the earth, I love music. I have been trying to expand my tastes in music lately, but a Spotify stat tracker tells me that I still only ever listen to movie scores. Oh well.

I’ve always loved watching movies but didn’t start thinking about them critically until I was in high school and discovered IMDb. From then on I began critiquing films. Please click the button below to access my Letterboxd! There, you can find my latest viewings and my top rated films!