I have always got a lot of grief about being a girl gamer. I remember, as the further I would descend into the levels, my brother would make comments about how I needed to give him the controller before I died. That, as a girl, I wasn't going to be able to beat the game, so naturally, I wanted to prove him wrong. The day I finished off Bowser was the day I proved that a girl could be just as good or better than their male counterparts.
The years went by, and I started moving more into the survival horror genre of gaming. I have always been a horror fanatic, even as a small child. The Night of the Living Dead movies really perked my interest in both horror and zombies. So in 1996 when Capcom released Resident Evil on the Sony PlayStation, my gaming dedication got a jump kick. The anticipation of just putting the disk into the console was so exhilarating I knew I was addicted before I even clicked "Start" on the controller. That game was the first, and one of the few, that made me jump out of my seat. I was afraid to go around that next corner. My brother refused to play Resident Evil; he was too scared, so he just watched from afar as I battled the undead throughout the whole game. I knew at that moment survival horror gaming was the only gaming for me.
I became a loyal and devoted fan of the Resident Evil series by continuing to purchase all of the sequels over the years. Eventually, I became an adult and started a family of my own. As a young mother and actress, I still set aside time to play a game or two. In 2003, Capcom released Resident Evil: Outbreak--an online version where I could play with up to 4 people at a time. This online aspect was something I had never experienced before, but I knew that playing with real people in one of my favorite games would only make it better. At that point in time, the technology of online play did not provide gamers with the tools to talk while playing during games. This often made the game harder to play when one did not have a cooperating team. Players could only talk in the lobby area through text chatting before and/or after the game. Many people then didn't believe I was really a female gamer and insisted I was a guy pretending to be a girl. This sort of reaction justified all of my adolescent thoughts on the misconceptions about how girls really didn't play games.
The individuals I met online in Resident Evil: Outbreak 1 & 2 became some of my closest friends who I still play with to this day. Many years passed, and eventually, the servers for Outbreak shut down, and I went in search of new gaming prospects. No matter how many games I've played, none of them could measure up to the love and excitement that I had for Resident Evil: Outbreak. I stopped gaming for a while, because I could not find a game that gave me what I needed and craved. However in 2008, Valve released a little gem for Xbox 360 entitled Left 4 Dead--a game that carried over some of the same concepts that I adored from the Resident Evil series. I had never played Microsoft's Xbox 360 or any of their games before, but this soon changed. I officially left the Sony PlayStation and became a 100% Xbox 360 girl after the release of Left 4 Dead. In a way, maybe I had been letdown by Sony and saw another company that could provide me with what I needed. Gaming is made up of relationships that provides one with the games he or she desires. As a gamer, I had a need that longed to be filled, so I went to where the action was.Even now when playing online games, I still get the "....you're a girl?" reaction from guy gamers. Gaming is still dominated by males; although, females are starting to show that they can take names and pwn noobs with the best of them! I have met quite a few girl gamers over the years, and I always notice how down to earth most of them are. Being like one of the guys and still being a sexy, intelligent woman is something to which other male gamers definitely take notice. Men can undeniably appreciate a girl who can sit down, handle a controller and kick butt. Gaming has always had my heart, and I am sure it always will. Now as a mother, I am just making the time to pass it down to my children, so that the process of gaming can continue for generations to come.