Andrew Mulligan: Why I Love Gaming

Andrew Mulligan, host of The Crowd Goes Wild on Prime TV tells us.

Video games got me early and they got me young. The first my family and I had was basically a system much like the one you played Pong on that had me hooked. I think it was the artwork of the cover more than the terrible graphics. A promise of glory looked so much better in your hands than on the screen.

My first system I owned was a Sega Master System and it ruled. The first game that I ever clocked was R-Type. Both are still floating around on Trademe but it’s like watching Magnum P.I. these days; sounds like a good time but ultimately you laugh at the homo-eroticism between Higgins and Magnum…actually on reflection not really but you catch my drift. Basically when you have a PS3 an old Sega isn’t going to hold your attention. (Editor's note: I 100% disagree!)

From there I graduated to a Sega Mega Drive and that’s when I got into the sports games, notably ‘Lakers v Celtics’. There were only eight teams that they could fit onto the 16 bits of awesomeness and on the cover it was Kevin McHale trying to block James Worthy’s jump shot, both in shorts that would be illegal in most countries. Amongst my friends I was the king: I would be beaten but it was rare and it wasn’t often, but we did agree that we could never ever use Phoenix Suns player Tom Chambers’ double pump move that was indefensible. Seriously, you couldn’t stop it and you could never block anyone’s shots either. Michael Jordan was in the game and in a couple of subsequent games but never appeared again. He had some pretty big sums attached to his likeness, so much so that he hasn’t appeared in a game since.

I would play other games, such as Altered Beast on the Master System and the Sonic series on the Mega Drive, but that was when I was scared of wearing out the NBA cartridge and gave it a rest. I played Doom and big titles like that but I never really got hooked on them like the NBA titles and then the Madden series. Special mention has to be made too about EA’s impressive launch into rugby with Jonah Lomu Rugby. Frank Bunce was immense but it was Jonah Lomu that was amazing; he was at least two, if not three times bigger than everyone else on the field. I played it recently and after having spent a lot of time on Madden and NBA Live, the controls got me. I had progressed in my sports gaming skills but my skill level wasn’t retroactive. I got well beaten.

Nowadays, with a little bit more disposable income and one very, very understanding girlfriend who games herself, I spend most of my gaming time online. Notable titles I play include NBA Live 10, COD MW 1 & 2, Fifa 09 and a bit of Madden 10 when the real season starts and gets me back into it.

With NBA 09 I was ranked online in the top 1,500 for the PS3, that’s how much I play it online! I thought I was the king, but now I'm having to build that ranking back up because NBA 10 has changed its gameplay and it’s still a learning process for me.

So the online experience is where it’s at for me, especially Modern Warfare 1 where I spent a lot of time and gigabytes stalking people in camo, setting claymores and sniping reckless rookies wandering aimlessly between the barn and the house. Modern Warfare 2 is impressive and I bought it for the online play, rather than the storyline (which, yes, I found short too). I have to say I pulled the trigger in the airport. It’s a game, not a psychology test for future terrorists. With MW2 it’s certainly next level with the graphics and the storyline is good but the online play isn’t that much of an improvement on the first experience that I rate as better. So basically I love playing the new titles that are best sellers but nothing holds my attention like NBA Live and Modern Warfare so I look forward to playing you and see you slitting my throat, blowing me to pieces with your thumper and dismembering me with your favourite semi automatic.

- By Andrew Mulligan, The Crowd Goes Wild.

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