But the memories and times I experienced in those days - making friends in the streets, following my older brother around, nearly being kidnapped, walking with my dad to get ice cream, playing at the arcade, reading and re-reading children's books, eating dog food - all contribute up to the way I feel and understand things today. While I've left all that behind, after moving to a much better and richer area, I remember it as the days that I spent in the cultural melting pot of my life.

     My life away from public schools started off quietly, as I made a profession out of trying to get out of doing school as much as I could, and wasting a lot of time doing nothing. I would spend weeks without privileges, while countless math assignments stacked up on my desk, waiting to be done... (doing everything else wasn't much concern, but much slacking took place there too - it was mostly just the math). Most of the time, I could be found outside, with my countless pets of all shapes and sizes, being bored and procrastinating, or at my desk inside, drawing instead of working, and plastering the backs of my papers with doodles.

     When I wasn't being bored or sitting at my desk feeling crushed under the weight of unfinished work, I was swimming on the local swim team, or playing the violin, listening to classical music, filling notebook after notebook with drawings, being with my animals (a dog, cat, rabbit, parakeets, and six pet chickens who were loved, and who were very friendly and intelligent), or playing outside with the two neighbor kids next door - a boy and girl - who were best friends of my little brother and I.
 

     My grandpa helped us buy the "Average Americanopolis" house we lived in, with the mentality that he would upgrade it (so that we could eventually sell it for more) while we all lived in it. After almost ten years of hard labor, he finally sold that house, and helped us move into another one - one that we could keep, and not have to upgrade to sell - which was just around the corner (still on the same street), in one the shortest moves in the history of short moves.

     The new house, though not quite as big, and a lot older than the previous one, was where I began to slowly find my place in life, and write my own instruction manual. It all started one day when I was at my older brother's house, and he was showing me Photoshop. When I saw what you could do with Photoshop 4 for the first time, I was completely fascinated, and before long, my brother helped me buy my first computer; a $200 Pentium 90 with 32mb RAM, and just over 700mb of hard drive space (if you don't know what that means, imagine driving to work in the Flintstone's car), but for back then, it was pretty decent, and could run Photoshop just fine. And so I met computers, and Photoshop was the first program (and the only program) I used, spending hours a day on it, just making various pictures, and messing with whatever photos I could find. Some effects (which are called Filters) took so long to process, that I often had to leave the computer and go do something else, while the computer would sit, seemingly frozen, just trying to finish processing some effect. (Gaussian Blur the was the big one. Nowadays, I could Gaussian Blur the whole property of the United States in less than a second)

     In the years following, I made an active habit of gradually teaching myself the arts, by immersion, imitation, and mostly by over-analyzing them to death, trying to develop a personal theory to video game design, art, and even music (which a friend and I had been composing for years, imagining one day making movies and videos that used our art and music).

     As far as video games were concerned, my life as a video gaming monk and philosopher began when I was very young, beginning with the years in which I would just stare and drool over the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and eventually the N64 and Playstation, rarely able to play them, and unable to get them out of my head because of it. The first job I ever wanted to have, when I was a kid, was to be a "Nintendo-maker", so that I could always be around Nintendo's, without the risk of ever "not" being around one - that's how much I wanted to play them back then. At the time, my parents were about as against video games as Hitler was against the Jews. And so, while gaming got off to a slow start in my life, you could say that I was gradually pulling back a massive rubber-band, just waiting till it could snap, and get me serious about not only PLAYING games at the first opportunity, but sticking around to make them as well.

     Do I sound like a game-crazy fanatic yet? Relax; these were the early years.
 

     It wasn't until I played Oddworld for the first time, on the first PlayStation, that my video game obsession evolved from a desire to "play" games to a desire to "make" games. I simply liked Oddworld so much that I soon found myself wanting to work for the makers of Oddworld, and would think up entire games and stories for future Oddworld games, and write them down. This was back when I was... oh, about 12, so I didn't have the wisdom that I do today, knowing that writing video games for companies that already have their act together is a waste of time.

     Well, that was okay, because tragically (which turned out to be fortunate), there came a day in my young, aspiring Oddworld career when I had a concussion from falling off my bike. It happened that the ONE day(and the only day) that I ever didn't wear a helmet, I had a bad accident, and wasn't even left with a memory of how it happened... Well, I remember that I was riding down an extremely steep driveway at one end of the street, on my way home, carrying a stack of large stickers in one arm. They had been given to me by the person living at the house that I was riding away from - a friend of the family, who's garden I used to water for money. Well, this guy had an extremely steep driveway, at the top of an already steep hill... and as I was going down the driveway, those stickers began to slip, and I looked down, trying to stop them from falling... The last thing I remember of those brief few seconds was that I looked up, and saw the mailbox in front of me, about to hit it.

     The next thing I knew, a neighbor was shaking me awake under my bike, about halfway down the street. To this day, I wonder how I got there. Unless I hit the mailbox and wobbled down the road about fifty yards before crashing, some speculated that I may have crashed by the mailbox and hit my head, gotten up, continued to ride or walk home, then collapsed again, halfway down the road, ending up under my bike. Sounds scary, but whatever really happened, I went to the doctor, and was diagnosed with a minor concussion,... and somehow forgot the Oddworld story I had been thinking about. I remember being in the car on the way to the hospital, feeling drowsy and tired, and wondering why I couldn't remember it. All of my other thoughts were intact, and not another thing ever jumped out at me as "How could I forget that?" but that one thing was gone.

     After a short period of time, I was gradually able to remember it again, and it eventually all came back to me, but only after I had lost interest and begun to move on. I let myself forget after that, just leaving it in the back of mind, incase I ever needed to pull it out again, which of course I never did. It was fortunate, because I needed to break free from the mold, and move on to find other things - things that were actually fruitful to think about - and so that's what I did.

- The captivating bootup sequence that started it all. The Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus menu screens epitomize the vision of creating video games as an art, not a business. To this day (a decade later), I check back on these screens to make sure I'm keeping in mind what's important.
 

     My life as it is today began one day when I was about 14, after going to the store and buying a sound card for my computer. It was called the "Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer", and came with a load of some of my favorite games today - Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, MDK2 - and one game that I very nearly didn't play, which has given me some of the greatest insight into games and the power of psychology in entertainment that I have today; Thief 2.

     I came so close to never playing Thief. At first I didn't understand it. After playing Unreal Tournament, and beating Deus Ex about three times, I finally tried Thief one day, and was disappointed. My first impression of the game, playing the first level, was that it was ugly, empty, and must have been a cereal box game where you pretended to be a thief. I was completely turned off when I went upstairs in the first mansion - remember that I was thinking this was a cereal box game - and heard haunted house-style "ooOOooh" ambient sounds, that were just trying WAY too hard to be scary. When I heard that, after many other very bad impressions I had, I was shaking my head and saying to myself, "This is ridiculous. What is this, a haunted house simulator where you walk around bad graphics mansions and steal stuff? They must have found this game in a box of Chex and decided to add it into the sound card bundle since it was cheap." That's what I thought, and so I stopped playing it, and beat Deus Ex several more times.

     After about a month, I came back one day, because I was bored, and gave Thief another shot. I beat the first mission, and went on to the second mission - the most tedious mission in Thief history - and still hated it. I got close to beating it, but didn't feel like finishing... it was just too tedious to wander around and figure out how to open the warehouse-like apartment buildings that you're supposed to break into... so, I completely stopped playing it again, and went to beat some more Deus Ex.

     Then, somewhere along the line of neglecting Thief, I watched a video that came with my sound card that was showcasing the sound technology called EAX (video game surround sound with echoes, reverb, etc), and I saw a video of Thief. It was an awesome, frightening scene from in-game, of the player sneaking from up in the rafters of a dungeon-like room, then lowering himself down on a rope, behind a zombie, which turned around and mugged him, all in a cool-sounding, scary, and intense atmosphere. It impressed me, and I soon mentioned it to a neighbor, who said he had briefly played the first Thief and seen zombies.
 

     So, whether or not Thief was still a cereal box game I had to find out. I booted up the second level again, beat it, then went on to the third mission, where you enter a large guard station. The beginning of the mission had a very, very creepy underground area, and, unlike the previous two missions, the atmosphere was suddenly very dense and powerful, absolutely enrapturing the mind. After that cool part in the underground area, the rest of the mission was also no letdown. The whole situation of breaking into that guard station was intriguing, and the atmosphere and sound made it immersive to the core. I felt like I was actually there, walking around myself... and what I remember most about the whole experience was, after passing through the underground areas, and especially the holding cells (which were... slightly haunted - very subtle, but incredibly effective), I was genuinely afraid to be anywhere near the underground, and was too nervous to even be standing near the doors leading there. After going up to the first floor of the huge guard station, I had a desire to be "up", and that's exactly where I tried to remain. Further "up", the situation and atmosphere continued to be rich and strong - the sound alone doing a wonderful job of pulling your mind right into it, in dangerously effective ways.

     After beating a great mission, and then the next, I went on to the Cathedral (a mission called Eavesdropping), and had my most memorable gaming experience ever, which I still remember every second of. In true suspense fashion, there was a subtle hint on my map of the cathedral that said, "Catacombs - danger" and so I went down the stairs carefully. At this point, the ambient sounds are making my teeth chatter, and I'm just counting seconds until I'm ready to turn around and run back up to the church, and try doing something else. -- Let me first point out that this is no Japanese survival horror game. Things never jump out at you cheaply, for no natural reason, and nothing is scripted. The reason you're scared absolutely stiff is because of a few natural things; atmosphere, sound, sound, atmosphere, sound, subtle suggestions, and the setting you're in. Everything happens naturally in this game. If something jumps out, it's because whatever it was has been there the whole time, and is just behaving naturally. Until you arrive, the enemies are just living out their lives, as they really would, and because of that natural behavior, the same thing will never, ever, ever happen twice... and whatever does happen is entirely your fault. The Japanese have no concept of this. I could write a book on the art of true horror versus scripted SURPRISE horror, but this is a biography, so I'll just explain what happened in the Cathedral.

     I crept up to a locked door, down in the basement, and picked it open, then entered a dark set of corridors among many tomb-stones. The ambient sounds got louder, and I was already scared to death, not knowing what I was getting into. I then heard a dragging chain, and knew something was coming, so I hid behind a tomb. As I sat there, eyes popping open, I saw the dark silhouette of a 'haunt' round the corner in the next room, and heard the sound of ghostly whispering coming from it, sounding like several voices in one that must've been saying dark and sinister things. So, absolutely terrified at this point, and not knowing what it was, I slowly backed up, trying to stay in the dark so that it wouldn't see me, then turned around and ran.

     I ran, and I ran, out the door, up the stairs, through the church, and burst out the main doors in the back. When I reached the grass behind the church, I stopped and rested, taking a few seconds to catch my breath. But, as I stood there, I suddenly heard a faint sound behind me, and turned to look, and... *whack!*... I was about 14 years old when that happened, but at that moment I must have turned 15, and decided I was going to finish playing Thief.
     There's something about having an undead cultist land a fifty-pound iron hammer on top of your skull, making a frighteningly realistic *SMASH!* sound, that leaves you recoiling in horror, gasping for breath, and screaming like a little girl at the same time. I had also previously thought that the notion of launching out of your chair, the way they do in cartoons, was a little farfetched, but I realized later, by the falling debris and print in the ceiling, that it could happen.

     Ironically, I only beat Thief once, but was inspired by one of the later missions to begin writing a little game of my own, simply following the dark and immersive setting... and so I did. I opened WordPad, and began typing away. At first, it was just a brief, mission-by-mission description of an immersion-style horror and suspense game, covering only basic objectives, with short paragraphs to describe each important element... but it gradually got more and more wordy, and I soon found myself writing the story in too much detail, in what seemed more like a novel.

     In the Thief mission that inspired me to begin writing, the sheriff gets murdered, and a female guard comes fleeing from his third-floor bedroom where he was killed, and is questioned by another guard. The frightened female guard explains to him that she saw a dark shape run off the balcony, and the other guard says, "...you're saying a monster killed the sheriff." To say the least, there was much chin-scratching after that, and the first thing I wrote was a description for an opening mission in which you, the main character in the game, see a monster leap off your third floor balcony with your sister. She was the last person left in your family, who were all kidnapped by this mysterious monster. You knew that you would be the last to go missing if you didn't make yourself disappear, and, having heard your sister's muffled cries for help, you knew that she was taken alive, and might still live if you made every effort to find her and your family as quickly as possible. And so, the game began as you set out in a dark world with a dense, Thief-like atmosphere, where the monster's existence was sparsely known, and the only way to find him was by searching for clues in the city's darkest corners.
 

     That was how it started, but my writing gradually got more and more detailed, and what started out as a few paragraphs describing each mission turned into a few pages, as I got more into the details -- much like this biography, in true Dario D. fashion. I never told you why I ate dog-food, but since I'm explaining the details now, I feel that you should know. "BECAUSE IT WAS YAMMY!!"

     Before I knew it, the quest to find your sister and family went from a game-design document to a full-fledged novel. That was still when I was 14, and had absolutely 0 skill in the area of writing. Regardless, I wrote long and hard, trying to tell a first-person story with my then limited writing skills, but able to go at a good pace. At the time, I didn't experience any writer's block or lack of ideas, because I was just writing whimsically, whenever I felt "in the mood", and just decided how the story should go as I went. Those first drafts were fairly embarrassing, but still, they sounded good to me at the time, so I just wrote and wrote and wrote, as the writer in me matured. Unfortunately, writing a long novel and rapidly maturing as a writer means that when you get to the end, you have to go back and rewrite everything with your new skills... or else you have a book with a poorly-written beginning, and a well-written end. This happened roughly five times throughout the course of the novel - it wasn't only the writing style that kept having to be updated as I got to the end, it was also the story ideas themselves which got more and more detailed - and each time I thought I was getting to the end of the book, I felt I had to go back and revise it, to make the whole thing match. Thankfully, it really didn't take too long, and the reason I was able to do so many revisions was because I only wrote when I was bored, and because one long chapter could be revised in just one or two sittings. Oh, and I was still homeschooled. That means I had lots of time... valuable, valuable time.

    While writing that novel, I can't recall how many times I've said to members of my family, "It's almost done now." The fourth pass was supposed to be the best and last, and I didn't think it could be any better, but the slow accumulation of new ideas for the story soon brought about the fifth and final pass, which was a complete rewrite of the entire story, from scratch... taking roughly nine months of painstaking work. At long last, the final pass and complete rewrite of the book was done (which doubled its size, and doubled my satisfaction in it, being far deeper and more intriguing than before... and a lot different). And so I was happy... and the long, slow publishing process began (you'll have to wait a while before you see the book in stores. These book people are SLOW... probably because they're always reading). So, in about 18 months, look for "The Legend of Faceless" on shelves.
 

     Right now, as you're reading this, "The Legend of Faceless" is done, and I'm well into my next book, which takes place in the future (whereas Faceless takes place in the past). Chances are I'm also done with and have released my Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, called... wait, you know what that is, right? I explained the mod, right? And the maps? And the realization of my video-game making dream? No?! Darn. It was that stupid Thief stuff, wasn't it? See, when explaining how I went from playing Thief in the early days of my career to writing a book originally inspired by it (all which led right up to the present day), I didn't have the opportunity to explain what "else" I was doing. Back then, I just wrote The Legend of Faceless whenever I felt like it, on and off... but mostly off. And all that off-time was either spent beating Deus Ex, playing other games, or making my own games! (insert rock music)                       ...(wait, I hate rock music)

     When I used to play the first Unreal Tournament (going back to the Thief days), I would often get bored, and open up levels (which are called maps) in the map editor, and mess around with them. I'd usually change the placement of weapons and items, redo the lighting in areas, add rooms to levels, and generally make the levels look, sound, and play much differently... (you'll notice I didn't say "better", just "differently"). This fascination with "mapping", while also playing custom-made Thief fan-missions, soon led to trying to learn the Thief map editor, so that I could make my own missions. It eventually got me started in making of a big Thief 2 mission, called Faceless (only minor relation to the novel), which I worked on for about a year, on and off, before sadly putting it down.

     I had realized that the Thief community had dwindled down in size (too small to waste another long, long year making a big mission for it), and that if I wanted to get a job in the video game industry, I would have to make maps and missions for more modern games, which were still played by millions of people. Thief was several years old by that time, and a cult classic, which means that, like many masterpieces, it was sadly little-known in comparison to big, popular, dumb games. As much as I liked the mission I was working on, I knew that I needed to put it down, and make maps for more modern games that I didn't like as much, like Unreal Tournament 2004, and Half-Life 2 (okay, I liked Half-Life 2 a LOT, but Unreal Tournament had been the same since the original, and was getting really old).

     And so, I started to make maps, that people could download and play, for Unreal Tournament 2004 and later Half-Life 2. While the maps I made for those two games were a big success (I even won quite a bit of money in a mapping contest), I also found the inspiration to begin a small project of making new weapons for Unreal Tournament 2004. I called the project Gunreal, and just figured I'd think of a better name as soon as one came to me (still waiting...). I got the idea from playing Unreal Tournament 2004 a lot, and really, really not liking how flimsy and weak the weapon sounds and effects were. So, one day, I just thought, "How hard could it be to make some guns?" I knew that they would also look good on a portfolio, if I were to get a job in the gaming industry. And so, I began a little project in my spare time.
 

     Now that you know about Gunreal, you know most of the main aspects of my life.

     Let's see if I can recall the ones mentioned:
[active] - The Legend of the AI (novel)
[done] - Faceless (novel)
[active] - Art (see the art gallery)
[active] - Gunreal (game)
[done] - Maps (levels for games)
   --[done]- Map: Dreamus & Dreamus 2 (Unreal Tournament 2004)
   --[done]- Map: Plaza 17 (Half-Life 2)
   --[cancelled]- Map: Faceless (Thief 2)

     And the very recent things that were not mentioned:
[active] - Alphaila.com (psychology-centric, self-improvement idea hub)
[active] - Zietanus.com (similar to above, but a collection of writings)
 

     Now, I'm 23 years old, and the things talked about and listed above are exactly what's on my plate. You may wonder: How does one manage so many projects at one time? And the answer is: Have you heard of "being in the mood"? Well, with that many projects, you're sure to always be in the mood for at least one of them, right? That's how it is. Also, I also have that wonderful, valuable thing called "time"... (not to say that any of it is "free" anymore, with so many things that I work on each day). I know a lot of people try to look down upon others when saying, "You have way too much free time on your hands," but I look at them and say, "Ain't no such thing."

     As of today, as I write this, I'm almost done with the first release of Gunreal, while The Legend of Faceless goes through the lengthy process of finding a publisher. The Legend of the AI is well under way, and I'm very excited about it, having also reached a place in my writing where I don't have to go back and revise like I used to (my writing style is completely different. I'm slow and meticulous, and every detail is foreknown, whereas before I was fast and whimsical - something I'm extremely glad to be away from). On the flip-side, I've finally discovered writer's block (while writing the final pass of Faceless), because I now carefully think everything through, which leads to difficulty in streamlining complicated stories. My type of writer's block isn't a lack of ideas, but rather not knowing how to make some "between" scenes carry out in a way that's of maximal quality. (plot scenes are easy. "Filler" scenes are hard, because you have to make something interesting out of uninteresting situations.)
     When I finish these things that I'm working on, and get the ball rolling as they're released, then the second phase of my life will begin. Where it will lead exactly, I don't know, but there's one last thing you should know about that puts the twist on everything that I do today.

     Maybe I didn't mention this much before, but, in life, there's nothing that I've become more obsessed with than the improvement of one's self. Every word I've written, and every motion of my hands for the last three years has been toward the ultimate goal of inspiring people to mend their ways. You may ask, "What's this?" It's a passion that can't be understood until reading The Legend of Faceless, from which you'll easily understand what it is I intend to achieve. Simply put, there's nothing that I want more than for people to find their better selves. My dream now is for someone to read a novel or play a game that I make one day, and say, "You know what? Maybe I don't want to be like everyone else. Maybe I'm tired of being empty, and heartless, and negative, and living in the world's image of what a person should be."

     Every word in every game design document, note, summary, mod, and story that I ever plan to write goes toward this goal now, in the quest of ridding the world of its heartless, mindless ways, through storytelling, and using fictional characters to demonstrate the better ways of being.

     My hope is that, after experiencing these things, you'll have a better understanding of what it's worth to give one's life to the cause of humanity, and the pursuit of perfection. While living my life selfishly up until several years ago, I now can't deny that this pursuit is in every breath I take. It's just a matter of time before the fruits of this labor can begin being seen, providing food for thought, and serving to show a few important things that people need to see. One notion, which I like to show as much as possible, is that the common ways of the world are not the only ways that exist - a predominant point in Faceless. Another is the fact that one can find tremendous happiness in many nearly forgotten things, like actually being a good person. These are things I try to demonstrate with characters, who battle the many aspects of life, as they themselves walk the reader through the differences between certain ways, and the process of finding self-perfection. To me, life just isn't worth anything more than that anymore.
     But, until you can see these ideas playing out on the pages of books and computer screens everywhere, and until I can write about the next ten years of my life, I have a lot of work to do, so I'll be getting back to it. :-)

...argh! Why did I write all this? I could've written a whole other chapter, or gotten a load of work done on the mod. (sigh) Story of my life.

 

Music
- What I listen to while working:
Classical Music / Movie Soundtracks (orchestra) / James Newton Howard (composer of The Village, Dinosaur, and Batman Begins soundtracks...)
- Favorite Bands: purely instrumental ones (I don't like lyrics)

Games
- Favorite Games: Thief, Deus Ex, Half-Life 2, Battlefield 2, Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, and Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
- Games that inspired me the most: Thief, Oddworld, Half-Life 2, Zelda
- Best gaming experience ever had: fan-made Thief missions
- PC vs. Console preference: PC, due to preference of Keyboard/Mouse controls, and more complex, immersive, intelligent games... using a comfortable gaming chair, with surround-sound, and screen covering 90% of vision. For more casual games, of course, a console is preferred, but I rarely ever get around to them.

___________________________________________________________

The Dario D. "In My Opinion" Gaming Awards

These are personal awards among the more important games I've played. Under each category, you can replace "best" with "favorite" if you like, as these are opinions. Awards do not include or consider ALL games, but very, very many. Keep in mind that the sweeping games that take tons of awards really are that good, to me. There may be thousands of games out there, but very, very few are actually as worthwhile as the ones you'll see below.

Always lookup reviews on Metacritic before buying. If everyone did this, the gaming industry would be forced to polish all of its games.

--- Basic Awards ---
Best Graphics Achievement: Half-Life 2
Best Art Direction: Half-Life 2 (runners up: Gears of War, Resident Evil 4)
Best Sound Achievement: Thief 3's "Robbing the Cradle" mission
Best Sound: BioShock (runner up: Thief 2)
Best Setting: Half-Life 2 (runner up: Thief 2)
Best Story: Deus Ex
Best Atmosphere: Thief 2 (runners up: Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 4)
Best Horror Achievement: Thief 3's Robbing the Cradle mission
Deepest Immersion: Thief 2 (runner up: Thief 1)
Best Weapons: Counter-Strike Source (runners up: Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 4)
Best 1st-Person Gameplay: Deus Ex (runners up: Half-Life 2, Battlefield 2)
Best Multiplayer Gameplay: Battlefield 2
Best Level or Mission: Half-Life 2 Strider missions
Best Multiplayer Map Design: dm_lockdown from Half-Life 2 Deathmatch
(runners up: Strike at Karkand from Battlefield 2, cs_office from Counter-Strike Source)
Best Singleplayer Campaign: Deus Ex (runners up: Half-Life 2, Thief 2)
Best Original Game: Deus Ex (runners up: Thief, Zelda: Ocarina of Time)

--- Special Awards ---
Worst Bugs and Issues: Battlefield 2 (not worst ever, but deserving a slap)
Most Generic Sound: Tribes: Vengeance (oddly same sound guy as Thief)
Best Death Simulation: Half-Life 2
Worst Death Simulation: Deus Ex 2 (runner up: Thief 3)
Most Stagnant, Unchanging Gameplay: Unreal Tournament series (runner up: Quake series)
Best Voice Commands: Battlefield 1942
Worst Voice Commands: Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 (runner up: Tribes: Vengeance)
Best Interface: Half-Life 2 (runner up: Deus Ex - not best looking, but best functioning)
Worst Interface: Deus Ex 2 (runners up: Thief 3, Oblivion [PC])
Best Title-Screen: Half-Life 2 (all missions)
Worst Title-Screen EVER: Thief 3 (runners up: nothing comes close)
Coolest Game Character: Dog from Half-Life 2 (runners up: Link from Zelda, G-Man from Half-Life 2, JC Denton from Deus Ex, Dr. Breen from Half-Life 2, Daedalus from Deus Ex)
Best Enemy: Striders from Half-Life 2 (runners up: Gunships from Half-Life 2, Regenerators from Resident Evil 4, Zombies from Thief 2, Puppets from Thief 3)
Worst Enemy: Headcrabs from Half-Life 2 (runners up: anything small and hard to shoot that movies at you quickly)
Best Weapon: Half-Life 2 Gravity Gun (runners up: Half-Life 2 RPG Launcher and Crossbow, most Counter-Strike Source guns, Aliens vs. Predator 2 Minigun, Halo Sniper Rifle and Pistol, the old Unreal Tournament Flack Cannon and Impact Hammer)
Most Humorous Game: Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus
Worst Let-Down to Fans: Deus Ex 2, Thief 3 (also worst sequels)
Personal Biggest Disappointments: (the two above)
Personal Most-Played Game: Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat mod (runner up: Thief 2 fan-missions)
Personal Most Times Beaten a Game: Deus Ex (7 times... and counting)
Personal Best Gaming Experience: Thief 2 Fan-Made Missions
Game I Would Most Like To See Remade: Deus Ex (runner up: Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee)


--- Final Awards ---
Best Multiplayer Game up to December 2006: Battlefield 2 (runners up: Counter-Strike Source)
Best Singleplayer Game up to December 2006: Deus Ex (runners up: Half-Life 2, Thief 2, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 4, Zelda: Windwaker)
Best Real-Time Strategy Game: Total Annihilation (runners up: Command & Conquer 3, Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge)
Best Sim Game: RollerCoaster Tycoon (the original only)
Best Game Overall (without custom content): Deus Ex
Best Game Overall (after custom downloadable content): Thief 2

--- Personal Ratings for Listed Games---
(original titles only, not including custom downloadable content, which changes things a bit)

Deus Ex: 10/10
Deus Ex 2: 6/10
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus: 9/10
Thief 2: 9.5/10
Thief 3: 7/10
Half-Life 2: 10/10
Counter-Strike Source 8.5/10
Battlefield 2: 9.3/10
Unreal Tournament: 9/10
Unreal Tournament 2004: 7.5/10
Tribes: Vengeance: 7/10
Zelda: Ocarina of Time: 9/10
Halo: 8/10
Halo 2: 8.5/10
Resident Evil 4: 9.5/10
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TV and Movies
Favorite TV Show: The one that plays when the TV is off. The black one.

Favorite Movies: Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Fearless, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Prestige

PG-13 Movies That Should Have Been the Most Rated R: Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (probably 3 as well), Titanic

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Computers
Most-Used and Favorite Programs: Book Writer, Photoshop, 3d Studio Max

Favorite Video-Game Map Editor: Hammer (Half-Life 2)

Favorite Computer Hobbies: writing books and making games

Favorite Website: I have no idea. Probably Google, just because I use it so much and it works so well. I frequently use Google's Image Search, Product Search (for prices), News, Maps, and GMail. I think that scores at least one point for favorite website.


PC vs. Mac Opinion (I own both): I like and dislike things about both platforms, but I prefer Windows, just because Mac just doesn't support all of the programs I need to use, or games I like to play,... and costs a small fortune, without the ability to easily upgrade it whenever you want or need to. Oh, and I don't really like the Mac OS. At all. But, for the average computer user, who has no complicated needs, and doesn't like to game, I recommend Mac, although, if you're doing anything but checking your email and surfing the web, it can be quite a bit more complicated than Apple will lead you to believe. (in fact, I was incredibly surprised when we got our first Mac at how nonsensical and difficult to learn the operating system was in many regards)
     Windows can be an extremely dangerous, confusing, and daunting platform for anyone who doesn't know a whole lot about computers, or know how to defend himself. Spyware, email viruses, scams, and unexplainable problems can and probably WILL ruin any unprotected PC, and cause great frustration, given time. If there were some training videos that came with Windows on how to master using it, that would be great, and I would recommend Windows (because there really isn't a lot you need to know), but instead, you're almost completely on your own, and the results can be more than frustrating for the average, non-tech-savvy user.
     In this regard, Mac is extremely safe... but is expensive, and doesn't cater to everyone's needs. Most important programs, and most important games are available on Mac, and the average user can get by just fine on one, but there will be times when you realize that you're missing something, or someone asks you to do something that you simply can't do. Other than those few times, a Mac will last you a long, long time (probably saving you money, in fact), unless you're a serious gamer who needs to upgrade often. If you're a serious gamer or graphics artist (depending on where you work), you HAVE TO learn to use your PC well, and to upgrade it yourself, and take good care of it. It's not hard at all; you just need a means to learn it.
     So, there you have a few things to think about when choosing between PC and Mac. Gamers need PC's, and average folks need Macs.
     But, one question that remains is: which one balances out to being more worthwhile considering the computer world's present situation? A few years ago, I would have said Mac, because it saved everyone a lot of time, and because enough worthwhile games were on it as well. But now that Windows Vista is out, PC's are getting a lot safer and easier to use, so the scale is tipping back toward PC, also considering that they're simply a lot more affordable. If everyone knew how to use their PC's, PC would by FAR be the platform I recommend to everybody. Mac may have been slightly better suited for newbies in the past, but that was essentially because 98% of people didn't know how to use their PC's. If you're one of them, and don't have the motivation to learn how to REALLY master Windows (it's really easy if you have the will to learn), then you'll still probably be happier on a Mac. I find the Mac operating system very non-sensical and confusing for doing anything but extremely basic program-use (like checking your email and surfing the web), but as long as it won't self-destruct when you visit a spyware-infested website, it's really the way to go for average folks.

     Yes, it will be at least another 20-40 years before I have anything good to say about the computer industry... but when that day comes, this generation will have grown up, and they'll be nothing but a bunch of technology wizards. When that day comes, Mac will have nothing to offer, unless they evolve and adapt.

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Conclusion
     Well, now you know my story from the outside (not to be confused with the inside, or knowing who I "really, really" am), so you've had today's dose of meeting new people. :-)
     If you want, you can peek around the rest of the site, go back to your homepage, or just go "back", using this shiny Back button down here. As everyone knows, it's important to stop and smell the roses in life, and shiny chrome buttons are just one of those rare things that have to be appreciated. So, go ahead and click it. It doesn't bite.