At age 3, I was playing Final Fantasy on the NES in my living room about once a day. I would beat up on imps and kill Garland and think that I had beaten the game.
Not long after, I got a SEGA Genesis and played classic games like the Sonic series, the Vectorman series, and one of the most unknown and underrated games of all time: Gunstar Heroes. I played it with my sister and we got so good at it we started doing speed runs and stuff. Eventually we began playing Columns against each other, and I was beating my 13 year-old sister constantly when I was 8. I have to thank her though for being so willing to play games with her much younger brother, because she more or less got me started on my path to gaming. My parents obviously had a hand in it too, for actually buying us a Nintendo and a Genesis to play with.Later on, when I was 10 years old, I got my Playstation. The first games I got were Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo, and Final Fantasy VII. It took me a month to beat FFVII but I loooooved the game. It was after I beat it that I started turning to the internet for tips and hidden secrets and things. I joined a community called Eyes on Final Fantasy, where I am still (sort of) loved and revered. I joined in the fall of 2000 and still pop in every once in a while to say hi.
Around winter break of 2001, I began playing Unreal Tournament for like 5 hours a day, pwning newbs online for the first time. I eventually got really good at low gravity, 135% speed, instagib capture the flag. So good in fact, that for a week in February 2002 I was ranked #1 in the world on Epic's online ladder. My clan, {HiT} or High Impact Terror, was undefeated on two different leagues, the IGL and the OGL. We actually did not drop a single series on either ladder for the entire time that we were together. Those were some great times, and I know that my clanmates and I will be friends for life. Unreal Tournament started losing its popularity as the graphics and gameplay became outdated, but I will always remember it fondly.
After UT basically bit the dust, I turned into a Blizzard fanatic. I beta tested for Diablo II's expansion, as well as both WarCraft III and WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne. I played competitively on WC3 for a while in the 2v2 AT ladder, but got bored with grinding games and basically lost interest when it was time to go back to school.
World of Warcraft hit store shelves in November 2004, and I was right there at the midnight release party, waiting for my copy. I played on and off between 2004-2009, amassing something like 12 top-level characters. I sold one of my accounts for $700, and I still have an account with a level 80 death knight, hunter, rogue, and priest. I thought about selling it but I wanted to keep my options open in case I wanted to play Cataclysm in 2010. Right now I am about 7 months WoW-sober, but I could turn back at any time if I get bored enough.
The main reason I have been able to resist the allure of grinding arena, killing the lich king, and leveling my jewelcrafting is of course the StarCraft II beta. Back in 2008, my friend from WoW sold me his Blizzcon beta key for 2,000 in-game gold. Basically, he sold it to me for about an $8 value. But we were friends, and he knew I would play the Hell out of it, so it was all good. Day 1 of the beta, I was in and already playing. I decided at the outset that I wanted to be part of the SC2 community, because StarCraft Brood War has been running strong for 10 years now, and if SC2 stuck around for even half that, I knew it'd be worth making a name for myself.
So, I started right away by making a Youtube channel dedicated to showing off some of StarCraft II's more interesting units and fight scenes and stuff like that. You can check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/AskJoshy Now nearly 3 months later, my channel's got over 2,100 subscribers and 685,000 views. I tried a couple of replay commentaries, but my webcam's mic quality wasn't cutting it. I went out and got a really good value $30 Microsoft headset that sounds great, and geared up for cranking out some excellent VODs. (Videos on demand) However, my path changed slightly and I ended up casting a Chinese SC2 match between Team China and Team USA with a couple of established folks on the SC2 scene: TheGunRun from GLHF.tv, HuK from vT gaming, and NonY of Team Liquid fame. The very next day, I offered to help out well-known SC2 commentator Rise with his coverage of the Triple Strike Cup hosted by Warturtle of Root Gaming. It was a pretty good success, and people liked my voice, so I decided to start bugging all the commentators I could find to co-cast with them.
About four weeks ago I got in touch with iCCup.Diamond, who is the head of iCCup's TV League. He liked my enthusiasm, and now I'm casting everything I can over on iCCup's Livestream channel. I've done the last three iCCup TV Challenges in a row, so I think I might be the 'regular' for that event now. It's every Monday night on that stream and starts at 9 p.m. EST. Check me out if you've got the time!
And that about does it for the big parts of my gaming history. I am very competitive and will want to beat you at any game that happens to be available. One of my favorite offline games is Mario Kart Double Dash for the Nintendo Gamecube, and of course I love, love, love a live game of poker. That's why I've got another blog in the same vein as this one: Josh Does Poker.
Thanks for reading, everyone, and check back here for some great SC2 replays, VODs, and stream and tournament announcements! I may also start keeping records of ITC and ITL events here in the future. =)
-Josh "JoshSuth" Sutherland
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