Andy "danger" Ruble
Favorite Game: Silent Hill 2 (playstation 2)
Favorite Console: It’s a toss up now between the 360 and the Playstation 2, but I’m going to have to stick with my playstation 2 due to it being what made me the gamer that I am today.
I’m Andy “danger” Ruble. The reason I have the nickname “danger” is because I live about the least-dangerously out of everyone I know, so it was kind of an ironic idea at the time if I remember right. That, and I solve mysteries sometimes…I got to know Kitty through an ex girlfriend (whose name shall never be mentioned again!). Despite the fact that my ex and I broke up Kitty and I still stayed in touch and have known each other now for almost 7 years? Something close to that…Anyways, our video gaming together started with the lighthearted romps that were Mario Party 3 nights on the old N64. We laughed, we cried, we got new records!, and we stole each others stars, unmercifully…
As far as me and my gaming goes, I was one of the last generations of people growing up that weren’t exposed (today, good or bad, it’s more like bombarded) with video games growing up. Video games had an awesome, almost mystical, feeling for me. I wasn’t allowed to play Nintendo until I think I was almost 10 or 11, and even then I wasn’t allowed to actually own one. My mom would go out of town to this used bookstore and video game place and rent them for my brother and I for a week at a time every few months. It was like Christmas when we knew we had it there! I remember trying to call in sick to school so I could play. Back then I played the Classics like Super Mario Bros, Metroid, the Legend of Zelda, Double Dragon, Castle Vania, Battle Toads, and quite a few more obscure one’s I wish I could remember the names of now.
I spent a fair amount of time at the local video arcade that was built in our mall called “Tilt” around this time too. I remember that being my first experiences playing arcade games and I was pretty intensely addicted to some games that, looking back on them now are kind of funny. “Micheal Jackson’s Moonwalker”? Anyone? I also remember playing Aliens vs Predator (A full ten years before the somewhat mediocre movie came out) and BEATING THE GAME! It was the first, and I think only, arcade game I ever beat. Unfortunately, like a lot of arcades in America, Tilt closed down in the early ’00s which was a shame.
It wasn’t until I was about 16 or so that I was allowed to actually own a gaming system. My first was the Sega Genesis. I remember loving quite a few games on that system. I had the first “John Madden Football” game. I remember that game fondly because I found a play on the game that ALWAYS worked and I’d just play entire games repeating it over and over again. My scores would be monstrously lopsided all the time. I also remember playing quite a few games on the Genesis. I think one of my favorites was probably earthworm Jim. I also really liked Sonic the Hedgehog. There were a ton of others that I just can’t think of the names of now that I wish I could! Ahh! I need to go look them up, but it’s hard searching for a video game by typing out “Boss: 8-eyed tentacle monster” on Google without about 392 different things popping up since the “8-eyed tentacle monster” isn’t just a staple in video games, it’s also gained some infamous notoriety in the Japanese Manga and Anime world, and the less said about that the better probably…I also played some Super Nintendo in this time, but I didn’t own one and I never played anything too far out there title-wise. All I can honestly remember playing on the Super Nintendo was Mario Brothers 3.
It wasn’t until I was 17 that I really hit my stride with video games. It was the summer of ’97 (which was kind of like my summer of ’69). I was at my friends house who actually owned a playstation and I discovered “Resident Evil” which pretty much shaped my gaming tastes for the rest of my life. I played a few different games over there, but I’d always want to go back to “Resident Evil”. Hell, I even called one of those 1-800 numbers they used to put on the back of the game booklets for help playing “Resident Evil”. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I loved that game that much!
I’d gotten into Survival Horror type games and I also discovered the awesome potential of Wrestling video games around this time too because of the THQ games that were coming out at the time for the N64 like “WCW vs NWO”. I was always a wrestling fan but the games up until this point had pretty much sucked in my opinion. Actually being able to perform more than a bodyslam and a leg drop in a wrestling video game was still a new concept at the time. It was pretty amazing the first time I figured out how to do a corkscrew 360 plancha from the wrestling ring ropes onto my opponent outside of the ring with Rey Mysterio Jr.. I am still fascinated by the current wrestling games and all the “build a whatever” settings they have now. I think I read somewhere that on the current “Smackdown -vs- Raw” video games, there’s something like 106 different individual moves you can give to one wrestler alone. It’s awesomeness.
Anyways, back to Survival Horror. That’s pretty much been what I’ve loved video-game-wise ever since “Resident Evil”. I think I’ll now try to write out a list of the Survival Horror Game’s I remember playing. It might be a better idea to just call these games “Horror” games because this list includes what many consider to be “Americanized Survival Horror” too (I.E. you can actually shoot back at the ghosts!):
Splatterhouse, Castlevaina, Castle Wolfenstein & Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1-3, Resident Evil 1-5, Alone in the Dark, Clock Tower 1-3, American McGee’s Alice, Phantasmagoria, Silent Hill 1-4 and then Origins, Homecoming, and Shattered Memories, Vampire: the Masquerade, BloodRayne 1 &2, the Thing, Fatal Frame 1-3, X Files: Resist or Serve, The Suffering 1 &2, RLH: Run Like Hell, Haunting Ground, Obscure 1 & 2, Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit), Siren 1 & 2, F.E.A.R 1 & 2, PREY, Clive Barkers Jericho (which, despite my awesome expectations, was pretty horrible I’m afraid to say), Condemned 1 & 2, Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead 1 &2, Dead Rising 1 & 2, Deadly Premonition, Alan Wake and Bioshock. I’m sure there are a few more I’m leaving out, but I can fix that later 
To say that I have somewhat of a morbid personality and sense of humor might not be an understatement considering the list of games above, however, I don’t really like the horror games for all the blood and guts, I like suspense, a good story, and getting scared! There are tons of other games that I enjoy that aren’t horror games, but I’m not going to list anymore of them. Besides “Shadow of the Colossus”, that game was cool as hell!
So yeah! It’s nice to meet you!