My real otaku moment happened in the ninth grade. At the time all I had was a PlayStation 1 and a GameCube but I had a string of luck and got my hands on a PlayStation 2. My friend just got Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and it was the start of March break. My friend’s family decided to head down to Florida for the week and I just asked if I could borrow his PS2. To my amazement my friend said yes since he was leaving the PlayStation at home anyways.
So I had the PlayStation in my hands for 1 week and 1 day, from Saturday until the following Sunday. I was so excited because I previously loved GTA3 for my PC and I got to play vice city before it came out on PC. The first day I played from the moment I got the game until I had to go to bed at around 1am because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The only thing I had to eat that day was breakfast, I was so obsessed with the game that I didn’t even feel hungry. The next morning when I woke up the first thing I did was turn on the TV and PS2 and kept playing. I didn’t even go downstairs for food, my mom was concerned so she brought me lunch but by this time I was hungry enough to actually eat something. This continued until about Wednesday when my dad made me go outside to do some yard work since it was the first nice day we had all week. The beginning of the week was very cold, cloudy and rainy so it made me want to stay in even more. After the yard work was done I went and had my first shower since Saturday morning. I probably didn’t smell so great so it was due and I had dinner with my family.
By Wednesday I was done the main story and after that I was doing all the extra stuff, without the help of the Internet. I barely used the Internet the whole week, mainly because I was still on dial up back then and I would rather play then wait for a page to load. I snapped out of my GTA:Vice City coma on about Friday when I couldn’t figure out anything to do in the game that I had not done.
When this game came out on PC, I played through it two more times and to this day, it is probably one of my favorite Grand Theft Auto games. What kind of surprised me is I thought I would love GTA:vice city stories, but I really didn’t like it, I missed Tommy Verseti. When Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came out on PC I played that game all the way through, but never to the level of obsession as Vice City.
When Grand Theft Auto 4 came I did get it and played about half the story mode, and put it down for months, at the time I was living with my girlfriend and was working and going to school so I didn’t have that much time to game. When my school went on strike and work was slow I almost had a relapse. With responsibilities I couldn’t spend a week on the game because I’m sure my girlfriend at the time would kill me, and I needed to pay rent. However spread out over the course of a month and with the help of YouTube, I was able to get 100% completion in GTA4 and to this day that is one of my proudest gaming achievements. When Lost and Damned came out I played it for a day straight though Ballad of Gay Tony was my favorite to this day in the GTA4 series.
One series that always brings out my otaku is Grand Theft Auto, it always has a fun story and great gameplay, especially now that they allow a cover system. Rockstar makes some of the best games in my book, this included Bully and Read Dead Redemption but nothing drew me on like Vice City.
And that was my Real Otaku Moment, well at least one moment.