Hello everyone! I’m James or JLSoryu as I’ve come to be known on the internet! I’m a guy who hails from the North East of England but is currently living in the lovely city of Edinburgh, Scotland!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is my site, my little place to ramble and talk about retro video games, be it new ones I’ve picked up, reviews of games I’ve played, thoughts about them, it’s all just a chill little site dedicated to one of my passions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So… what is there to say about me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, I’ve been playing video games from a very young age, I feel like they’ve always been in my life in some form. My earliest memories of playing games are some pre-school educational games we had on the home computer in the very early 90s, very basic stuff because I was only about 4, but games where you had to do basic spelling or sums to stop a witch from doing something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first real games came when I lived in Turkey though, my dad worked overseas at the time, and because I was really young and not really school age me and my mum would go with him to some of the places, we lived in Turkey for close to a year and it was here I saw proper computer games!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We still had the computer, and me and my mum would play a few games on there, the ones that really stand out are the original Duke Nukem and the Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade point and click. My mum smashed the original Duke Nuken, but we could never get past the Nazi Castle in Last Crusade!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From there, my other experiences came from visiting my parents friends, one couple we visited had a Mega Drive and this is where I first encountered Sonic The Hedgehog. I could never really get past Marble Zone but something about that hedgehog resonated with me, but the full love for the franchise wouldn’t come until a few years later when I was living in England again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was their other friend that really kickstarted stuff though, a lovely bloke called Tom who is to thank, maybe blame, for the lifelong obsession. He had an Amiga 500+, and when we visited him I’ve play the likes of Lotus Turbo Challenge 3, Pinball Dreams, Zool and Superfrog and I bloody loved it. Anyway, he’d sell my dad the Amiga and there we go, dozens of games and the start of a love affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That Amiga lasted us until about early 97 but it was on that system that a young me, along with the friends I made when we were permanent back in England would discover games that would stick with me for years. The point and click version of Hook! Addams Family, Beneath A Steel Sky, Operation Stealth, Cruise For A Corpse, Lotus 3, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Captain Planet, Worms, Lemmings and so many more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In those years it wouldn’t just be the Amiga I’d fall in love with, it’d also be the Mega Drive I’d love, despite not owning one personally. A good friend of mine had one, and we would always spend time at each others houses, it was there I discovered one of my all time favourite games, Sonic 2, but also we’d spend so much time with that Mega Drive. Playing the other Sonic games, and titles like Greendog, Golden Axe, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
’97 would roll around and my parents would decide it was time to move to a new games system for me. It was for a long time going to be a SEGA Saturn, probably because of my love for Sonic but one school day I got myself home and sitting where my Amiga used to be was a brand new Sony Playstation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can still remember those first few games I played for it, Rayman, Formula 1, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Worms and some quirky game called Jumping Flash! They all blew me away, the expanded range of colours, the depth of the worlds and that early 3D! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was in Demo 1 that I’d find one of the all time favourites though, Crash Bandicoot. Like Sonic 2, like Superfrog, Crash Bandicoot would become a game that I still play to this day. It was colourful, it was funny, it was challenging in the right ways for me as a kid. It was such a showcase for that system in my early days of owning it. and part of why I consider the PS1 one of my favourite, if not my favourite system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The years would roll by, I’d grow up and so would the games, I’d never leave the world of platformers, Crash was a must buy and I also fell in love with a quirky little game called Tombi, but those years would also introduce me to other favourites, Tomb Raider 2, Resident Evil 2, Broken Sword, WWF Attitude, WWF Smackdown 2, Tony Hawks 2, Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear Solid to name but a few. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, the PS1 would give way to the PS2 and that passion for gaming still wouldn’t leave me. Metal Gear Solid 2, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3, Final Fantasy X, Burnout 3, NFS Underground, Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time, Timesplitters 2 and the games that would make a teenage me decide they wanted to work in the games industry, GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those games would shape a lot of my teenage years, leading me to learn how to make websites, how to mod video games, how to 3D model and even program to a basic level. They led me to communities where I developed a passion for writing, where I made good friends and which helped lead me down the path to where I am now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would eventually go to University to study Games Programming, get my degree, get a job and some years later, in my mid 30s I’d decide… you know what, I love playing old games so much, why don’t I talk about them more. I’d start up a Twitch channel and a Youtube channel which you can find links to above. Where I’ve played games I always wanted to growing up, or rediscovered some old favourites, where I’ve made brand new discoveries and made more new friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This website is a new stage of that journey, I love writing and I wanted to make a little website, not dissimilar to the sort I’d make as a teen, a fun little place to ramble about video games, what they mean to me and share that with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hope you all enjoy being on this journey too! Please stick around, give me a follow on Twitch, Subscribe on YouTube and bookmark this site. Leave a comment and get involved in the the discussions, I want to hear from others whether you’re new to this world of a veteran, I want to know what peoples favs are and the systems they love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks for reading this, and I look forward to seeing more of you as time goes on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello everyone! I’m James or JLSoryu as I’ve come to be known on the internet! I’m a guy who hails from the North East of England but is currently living in the lovely city of Edinburgh, Scotland! This is my site, my little place to ramble and talk about retro video games, be it new … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-109","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127,"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/109\/revisions\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jl-soryu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}