PC gaming is my 2nd hobby, while reading sci fi books is the 1st one :). Since I was little, I started playing games, but in those days, the games were based more on story and atmosphere rather than graphics like today. Amongst my favories games (for that time) I can say only the Dizzy series because this was my favorite series in the late 80's. In the 90's I started playing PC games and one of the best game of that time was Dune II (probably my favorite game ever :P). I like playing mostly strategy games but these days, those games are very rare (I do play SC II from time to time but that game has zero strategy in it to be honest), while FPS games are way more often. These days I am playing more games from a whole area of genres like: The Settlers series, Half Life series, Tomb Raider series, Heroes series and sooo many others :P

I prefer to focus on retail games since gaming communities are getting worst with each day passing, hell Steam has one of the worst support and community ever, thus I prefer to focus on SP games. I am mostly interested in the story and the atmosphere of a game, while the graphics part is not that interesting. Also the gameplay is very important to me, while the MP is maybe the most boring part of the game these days. Playing with other people is hard these days, probably because most never bother to learn the English language, most never ever bother to say "Hello" or take part in the game. At the core of gaming is the idea that playing a game is about discovery and knowlegde while the retarded kids of the present games think that gaming is about fun. Well to be honest, If I were stupid I would think that life is about fun also, but the reality is that life is about exploration, choices and responsabilities. It's about discovery, understanding and curiosity, while fun is just the smallest part of it. Gaming is 1st about understanding how to play a game (any game), and 2nd is about speaking or understanding the English language. While 3rd is about communication and the idea that people can understand what "teamwork" means. The 4th factor is called being polite and playing the game relaxed, while understanding that no video game is about skill. Video games are more about understanding the core of game, playing it relaxed and teamwork. Yes chess is about skill, piloting planes in the real life is about skill, but video games... have nothing to do with the skills some players think it exists in the gaming communities.

Playing video games is probably one of the best ways of understanding more about how imagination works and how dreams can help us make a better society tomorrow. Video games give us the possibility of playing with people from around the world, understanding better how other nations are, knowing more about foreign civilizations and give us a very big world to explore. But to explore this amazing universe, it takes courage and knowlegde, two skills most gamers are lacking.

My time zone is GMT and I prefer to play with players from -2/+2 range since it's easier :P