Chances are, members of your favorite band are probably into playing video games to some extent. Whether it’s just playing Animal Crossing on the road (remember tours? Same.) or even the likes of Trivium’s Matt Heafy and Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda interacting with fans daily via Twitch, the two worlds tend to collide more than you might think.
We’re excited to bring you another edition of The Video Games That Shaped Me, this time with Marcus of This Modern. A band based in Arizona that fuses together modern rock and pop with R&B and hip-hop influences, there’s plenty of eclecticism in this new act, especially when you listen to their debut EP Remedies, which also features The Color Morale’s Garret Rapp. Give our new feature with Marcus a spin below!
Hello! This is Marcus from This Modern. I grew up playing all sorts of games on all sorts of consoles. One of my earliest memories is going into surgery at age 5, and waking up to a brand new Gameboy. From sports games to RPGs and adventure, video games have been a huge part of my upbringing, and a catalyst for some of my closest friendships.
I’ll start with the premiere game of my childhood memories – Crash Bandicoot. My dad used to keep the consoles in his bedroom so that we couldn’t be up all night in the living room playing games while he was asleep. I remember sitting on his bedroom floor for hours at a time, listening to CDs on a portable player and playing Crash Bandicoot. My sister, my cousins and I were all infatuated by this series of games. We used to host big Crash Nitro Kart tournaments that were always very competitive. I replayed the entire trilogy in the last year and it’s probably even more challenging now to my adult brain than it was to my adolescent brain. My money says you’ve never seen someone navigate an underwater level like me.
I would be remiss if I wrote this segment without bringing up the franchise that I’ve undoubtedly spent the most amount of time on. Growing up I was never much into sci-fi, fighting, or guns, but I was definitely into sports. I’ve played them all: from the MLB baseball games that no longer exist on the Xbox Marketplace, to NASCAR racing, to the glorious NCAA Football and Basketball series that can no longer be as a result of strenuous lawsuits. I have spent weeks, months, if not years of my life being the best Madden player I can be. As a kid, I would create myself with a 99 overall ranking and blow out computer opponents by 100+ points. As an adult, I love the new Superstar KO format that allows for quick, fun, competitive gameplay against real opponents. Even though the ratings for primetime sports games in the past few years have been bad, I still love most of them, namely Madden.
I played Fortnite, it was alright for a while. I played Apex, I didn’t much care for it. I’ve dabbled in Call of Duty, but nothing in the online arena of battle royales ever quite stuck for me. I feel like the art of a good story game has been lost, in many respects, which for my taste is not ideal. That’s why for the third game, I am highlighting Red Dead Redemption 2. In my opinion, this is the best story game released in many years. It reminds me of Grand Theft Auto with cowboys and horses. The map is not only enormous, but absolutely breathtaking, and with so many different endings, it’s a game that can be played over and over again. I can’t wait for more DLC and look forward to more out of this series!
As a final note, I am so looking forward to the re-release of Destroy All Humans and have already preordered appropriately. Keep on gaming, gamers!
