Introducing Lyra Silver

Hello everyone.

I'm Lizz and I'm married to Cowboy, Tony Atkins.

I would like to share with you some of my video gaming background.  

I was given a Master System II when I was about 10 and was only given one game, which was Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade.  My reactions were not very good so I don’t think I ever saw the third level of this difficult platform game, plus, my sister used to kick my butt when playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World so the console gathered a lot of dust.  Later, I was given an Amstrad PC with lots of copied games but they took a long time to load and had a tendency to crash.

I didn’t really come into much contact with games - other than Tetris on the Game Boy, which I completed on the hardest setting and saw the rocket take off once - until I met Tony.  He owned an N64 and Playstation and bought a Dreamcast soon after we started going out.  I didn’t play the N64 or Playstation as there weren’t any games that interested me.  I only played Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast and used to successfully button bash, which annoyed Tony as he couldn’t beat someone who was so unpredictable.  It wasn’t until Final Fantasy X that I got more interested although after playing over 100 hours, I still never completed the game. 

The Xbox was my breakthrough.  I bought my own console and Xbox Live account and we set up a good network in the house and I have many memories of sitting in the converted attic playing 16 man Rainbow Six 3 with friends that we met online and still talk to five years later. 

Tony bought a gaming PC for the release of Half-Life 2 so we had 2 PCs to play World of Warcraft together when it was released.  I was hooked, like the 14,000,000 other subscribers, but my desk set up, gave me repetitive strain injury so I’m not able to play for very long.  I currently have one level 71 character and about a dozen alts over a couple of servers.

I also really enjoy playing games on the 360 like Rock Band & Guitar Hero and XBLA puzzle games.  I still play the odd shooter, like Gears of War 2, but my slower reactions let me down sometimes and I find that I’m only good for target practice.  I did own a Nintendo DS but recently sold this due to the acquisition of an iPod Touch which is even more mobile for quick casual games than the DS for commuting.

Thanks for reading.

Lizz Atkins