ENMU gamer has large collection

With more than 150 games spread across six consoles, Thomas Elswick fits the profile of a true gamer. After receiving his first console at age 10, (a Nintendo Gamecube he still owns), a lifelong hobby was formed that may lead into a career.

“I want to create games. I’ve already made a Whack-A-Mole game and a card game for Android,” said Elswick, a sophomore at Eastern New Mexico University who majors in information systems while minoring in computer science.

Elswick has a shelf in his room with all of his PlayStation 3 games, the console he plays the most.

“I really became a gamer when I bought the PS3,” said Elswick. He separates them by games he has beaten already and games he has yet to complete. The ratio for this shelf is 9:1 with the one standing for games yet to be completed.

“I’m working on a completing the first Dead Space right now,” said Elswick.

“It’s a first-person survival shooter.”

The games that aren’t on the shelves are already saved onto the hard drive of the console, so Elswick can simply turn on the console, load a game from a folder and play. His love for gaming is validated by the fact that he even has his own favorite game developer.

“I like pretty much anything by Naughty Dog,” said Elswick.

However, Elswick already has new games that he has yet to try. He pre-ordered a PlayStation 4 console and it is scheduled to release today. He already has four new games and a controller for it, and is itching to pick it up.

“The first game I’m going to play is Killzone.”

Elswick also own a PlayStation Vita, which is a handheld version of the PlayStation. He said he pretty much takes it everywhere with him.

“I can listen to MP3’s on it, I watch Netflix on it, it takes pictures, surf the web. But best of all, I have about 30 games saved on here, so I don’t have to switch out cartridges. And it has awesome graphics.”

Elswick said he estimates the value of all of his videogames to be over $5,000. But he doesn’t plan on getting rid of anything, only adding to the collection.

“If anything I’ll box up the PS3 and put it somewhere when I stop playing. But I’m not getting rid of it,” said Elswick.

Sign of a true collector.