Many years ago, I worked in the video game industry as a normal person. First, as a community manager for a strategy game published by (then Vivendi Universal Games) - and then later, as a freelance journalist contributing reviews, news, and editorial content for a local gaming website. It paid the bills, (of which I didn't have many at the time) - and it let me buy all the consoles and games I could ever want.
Sometimes, I didn't even need to pay for games.
Eternity's Child was the first review and editorial piece that I ever wrote and got paid money for. I can't find the original text, the website hosting it is offline, and the Internet Wayback Machine doesn't have a copy of it either.
My email sent folder doesn't have it either. That was more than ... I'd say, a decade ago now, or perhaps exactly a decade - who knows?
Upon its release, Eternity's Child was totally panned by media outlet Destructoid. The developer recoiled, calling the outlet unprofessional and there was some sort of large controversy about the rights for media outlets to pan games from developers.
I wrote about that saga, with some snippets from whatever social media was popular at the time, and added some commentary. I also played the game.
Ill-fated, this game was a platformer. As a result - it didn't get a particularly stellar review from me, outside of the art and the music, which still holds up as unique, original, and of a high quality.
Unfortunately, the underlying gameplay mechanisms lead to an extra, extra difficult platform title, that even seasoned platform-gaming fans struggled and criticised.
Managing to grit my teeth through a game genre that I didn't enjoy at all cut my teeth as a game reviewer, and I quickly learnt that not every game has to be good. Before that time, I only chose to play what I chose to play, I wasn't assigned games - from potentially any genre, and expected to piece together some cogent and intelligible verdict on the game.
It expanded my horizons, and Eternity's Child was a title that holds a special place - not because of the controversy surrounding its release, but because it was the first game that I played with the view of objectivity.
Now, of course, when I write these A-Z reviews of my Steam collection, with no editorial oversight, I can write what I truly think of platforming games that happened to wander into the abyss of my Steam library - they're all awful. It's the worst genre.
Except Eternity's Child, because it helped me through university, and led to a tenure as a professional video game journalist.
Will I ever play the game again? No. Will I always remember fondly the cause and effect it unleashed? Of course.