If you would have asked this question a few weeks ago I would have said I was a specialist at Rainbow Six: Vegas. At least, I like to think I was, as I only recall one ranked match where I played someone much better than me, and it was two guys who just dominated the whole map. Every other time I would be on the winning team, or would have the most kills (easily a 3:1 kill:death ratio per round) Then when I got the elite rank I never played the game again. I just felt complete.
Right now I am a generalist, going through a "I have so many games I don't know what to play" phase. I have 15 360 games, and 11 of them have not been played as much as I want to, and the same can be said about PC games. I just fade in and out of different games, before Vegas I played Plan of Attak before all the servers vanished and like to consider myself one of the best in that game, and before that I played Natural Selection and Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear both competively.
I suppose my biggest problem is that I need to get hooked on a game in one of the first few plays to really enjoy it. So when I buy a game (especially MMOs) that have been out for a long time and everybody else is so much better than me and I get my ass handed to me, I just stop playing it. In the few occurances where I do very good in my first game or have a very good time (read: Natural Selection) I get really addicted to it and play that game almost exclusively.
"I like everything but sports and racing games" is like the game-nerd equivalent of the "open-minded" music fan saying "I like everything but rap and country". It's becoming a total cliche, though I probably notice it a lot more since those are genres I enjoy a lot. (Well, sports and racing, I mean. And rap. Maybe some country if the Flying Burrito Brothers and Johnny Cash count.) I love the hell out of baseball sims -- even micromanagey no-real-gameplay stat-nerd titles like OOTP, though I haven't gotten around to MLB 2K7 yet -- and arcade-style basketball titles (NBA Street and NBA Jam > any Mario Plays a Sport title). And racing games? I think I cross over from "geek" to "snob" territory, in that I stopped liking Burnout once they cranked up the rubber-banding and made all the cars handle exacly the same, and I'm a lot more interested in tearing around Forza's Nurburgring in a '73 Porsche Carrera RS than anything F-Zero or Mario Kart can offer. NOT A REAL GAMER. Sorry. I like NFL 2K5 more than Madden if it'll make anyone feel better.
That said, I'm pretty egalitarian: if you asked me for my ten favorite games of all time it'd be a list that includes Half-Life, Castlevania:SOTN, God Hand, Guitar Hero II, Tekken 2, Fallout 1 + 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Killer7, GTA:SA and a few others that all have radically different controls, gameplay mechanics and styles to them. And that's just what I've been able to play without having a Nintendo console for the last 15 years -- once I get a Wii and the Virtual Console I'll probably wind up going berserk playing catch-up. (Fortunately, in the space between today and the time I can actually find a Wii, I'll probably be able to get around to playing -- and finishing -- Okami and Grim Fandango.)
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
Guess, you could say I'm a generalist.
Though I have my favorite genres(RPG/Action Adventure) I'll pretty much give any game a chance as long as I find it entertaining. I guess it's been in part that I've been playing vidja games since I was younger and my parents would just buy whatever and I'd just play whatever, that and I had Sega Channel(ah, Sega Channel...how you are missed).
Anything but sports games until:
Madden's Roman Colliseum.
When they make that, and I'm a lonely christian running from huge lions in a vast open pit, being cheered by blood thirsy peasants... sure.
I guess I could have a football in the shape of a cross.
"I like everything but sports and racing games" is like the game-nerd equivalent of the "open-minded" music fan saying "I like everything but rap and country". It's becoming a total cliche, though I probably notice it a lot more since those are genres I enjoy a lot. (Well, sports and racing, I mean. And rap. Maybe some country if the Flying Burrito Brothers and Johnny Cash count.)
No, you're completely and absolutely right. :^: I think with a lot of people, though, unless you're a die-hard racing fan it's tough to justify having more than one racing game because after a while it all feels the same. Well, one "real" racing game and one kart-racer, because they're two different beasts entirely.
And I think even if you hate sports games, it's a crime not to love Mutant League Football.
I'm with Wayetad - I like games that I like. I'm very open-minded about games, so no concept is too weird for me to try, though it is most of the time impossible. I mostly play my games on normal and see if it's worth it to invest more time in mastering the intricacies of the game. Harder difficulty modes? Sure! Just make it so that difficulty doesn't consist of you giving the enemy a bunch of resources, hard AI, oh, and the base is already fully set up with nukes ready to launch while you didn't even deploy your main construction site. This is just cheap.
For example, I'm almost god-like in Metal Slug 2. I can reach the very last boss without dying once, though I still can't manage to defeat it in one run (I was really close once) since, as you know, it consists largely of luck and spamming grenades. The first five missions I completely own, know them inside-out, know every secret, every drop, basically everything you can imagine.
Except the elusive secret tower in the first mission right before the boss. The point is that it's not there and I'm perplexed as to it's existence. I know it's bogus, but maybe, just maybe I've missed it all these years. Could someone enlighten me?
"I like everything but sports and racing games" is like the game-nerd equivalent of the "open-minded" music fan saying "I like everything but rap and country". It's becoming a total cliche, though I probably notice it a lot more since those are genres I enjoy a lot. (Well, sports and racing, I mean. And rap. Maybe some country if the Flying Burrito Brothers and Johnny Cash count.) I love the hell out of baseball sims -- even micromanagey no-real-gameplay stat-nerd titles like OOTP, though I haven't gotten around to MLB 2K7 yet -- and arcade-style basketball titles (NBA Street and NBA Jam > any Mario Plays a Sport title). And racing games? I think I cross over from "geek" to "snob" territory, in that I stopped liking Burnout once they cranked up the rubber-banding and made all the cars handle exacly the same, and I'm a lot more interested in tearing around Forza's Nurburgring in a '73 Porsche Carrera RS than anything F-Zero or Mario Kart can offer. NOT A REAL GAMER. Sorry. I like NFL 2K5 more than Madden if it'll make anyone feel better.
Dangit, you stole that post right out from my mind! I too admit to being a Sim Racer / Sports specialist, with my current addictions being NHL 07 and Forza Motorsport (Already have 2 reserved.) Ironically, though, I'm also addicted to sandboxish "Play at your own pace" games such as Oblivion and Second Life, and I am debating investing in Total Extreme Wrestling (A pro wrestling league simulator, and yes, you do choose who wins and looses matches)
Kinda wish I only liked one genre, or at least preferred a specific genre over others. It'd cut back on my gaming expenses and the time spent. I've got several friends who all play just "one" game, and they're satsified with it. I, on the other hand, tend to cycle through tastes. One month I like RPGs, the next I'll play FPS, the next, strategy. The problem is, when I'm in the mood for one style of game, I can't stand playing any other genres (in addition to dealing with growing tired of individual titles).
I am a generalist, with different expectations depending upon the genre.
I generally dislike racing games, slogged through a bit of GT3 & 4 (licenses are sadistic punishment for the casual player) and then came upon Burnout Revenge, which totally enthralled me. I guess it's the arcade racer that I prefer, although not as arcadey as Mario Kart. I will try any of them, and at least be interested by most.
I suck at action games like DMC3 and God Hand, but I'm trying to slog through God Hand on Easy (yeah, I'm a loser), just because, despite my suckage, it's awesomely awesome. I gave up on DMC3 completely, because it was totally unenjoyable for me. This doesn't make it a bad game, it's just not for me.
I enjoy RTS games, such as Warcraft II, III, Starcraft, etc. In the end, though, I play on normal or easy difficulty against the computer, because human components destroy me with a trivial amount of effort. Oooh, C&C3 just came out!
I love FPSs and when I play them a ton, I can actually get reasonably good. After a semester or two of CS in college, I was in the top 100 of the server that I played on. That may not be good for most of you guys, but it was awesome for me, since I'm typically at the bottom, not anywhere near the top. Q3A:Rocket Arena was a blast for me as well, and I played it long enough to get pretty good. I think I lean towards FPS if I had to pick a specialty, just because I seem to be able to improve when I play them a lot. This is not to say that I'm good at them. I suck, but I can at least hope to suck less, eventually.
Sports games. I have no interest in most sports, so there is little interest. On the other hand, I've put tons of hours into Tiger Woods, because somehow playing golf is interesting to me, while playing football, hockey, basketball and such is too frantic and random. I think it's because I don't care about those games, so I don't understand them. You can't help but understand golf, even if you're not good at it. You hit the ball into the hole, and you get to take your time and practice. With basketball, for instance, you can't exactly take your time.
RPGs or things similar. I love turn-based JRPGs. I enjoy the stories and the strategy and even just levelling up so that I beat the crap out of all that I see. But, make it an "Active Time Battle" or some such, and I start having trouble. I think I'm just not a "fast" gamer with anything more complicated than an FPS. I like to take my time to think, so I'm not keen on timers. I liked the Neverwinter Nights/KOTOR solution, which was to run things at a certain pace and then allow you to pause whenever you wanted to collect your thoughts and come up with a strategy if necessary. It looks like Mass Effect will be the same, so I expect to enjoy it.
TL;DR - I'm a generalist with preferences, but I'll try and enjoy most games, I just suck at most games. The sucking only prevents enjoying when there is no way to make it easier so that I can proceed in the game. DMC3SE, on the easiest setting, is still prohibitively hard for me. Sorry, not worth my time.
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I like that some of you have pointed out aspects in games that are like punishment for the generalists and the casual gamers (for example, the licenses in GT3 & 4). I often play through games up until a point where I hit a wall I can't get past (one of my current walls is the spider ball boss in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, I get past the first few screens, but when I reach the one that's like 4 levels, I just can't get past that point.)
It's not that I give up easily, it's that I hate redoing the same damn thing over and over until I either get lucky or do something perfectly. I hate games that require perfection (or something very close to it) to progress.
I also tend to get very pissed-off at games when I die and realize I'll have to replay more than the last five minutes. Castlevania: SotN has done that to me a few times since I bought it on XBLA, and I'm just annoyed that the save rooms aren't better placed. Usually, when I die with more than five minutes of unsaved progress, I just stop the game, and only come back later.
I'm a generalist except for sports games. I lean towards open ended games and don't play JRPGs that often because there is usually a lot of grinding I dislike. That isn't to say I don't play them. I just usually only get them when they are cheap.
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Right now I am a generalist, going through a "I have so many games I don't know what to play" phase. I have 15 360 games, and 11 of them have not been played as much as I want to, and the same can be said about PC games. I just fade in and out of different games, before Vegas I played Plan of Attak before all the servers vanished and like to consider myself one of the best in that game, and before that I played Natural Selection and Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear both competively.
I suppose my biggest problem is that I need to get hooked on a game in one of the first few plays to really enjoy it. So when I buy a game (especially MMOs) that have been out for a long time and everybody else is so much better than me and I get my ass handed to me, I just stop playing it. In the few occurances where I do very good in my first game or have a very good time (read: Natural Selection) I get really addicted to it and play that game almost exclusively.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cykstfc
That said, I'm pretty egalitarian: if you asked me for my ten favorite games of all time it'd be a list that includes Half-Life, Castlevania:SOTN, God Hand, Guitar Hero II, Tekken 2, Fallout 1 + 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Killer7, GTA:SA and a few others that all have radically different controls, gameplay mechanics and styles to them. And that's just what I've been able to play without having a Nintendo console for the last 15 years -- once I get a Wii and the Virtual Console I'll probably wind up going berserk playing catch-up. (Fortunately, in the space between today and the time I can actually find a Wii, I'll probably be able to get around to playing -- and finishing -- Okami and Grim Fandango.)
Though I have my favorite genres(RPG/Action Adventure) I'll pretty much give any game a chance as long as I find it entertaining. I guess it's been in part that I've been playing vidja games since I was younger and my parents would just buy whatever and I'd just play whatever, that and I had Sega Channel(ah, Sega Channel...how you are missed).
Madden's Roman Colliseum.
When they make that, and I'm a lonely christian running from huge lions in a vast open pit, being cheered by blood thirsy peasants... sure.
I guess I could have a football in the shape of a cross.
Am I general?
And I think even if you hate sports games, it's a crime not to love Mutant League Football.
fuck
For example, I'm almost god-like in Metal Slug 2. I can reach the very last boss without dying once, though I still can't manage to defeat it in one run (I was really close once) since, as you know, it consists largely of luck and spamming grenades. The first five missions I completely own, know them inside-out, know every secret, every drop, basically everything you can imagine.
Except the elusive secret tower in the first mission right before the boss. The point is that it's not there and I'm perplexed as to it's existence. I know it's bogus, but maybe, just maybe I've missed it all these years. Could someone enlighten me?
Dangit, you stole that post right out from my mind! I too admit to being a Sim Racer / Sports specialist, with my current addictions being NHL 07 and Forza Motorsport (Already have 2 reserved.) Ironically, though, I'm also addicted to sandboxish "Play at your own pace" games such as Oblivion and Second Life, and I am debating investing in Total Extreme Wrestling (A pro wrestling league simulator, and yes, you do choose who wins and looses matches)
Except for Gamefaqs, where everyone eats lead paint chips and only plays FF7.
I'm not much of an RPG person, and I usually prefer third person shooters over first.
Aside from that, I play most genres well enough, as long as the games are good.
I generally dislike racing games, slogged through a bit of GT3 & 4 (licenses are sadistic punishment for the casual player) and then came upon Burnout Revenge, which totally enthralled me. I guess it's the arcade racer that I prefer, although not as arcadey as Mario Kart. I will try any of them, and at least be interested by most.
I suck at action games like DMC3 and God Hand, but I'm trying to slog through God Hand on Easy (yeah, I'm a loser), just because, despite my suckage, it's awesomely awesome. I gave up on DMC3 completely, because it was totally unenjoyable for me. This doesn't make it a bad game, it's just not for me.
I enjoy RTS games, such as Warcraft II, III, Starcraft, etc. In the end, though, I play on normal or easy difficulty against the computer, because human components destroy me with a trivial amount of effort. Oooh, C&C3 just came out!
I love FPSs and when I play them a ton, I can actually get reasonably good. After a semester or two of CS in college, I was in the top 100 of the server that I played on. That may not be good for most of you guys, but it was awesome for me, since I'm typically at the bottom, not anywhere near the top. Q3A:Rocket Arena was a blast for me as well, and I played it long enough to get pretty good. I think I lean towards FPS if I had to pick a specialty, just because I seem to be able to improve when I play them a lot. This is not to say that I'm good at them. I suck, but I can at least hope to suck less, eventually.
Sports games. I have no interest in most sports, so there is little interest. On the other hand, I've put tons of hours into Tiger Woods, because somehow playing golf is interesting to me, while playing football, hockey, basketball and such is too frantic and random. I think it's because I don't care about those games, so I don't understand them. You can't help but understand golf, even if you're not good at it. You hit the ball into the hole, and you get to take your time and practice. With basketball, for instance, you can't exactly take your time.
RPGs or things similar. I love turn-based JRPGs. I enjoy the stories and the strategy and even just levelling up so that I beat the crap out of all that I see. But, make it an "Active Time Battle" or some such, and I start having trouble. I think I'm just not a "fast" gamer with anything more complicated than an FPS. I like to take my time to think, so I'm not keen on timers. I liked the Neverwinter Nights/KOTOR solution, which was to run things at a certain pace and then allow you to pause whenever you wanted to collect your thoughts and come up with a strategy if necessary. It looks like Mass Effect will be the same, so I expect to enjoy it.
TL;DR - I'm a generalist with preferences, but I'll try and enjoy most games, I just suck at most games. The sucking only prevents enjoying when there is no way to make it easier so that I can proceed in the game. DMC3SE, on the easiest setting, is still prohibitively hard for me. Sorry, not worth my time.
It's not that I give up easily, it's that I hate redoing the same damn thing over and over until I either get lucky or do something perfectly. I hate games that require perfection (or something very close to it) to progress.
I also tend to get very pissed-off at games when I die and realize I'll have to replay more than the last five minutes. Castlevania: SotN has done that to me a few times since I bought it on XBLA, and I'm just annoyed that the save rooms aren't better placed. Usually, when I die with more than five minutes of unsaved progress, I just stop the game, and only come back later.
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