I know, I felt kind of dirty and used.
There are many unskiled older folk that just like to play out there, you know.
Zsofia - I used to get all frustrated when I’d get whomped by a game (and I got whomped by a lot of games, lemme tell ya). Unbelievable frustration, aggravation, madness, and a fair amount of screaming. But them something came along that not only made the going a lot easier, it put all those games in proper perspective and allowed me to let go.
Cheat devices.
Not just for making the impossible doable and the doable easy…but for allowing me to identify which games were still freaking impossible with help. Air Fortress, anyone? Battletoads, now that was a classic.
See, the thing you gotta understand, some things are just That. Messed. Up. Known as “BS” and several more colorful terms. I’ll even point out the prime example in Grand Theft Auto, the vehicle challenges. An utterly impossible race in 3, and an utterly impossible race and a ridiculously weak, clumsy plane Launchpad McQuack wouldn’t touch. And when you fail, you have to start over from the beginning.
It’s not your fault you’re no good at them. Nobody likes them. Nobody ever gets comfortable with them. The vast majority of gamers couldn’t get through these challenges with a gun to their heads. That’s completely normal. Don’t let it bother you. (Don’t make the same mistake I did.)
Oh, as far as fighting games, sports games, boxing games, etc. are concerned: Everybody wins, everybody loses. The sooner you accept that, the better your mental health will be.
Never be afraid to knock the difficulty down when the game has that option. Better to play on Easy and enjoy the game than Medium or Hard and be miserable.
As for Bioshock, which I’m playing now (well, in about an hour), I walk into every room, find the nearest corner or wall, and back up, sweeping my weapon around frantically looking for enemies. I *scoot *along the walls. And when I hear that lead pipe dragging along the ground or some crazy splicer muttering to herself, I’m like a character in a horror movie, turning at every twitch or flicker or noise. I’ve fired randomly into the air more times than I can count, too (Kids, this is why you keep your finger off the trigger!)
I’m thinking of buying an XBox360, GTA4, and Rock Band. Now if only I could buy some free time.
Word. I play Ninja Gaiden on the X-Box using a trainer to give myself invulnerability, and that only brings the game level down to challenging.
My probablem is slightly different, it’s not that I suck, it’s that I get mad too easily. Don’t get me wrong it’s not screaming and cursing mad (usually), I couldn’t make a video let’s play. It’s more like I try to do every concievable side quest and collection thing, usually shutting down midway through the game. I’m still firing up Mass Effect now and then to burn myself out on Ore Collection missions, don’t get me wrong I enjoy them and the rewards, but I end up doing to much, especially if I miss something.
In No More Heroes I missed a trading card somewhere and… I haven’t played since. I’d restart but then I have to pick up all those damn t-shirts and Kolominiwarawhatever Balls for the special abilities. So it always ends up boiling down to use a strategy guide as sparingly as possibly (usually as a checklist, not a walkthrough) or potentially shut down when figuring out I missed something, I usually choose the latter and usually end up missing something.
But I do have my share of suckage, well, kind of, I die about as much as everyone else in an FPS but tend to follow the Laws of DBZ in the games, specifically “When in doubt scream loudly and sacrifice yourself to have no effect on the enemy whatsoever.”
Are there any trainers for the 360? At all?
I have no clue. I don’t even know where you could get that kind of information.
Well, crap. Check here. Of course, it depends on how big of a nerd you are and how much you want to get into it. If you mod your Xbox, you can’t play any matchmaking on Live, though.
Yeah, totally not modding the 360. I was hoping for Action Replay or Gameshark.
Pay on Ebay to have some kid get all the achievements for you, then.
No, not caring about achievements. I just suck generally, and was wondering what was out there, having been surprised that I couldn’t find a gameshark for this generation. Seriously, it’s been a year, it should be out by now.
The thing is that the game isn’t the single player mode anymore. The game is now the online multiplayer component. That’s the game.
Of course, there are a few exceptions, but still, playing on Live is the game.
Yeah, and I hate the hell out of that. That isn’t nearly as fun as the “living a story” game concept. That’s what I loved most about Bioshock - the single player was the game. Evidently there’s multiplayer in GTA but it’s clearly not the main focus of energies, either, which is awesome.
See, I respectfully disagree. Multiplayer determines who’s the best player (or who has the best connection). The single player campaign is an okay warmup, or it’s okay if you want a story, but it’s not playing the game at a level greater than that. Oh, sure, you can turn the difficulty up, but that’s not the same. AI still can’t do human thought.
I suck at video games. I have sucked at video games since Pong was released.
(Except for those Infocom text adventures - remember them? I rocked at them.)
I can’t be beat at video versions of trivia, cards, board games, like that. However, if I am forced to move around or aim or shoot or (heaven forbid) try to shoot something coming up from behind me, I am worse than useless.
Unfortunately for me, I also love video games. If I could get back all the quarters I wasted in the arcade just from the '80s I could be living in a McMansion right now.
I just embrace my suckitude and try not to let it frustrate me too much. When I get to the point of frustration I go play something else for a while. And, there’s a lot to be said for giving up, wiping the slate clean, and just starting from the beginning again (I do that a lot - you already have the earlier parts down, so you get more practice at the controls and work on better strategies and it’s a great confidence builder).
Lucky for me that my big love is MMORPG and those don’t really take that split second timing and perfect aim that some of my PS2 games take. I’m not an uber player by any means but at least I’m more “average” than “short bus gamer”.
That’s the thing - I don’t want to be the best player! I don’t really care at all if I’m the best player. I care what happens to Niko. I don’t want to screw up his new life in America. I care if my pinatas get eaten by evil nasty other pinatas. I care if I kill Little Sisters or save them. I want narrative. If I wanted to run around shooting at my friends with no story we’d go play laser tag. I’m in it for “story” and other kinds of involvement.
You know who’s the best player? Some 12 year old kid who doesn’t have to go to a job all day. You and I are not now and will never be the “best player”, and I’m glad, because I think it sounds really boring to “practice” at video games. The “Zero Punctuation” review for Super Smash Brothers Whatever was dead on about that one - evidently if you want to unlock the best characters you have to have already played the game for ten hours, so if you want to bring this thing to a party and get to play the stuff you want to play, you essentially have to be “that guy”, and that’s the road to hell. Nobody likes Mr. Break the Curve. It isn’t fun.
Then you and I play video games for completely different reasons. GTA’s multiplayer is lacking a bunch, but it’s still pretty solid. That’s one of the reasons that GTA can’t be a “10”. On the flip side, that’s also why Halo and Call of Duty can possible be ranked a “10”. A clunky interface and every game having fatal flaws in multiplayer are why no Wii game to date can be a “10”.
You’d be wrong with that “best player” stuff. It’s harder to get some kind of skill in GTA because the game would boil down to long range shooting almost completely if it were about some competitive aspect. That and flanking, but with the radar and the large boards, that’s hard to do. Besides, it boils down to the best “team”, not so much the best player.
Oddly, I do agree with Yahtzee on Super Smash Brothers. That’s a decent game to play a few times with some people, but I don’t care so much about being good at it. Yahtzee believes that way because he doesn’t play multiplayer. He never plays the multiplayer aspect in his games, which is a damned shame, because, like I said, that’s the real game now. His point about being the best player of any particular game in a group of 4 friends is true Being that guy is a pain in the ass because people don’t want to play against you. Being that guy online is exactly the opposite. Yahtzee is right and he’s wrong. He’s right if you’re the best in your circle of friends. He couldn’t be further from the truth if he played online. I get the picture that Yahtzee isn’t even very good at video games, but that’s fine. He doesn’t have to be. Really, I think he’s intimidated by playing online a lot. Either that or he genuinely believes that playing the single player mode is the game and that multiplayer is strictly an add-on.
This talk is starting to tie into the thread that’s also running right now about using cheap moves in a video game. “Cheap moves” tend to get found in multiplayer where they’re effective and very pedestrian, usually. If you use it against people that have never played with those rules, they can be seen as cheating. (Note, not all “cheap moves” fall into this category)
I know that a lot of people obviously don’t agree with me, but I don’t get the point of being the best player on online multiplayer. I understand it theoretically with your friends, because it’s like a board game or a basketball game or something - it’s a thing you do together. I can’t imagine why it’s really all that fun to beat or be beaten by a bunch of strangers.
But I know I’m not the best player. So… why should I be fighting to be the 3000th best player? Sorry, man. The game isn’t Live. That’s Microsoft just trying to squeeze money out of you.
It’s a game, certainly. But Counterstrike isn’t all there is in life.
I’d play online…but I don’t know how to hook my PS2 up. 