Confessions of a gamer

As a kid I´d watch a horror movie with my parents, of course they didn´t always realize that and yes that sometimes gave me nightmares. But when I would be watching the movie I´d be ok, because I had my parents there with me. When I first started playing survival horror games I wasn´t that interested in trying that, because I still had thoughts about the nightmares that came along with my horror experiences. But a friend gave me Resident Evil and I loved it, sure the moment the dogs jump through the window I was probably jumping against the ceiling but it was fun! But it was really Silent Hill that convinced me to buy more survival horror games, because that game is just so good! I didn´t even realize it at first but there are a lot of scary games, at least games that take you off the safe path of Mario and his friends. Let´s not forget I used to be a die hard Nintendo gamer, so horror wasn´t something I was used to in games. But games like Alone in the dark and Doom helped me ge...

Sometimes I see messages of people that are new to a game and constantly get destroyed in matches, which doesn´t really help them enjoy the game. Especially when you´re new to games like Battlefield or Call of Duty then you´re in trouble when you have very little experience with these type of games. But also fighting games like Street Fighter or Tekken come with frustrations, we all lose sooner or later but when you lose every fight then things get annoying very quickly! How do I win? Well I could say you need to practice and find your way in a game, but sometimes you´re just not good enough in a game. Some people will say that with practice you can be good at any game, but really sometimes your reflexes are just too slow and with other games you just have difficulties remembering all button combinations. Not that I´m saying you can´t win with doing the same move over and over again in a fighting game, but really you don´t want to be that guy or girl! Just because you like playing a ...

Have you ever played a game that was no longer fun for you? At first things looked good, you had fun with it and things seemed to be interesting. But after some time you discovered things in the game that annoyed you, which made you dislike the game more and more. Then there really comes a point if you want to continue with the game and try to finish it or if you´re just going to get rid of it. Because going through a game that isn´t fun is really just a waste of time. Or is it? I know that some achievement/trophy hunters play games because of achievements/trophies that are easy to get, which is a good way to boost your score or get more platinum trophies. I think you really need to be focused for something like that, because if I play a game that annoys the crap out of me or is just not fun at all then I find it difficult to get through that or even complete that game! Isn´t it easier to just put the game away? I mean there are so many games out there, why would you waste y...

Have you ever played a game that was so good that you really hoped that they would make another one? But unfortunately it never came. Maybe it´s for the best sometimes, because when a good game gets a sequel then it´s always the question if it´s as good as the first one. At least that´s what you would hope, it would be even better if the sequel is even more fun than the first game. But that´s quite rare, I haven´t played many games that were actually better than the first game. So that kind of makes you wonder, do you really want to see a sequel on a very good game? I think it really depends what the developers are doing, I mean if it´s just more of the same then I can´t really say that I´m that excited for that. But that doesn´t mean that you want a completely different game, the best thing that can happen if they take good things from the first game and add new interesting things in the sequel. Seems simple right? Well looking at a long list of failures I´d say it´s not! But what o...

Have you had one of those days where you just can´t get a lucky break? It seems that everything you do is going wrong and not matter how hard you try it just won´t seem to work. I have that a lot with consoles, especially with the Xbox 360 and new games. Because I can´t really remember I had that many issues with it at first. For some reason a lot of games seem to freeze in my console, I´ve tried a lot of different things to keep this from happening but so far I haven´t had much luck. Which kind of makes me look at the games, because if my console isn´t to blame then there must be something wrong with the game right? I think it´s safe to assume that whenever your console freezes it sucks, I don´t think anyone is ok with that. Especially when you´re in the middle of something, for example a difficult mission or having a nice score streak in multiplayer. In GTA Online it happened a lot to me, usually in free roam where my screen would just freeze without any real reason for it...

Being a fan of Batman Arkham Asylum and Batman Arkham City I couldn´t let this game go by unnoticed, especially since I had so much fun with the previous games. But some people are worried, it´s not the same developer and can this game really make a difference after two great games? I haven´t finished the game so my answer isn´t based on that, but from what  I´ve seen so far I can´t say that it´s a bad game. Better said, this game is good! It feels like the other games but this one seems to be a bit different, Batman is not that experienced and you´ll see him make some mistakes. For example during an interrogation the guy he´s interrogating passes out, Batman then realizes that he made a mistake in his method. Is this annoying? Well I don´t think so, it´s actually interesting to see that Batman is indeed just a man and he also makes mistakes. But don´t worry if you think that you´re playing with a fool, he´s still an experienced fighter and sneaking is still as good as you expect i...

Have you ever played in an online multiplayer match where you were a part of a team and the rest of the team just sucked? I don´t mean that they were unfamiliar with the game, but they just didn´t work together as a team and constantly got themselves killed by members on the other team. It doesn´t matter how good you are at a game, when your team sucks then it´s most likely that you´re going to suck too! Especially when it´s about working together, because when the other team does communicate and work together then you´re going to fail in a team where this isn´t happening. I´ve lost several matches because members in my team would just all camp at their spawn point and then get crushed by a group of 3 to 4 players that work together to defeat other players. Instead of learning from this and working together with his or her teammates, they constantly go back to their failing tactic and get defeated once more. When someone doesn´t learn from his or her mistakes, then you´re not really va...

There is usually a discussion every now and then about games making people more agressive, but did you know that some people actually studied if playing games makes you smarter? It seems unlikely when you see some gamers at their finest moment with foam in their mouth and their eyes full of burst blood vessels. But let´s not forget the wonderful communication some gamers seem to have mastered, clearly the sign of a genius! So how could anyone think that gamers are smart? Of course the examples I gave are some extreme cases, a thousand people don´t represend the whole gaming community. So yes you have these weird gamers, but you also have gamers that actually have a benefit from gaming. Apparently the study proved that a lot of gamers have a higher level of concentration than people who don´t play games, usually also more patience. Now you might think that this is unlikely, especially looking at some of the gamers in first person shooters or fighting games. But gamers aren´t just ...

Some people ask me why I´m in the pro gamer zone, well that´s simple because I play to win! I guess some people actually pick that because they´re a pro or because they think they´re a pro, but in the description it says that this is a zone for people who play to win. It might suprise you but as much as I enjoy playing games for fun, which is typical for people in the recreation gamer zone, I also like to win. But do these gamer zones really matter? I mean I still meet people from other gamer zones, so it´s not like you´re only put in the same lobbies as people with your gamer zone. So being in the pro gamer zone doesn´t mean you have a big ego, it just means that you play to win! How far do you go to win? I guess that really depends who you ask, some people will go pretty far for that. I´ve heard people go crazy trying to intimidate the other players or others who would be as annoying as possible trying to make people leave the game. What some people might fail to see in the des...

In a lot of games you´re usually someone with a special ability or at least you´re not an average person, at least most of the time you´re someone chosen or just the right man (or woman) for the job. This usually means that you can do something others can´t or it just takes more shots to kill you, so in a way you have an unfair advantage on the other characters in the game. But let´s not forget the continue button, I think it´s game over for every other character in the game when they go down but the player can always retry. At least if the player doesn´t destroy his or her controller because of frustration! But you don´t always start strong or with those special abilities, often you have to earn them by going through dungeons or beating enough people to unlock that. I actually like that in games, this rpg element where you become stronger over time. You unlock new skills and your health increases with each level. This really gives me the idea that you´re on a quest and actually impr...

Can you remember the time that you talked about other things than talking about movies, games or music? Actually anything you can now easily look up on the internet, because about twenty years ago I didn´t really have that. I think I only had one other friend who also had a console, a NES, just like me. But because hardly any of my other friends had a console there wasn´t much you could talk about it and since we had no pc in our house there wasn´t much else I could talk about when it came to gaming. If I wanted to talk with my friends I called them with a phone, you know the type with a cord and that´s used by everyone else in the house. If I played with a friend then we wouldn´t sit behind the tv playing games, nope we would go outside and play some old fashioned games. A funny thing is that this often also resulted into violence, because one kid got hurt and then the other kids would pick sides which would then result in some fighting. Now when you ´fight´ it´s usually...

When I look at profile pictures then hardly anyone uses a real picture of himself or herself, often it´s a character from a game or some some model that was probably put there by some desperate virgin. With all the technology we have now, the digital cameras and other hardware like Kinect, a lot of gamers still prefer to be hidden. Which is actually not that strange, I mean why would you put your face out there when hardly anyone else does it? Especially when so many people in the online gaming world seem to be quite immature, why would you give them ammunation that they can use against you? Standing out or easy target? I think somewhere deep down inside we like to be unique, well we are actually but in our behaviour we often show that we feel more comfortable in a group and being a part of that group. Because standing out in a crowd makes you an easier target, so putting your face on your profile makes it easier for the people with the game or cartoon pictures to target you. No ...

Do you ever have the feeling that you´re the odd man out? Everyone seems to be in love with a certain game and yet you´re one of the few people that isn´t that interested in it. Maybe you´ve even played it and still you couldn´t see what is so special about that game. Well don´t worry, you´re not alone when it comes to this. Because even when a lot of people like something, then there will always be people who don´t like it! For whatever reason that might be. There are different reasons why people don´t like a game, it´s not always because they don´t like the type of game but sometimes it´s also because they prefer a different game that is quite similar but for that person it´s just so much better. Why would you hate a game? A silly question really, but I guess some people can´t seem to understand why you would hate a game that they love to play. Often it has to do with your taste in games, we don´t all like the same type of games and even if a lot of people prefer one type then it d...

To my suprise these games are a lot more popular then I thought, at first I wasn´t really interested in these games until I played Broken Sword. I don´t know if it´s the characters or the story but somehow that game was just fun to play, yes even the part with the goat in Ireland. Still it didn´t really made me play more of these games, because I prefer to shoot instead of trying to find a way around it. The popular game Myst is a mystery to me, some people love the game but unfortunately I have no idea what it is about. I guess we all have our own genre we like to play and I´ll have to be honest and say that point and click games aren´t really my type of games. But things change... Yesterday I played the game the wolf among us, it´s from the same makers as the walking dead game. The game is also in the same art style as the walking dead game, but this one looks a bit different. Like a strange version of Sin City, instead of people you now have Fables (creatures from myths and legend...

Whenever I can customize my character I somehow always try to make it look a bit like me, of course a much better looking guy than me! I mean who wants to look at my mug all the time? Anyway it´s cool when you can put yourself in a game, this virtual you can do things that you probably can´t do or at least not do without consequences. Some people even go so far to make it a very close match to their own appearance, up to the part where the virtual character wears the same outfit the player is wearing. I usually don´t take it that far, eventhough it´s funny when you see yourself in the game exactly as you are on the couch. But with the style of clothes I usually pick something different, I prefer to wear black clothes but I don´t mind wearing something else. What is a good game to put yourself in? Well maybe some of your hate this game but the Sims is really a fun game to put yourself in. I would like to mention that it´s actually the Sims 3 that gives you the most options to make a g...

Have you ever bought one of those plastic guitars or those silly looking drums? Maybe you´re even brave enough to sing in the microphone? I don´t think it has been that long ago that this was very popular, almost every year you would see at least one of those music games and it basicly came down to you hitting the right coloured buttons on the guitar when it was shown on the screen. If you play well then the song sounds good and if you don´t do so good then the song sounds bad, if you perform bad enough then the song stops and you failed. Especially as a singer this was something that happened to me a lot! So in my band I was always the guy with the guitar. But what happened to these games? I still have my guitars, drums and microphone in a corner of my gaming room. They´re gattering dust and I don´t see them being used any time soon. Sure it´s fun to play some music and you look like an idiot holding your plastic guitar, but really is that how you want to spend your day? I guess whe...

It´s interesting that some games actually let you have a nemesis or whatever word they use for that, because in competitive games you often already have a grudge against anyone that keeps killing you. So when a game slaps nemesis with the gamertag of that person in your face, that would be as a piece of meat in front of a hungry predator! Maybe you´re not that vengeful and you´ll actually just keep playing like nothing happened, but how much does it take when you do want to eliminate this annoying person? Some games do it right, when someone kills you a couple of times without you killing him then it shows on the screen that this person is your nemesis and it extra helpful if there is a little symbol above their head so you know it´s him or her. A game that has this is Team Fortress 2, it´s such a fun game and even when you have a nemesis you know who it is and often also where to find him or her. But at the same time you can also see who you dominate, I´ve had sessions...

When I first started playing games it was all about action, you see an enemy you shoot the enemy! You didn´t really think how you could sneak past the enemy, well I guess you had Metal Gear Solid games in those days but of course it was nothing as what we have now. These days it´s all about making choices, do you want to go in loud or do you want to go in quietly? In several games you get this choice, often with an additional reward at the end. Sneaking around will probably be more rewarding but it will also take more time, also one mistake means you have to go in loud! If you prefer action than you just go in guns blazing, it´s easier but at the same time also more difficult if they game actually encourages you to be stealthy. Why pick the hard way when there is an easier way? That´s how I thought for a long time, I didn´t like to be bothered with stealth because it would slow me down. Also the frustrations of failure only made me want to shoot enemies in cold blood anyway, so why w...

I come from the time when you had to manually save, which isn´t a problem for me, and it often meant that you´d save a lot just to be certain. I think one of the worst things that can happen to you in a game is that you lose all your progress, so saving a lot is always recommended. Unfortunately things could go wrong, you´d sometimes have corrupted save files or you accidently saved one game over another. So about ten years ago I saw several games that had a autosave, no longer did I needed to think about saving but of course I couldn´t help but do so anyway. Because it´s not easy to let go of something you´ve been doing for years, especially when it´s about something important. All the hours you put in a game are hours you don´t want to lose, because that would mean you´ve wasted a lot of time for nothing. Some people might find playing games a waste of time, but if you lost all your progress in a game then it truly was a waste of time! I´m certain that autosave has been there for q...

In the world of online multiplayer it´s not the fastest, strongest or smartest person that wins. No it´s often the one that is most cunning, the player that thinks outside the box or actually uses the obvious to his or her own benefit. You know when to strike and when to back off, which will then be turned into your favour because you lure someone into a trap. I think I´ve killed almost as much people with a bouncing Betty then with my smg in Black Ops 2, that´s because a lot of people don´t look where they walk or know that you can evade the blast by going prone (if you´re quick at least). Of course a lot of people like to camp, so it might be difficult to lure them into a trap but don´t be suprised that some of these campers get too confident when things are going well for them. Especially if you look like an idiot on the field they´ll come charging at you to put you in their sad little montage, only to be suprised that the ´idiot´ had put a trap just around the corner. How to coun...

I think we´ve all done it in some point of our gaming lives, when you´re just so fed up with the bullshit in a game that you just quit. The last time for me was in Goldeneye 2, yes I should´ve known that this would be a piece of shit but I guess with my love for Goldeneye I couldn´t resist to buy this. It´s really the last level where almost every enemy has a weapon that can kill you with one shot that really drove me to the edge of insanity, I actually made it pretty far in the level until I encountered a lieutenant that had two weapons at the same time and could kill me also with one shot, the problem was that he could take a lot of damage and he has two henchmen that also carry one shot kill weapons. It´s so frustrating to constantly have to evade every shot they make and yet be able to put some serious hurt on them. It seems simple but when you´re in a small area with not much protection then it gets very annoying and frustrating real fast! As much as I´m not happy about my behavio...

I think we all have moments in our life that we´re just pissed off or pushed to a limit that you just want to reign destruction on others. Of course I would never encourage that in real life, but in a game that might be a good way to deal with frustrations and stress. The first game I played where I could destroy a lot of things was Rampage World Tour on the N64, you could play as one of three giant monsters and then you had to destroy buildings and eat people. Of course compared to games you can play today it´s nothing special but in those days it was a good way to deal with some frustrations, because sometimes it´s just a bit too much. For example school sucks and your job doesn´t seem to interest you anymore, then you have people in your life that bring you down and so it´s good to have a place where you can just blow off some steam. These days you have games like Saints Row IV and GTA V, both games where you can go on a killing spree or just destroy everything in your path. But i...

With the new consoles on the way I think this might be an issue for a lot of gamers, because some games will be on the current generation consoles and on the new generation consoles. For everyone that wants to buy a new generation console it´s quite obvious to buy the latest games for that console, but what if the games that you want to buy launch before the launch of the new console? I don´t think you want to be stuck with a game that you´re probably not going to play on your ´old´ console. But that will probably mean that you´re going to fall behind with certain games like Assassin´s Creed IV and CoD Ghosts. If you don´t care about falling behind in multiplayer then I think it´s easy for you to wait, but if you like to compete and enjoy the fun from the first day then it might be difficult to wait! The economic crisis isn´t really helping either, because we all have less money to spend on the things we like and that means you have to choose your games carefully. It´s another reason...

When you encounter someone in the online world of gaming you often have to wonder if they´re going to be friendly or not so friendly. In GTA Online a player that is rushing towards you on the map doesn´t always have good intentions, but at the same time it could just be someone who is trying to shake off the cops. It´s understandable that you don´t want to be cought with your pants down but to shoot people on sight might be a bit extreme or is it? The enemy that you know is an enemy you can shoot? If you recognize a gamertag of a player that has been killing a lot of other people, which you can see on the screen whenever they kill someone, then it´s not a bad idea to be quick on the draw. But at the same time it could be a player that was just defending himself or herself against others, it´s difficult to judge when you don´t know someone. Of course you can warn them to back off with your mic, but if he or she isn´t plugged in it might be difficult for him or her to hear you. So what...

It´s amazing all the things you can do in GTA Online, of course when you can get in GTA Online because that´s still not always that easy. I did discover that for me a direct load isn´t always succesful, often that leads to a not being able to save session. So I usually play a little bit in the story and then check if I can get in GTA Online, so far that´s worked pretty good. I´m not saying that this is a flawless way of getting in GTA Online but if you still have trouble getting in then this might work for you! The first time I got in the game I was in a no saving session, which meant all the things I did were not saved. Also I saw a lot of things that you have to unlock later in the game, because I was suprised I didn´t see a lot of things I did see in that first experience. For example those packages that drop from the sky aren´t available from the start and the same counts for armored trucks. These are good ways to earn some money in the free roam session but unfortunately you´ll ...

A couple of years ago when City of Heroes was still available I often played solo, in a mmorpg that is often frowned upon because a lot of gamers think that you need to play with others. This goes up to the point where I got messages from people spewing their hatred towards people like me, I guess it´s forbidden to play solo in an online multiplayer...or not? Personally I think that you should do what you want in an online world, of course that doesn´t mean that you make the lives of other people miserable in the game. But I think that if you prefer to play solo then that shouldn´t be a problem, maybe you disagree but who are you to say that someone is wrong just for having a different opinion and preference in gaming? Besides just because I prefer to play solo doesn´t mean that I don´t play with others, but sometimes it´s just more fun for me to play solo. How do you survive all alone in the online world? If you have no friends that play the game that you play then playing solo is n...

I don´t think there is anything more frustrating when another player keeps killing you for no reason online, in GTA Online this is something that happens a lot! Which is strange though, because you can go into so many activities and kill other players there. You have deathmatch, team deathmatch, GTA races and even parachuting with weapons. So if you have this violent need to be annoying, then at least do it somewhere it is expected and not in free roam when people are trying to buy something or exploring. But it´s nothing new really, this has been going on for some time and I can´t even remember when it became a real thing for people to be this annoying prick online. Troll or just a sad person? I guess the name troll is quite popular, some people actually try very hard to be considered as one. But why? A troll is nothing to be proud of, it´s not cool and it´s also not funny. Sure you can desperately try to be funny with your pranks and upload your crap to youtube but really how many ...

To be completely honest my first impression was in my GTA Online frustrations story, but I didn´t really get to play and I really do want to talk about how my first experience was in the online world of GTA V. Let me first say that it´s difficult to get in, because you´ll find failure to connect and never ending loading screens a lot. But if with some luck you do find yourself in GTA Online then you´re in for a blast, because the whole open world of GTA V is now for you and a total of 16 other players. Don´t be suprised if you meet people that have a need to kill you, because let´s just be honest and say that a lot of GTA players aren´t really the type you´d hang out with in other games. Because if the first thing you do when you go online is killing other people for no reason then you have some serious issues! There are a lot of things you can do and with the money you find in your pocket and that you earn by robbing stores you can actually buy some new clothes and hair sty...