Are you amazing at any particular game? If so, what separates you from a "merely good" player?

[FPLOON]

Most of the games that I've "Let's Play"'d on my YouTube channel I could be considered to be amazing at playing at... Games like Tales of Symphonia, Rayman 3, every US-released Kingdom Hearts games (especially the GBA Chain of Memories and all of the DS version), Jak 2, Rez/Child of Eden, the first Metroid Prime game, Odama, Virtua Quest, Beyblade VForce: Ultimate Blader Jam, Lemmings, Star Fox: Assault, and Pokemon Emerald end up becoming games that I'm amazingly good at because I spent so much time playing them, studying them, and at times even writing pencil-driven spreadsheets like I'm playing pseudo-DnD without the dice... Then again, this does not include all of the time that I've completed them from start to finish, so there's that...

With that said, the separation from being amazing and just being good mostly comes from how much "immersion" ends up going into playing any game in particular... Anyone can have their favorite/least favorite moments in any particular video game, but it's one thing to say that it's hard, another thing to say that it's hard if you do or don't do X, and another thing to start ranking everything in details-worth of reasoning... Also, even if one claims yo be amazing at a particular game, for example, there can still be new tricks to learn, new ways of experiencing the same shit, and new comparisons to be made that it ends up becoming a pseudo-allegory for life itself...

Now, if we were referring to speedrunning, then I ain't shit... except in Kingdom Hearts, but that was an easy trochievement, anyway...

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

I'm no good at multiplayer, but I do have the somewhat dubious honour of being the first to complete the squad based roguelike game "Enemy" on Very Hard difficulty.

 

[farscythe]

im perfectly average at everything i play
only slight exception i'll make is rocket league... skill wise.. im nothing special.. but i have got positioning down to a tee.. makes me look damn near exceptional some times

 

[Nazulu]

I adapt quickly to almost all plat-formers and shoot 'em ups, beating nearly every game I played on hard mode. Not like a speed runner (unless it's Super Metroid) but I keep all my lives.

 

[Fijiman]

I'm not absolutely amazing at any games that I can think of, but in most shooters I would consider myself as being a bit better than what most would consider the average player.

 

[DoPo]

Wait...so you didn't notice people's shadows or listen to their footsteps with uber headphones? Damnit, I knew that guy was lying to me!

He wasn't. Footsteps I'd class as one of the top things in CS that can make or break a game. I'm pretty serious - the higher the skill level, the more important the role of sound is, in fact.

Disclaimer: I wasn't really that good in CS - I did lack good reaction time and coordination, however, I was big on the tactical side, and I learned to use other factors to get the drop on others - footsteps being one pretty high one. Other skills I employed were utilising blind angles, utilising non-standard hiding places, and enemy movement prediction (easier than it sounds). In general, it was mind games. With them I achieved a moderate amount of success in public servers but I was better in small scale team oriented settings.

I was also in a clan for a while as a reserve mostly (I think I played in a grand total of 2 really small scale tournaments), later on my team went on to play at some national level events without me. I know the pro scene through them and there the mind games are a big part in the tactics of the team. All of the top players train with guns, that's for sure, they also train with maps - and by that I mean, they would try to intimately learn what different travelling distances are, where to position themselves, how to shoot through walls to hit predetermined targets[footnote]as an example - as a terrorist, you can sometimes place the bomb in such a way that if you know somebody is disarming it, you can just shoot through the wall and kill them.[/footnote]. This mostly means that as long as they know just a bit of information about one team knows some information about the position of the enemies, then they can kill them very quickly. Footsteps are a big source of information - the wrong step, literally, can alert the enemy team and you can die before you even know where they are. Sometimes this can be used against the team, as well - making sound to draw them out or force them to reveal their position. It's risky but viable strategy depending on circumstances.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I can say that there's no games I'm straight-up bad at.

Beyond that I'd say I'm more stubborn than actually skilled. I've played through Heart of Darkness, Jak 2 and Dead Rising multiple times, when I've heard many people say they where never able to finish them even once. I also replay games A LOT, so Resident Evil 4 I'm pretty much a champ at now.

 

[Totenkreuz]

I used to have the fastest gamerun with Silent Hill 2 in the whole world! But my hybris, I mean, playstation 2 was so old it slowed down every meny scroll and that made me loose precious seconds here and there. I believe that's the most "amazing" thing I will ever do as a gamer in a game.

Cheers.

 

[Loonyyy]

CS:S was my thing for a while. Too late to get into the competitive scene, but I was really enjoying stomping around the local servers, so I got some advice from my friend who played from a pro team, set myself up with a bunch of the usual sort of aim maps and started practicing every day. Had a little schedule and everything for what I'd do. Didn't go so much for the desert eagle, got good enough with it that I could pop a headshot with it and control the recoil and get a trade on eco, but I practiced AWPing like made until my close up game with it was tight as hell, and my footwork was perfectly time to control the sway.

My main obsession though were the AK-47 and the M4. I practiced burst firing patterns over and over on bots, learnt the AK's spray pattern by heart. I'd regularly do fairly well on the regular servers, though I was never a fan of dust2.

What I liked about it was how much of a process it was. I'm fairly good at Call of Duty, but that's often a mindset thing, you need to feel the confidence, be in the zone, be hyped up to do really well. The trick I always found there was that it rewards ultra aggressive play, even in the competitive scene. You can get by for a while on good strat and placement, but eventually the match will turn, and the more aggressive, coordinated team, usually takes it. In CS:S, you had to slow down, learning to manipulate the movement speed to control recoil is absolutely gamechanging, learning to tap the AK etc. And each weapon plays very differently, and there's a lot of very viable weapon choices. Mastering the deagle or the Scout completely changes the game, and I never got to that. I loved how after a CS binge I'd go back to other shooters, and my aim would be noticeably better.

I am a nightmare on Payday 2. Hundreds of dead cops.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Well, I'm a pretty damn good Guitar Hero / Rock Band player. Maybe I can't play absolutely flawlessly on every song, but I can five star and gold star a large majority of them on expert.

I'm also pretty damn good at stylish action games. Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and the likes.

 

[Revolutionary]

Well I don't know about "amazing" but I'm kind of sad at guitar Hero / Rock band. I can 5 star most songs on Expert, and The only songs I can't beat at all are songs like Through the fire and the flames.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Nope. I am, however, mediocre at most fighting games that I play. Which is probably better than the default level of "booty butt cheeks terrible" most people default to and never progress past. Maybe I'll be decent enough to be notable at Guilty Gear Xrd one day. I've been trying to grind it out in that game a lot more recently, and started going to some local gatherings for it. No more turrible online.

 

[Morgoth780]

I play CS:GO at a relatively high level. My team has been going through a bunch of roster changes this past fall, but in the next couple weeks we're hoping to get a solid fifth, bootcamp a bunch, and then play in a ton of leagues/tourneys this spring.

I spend time every daying practicing flick shots, pistols for headshot accuracy, and rifles for headshot accuracy, spray control, and bursting. And then, at least when we have team practice (which isn't as often as I'd like right now) we'll go over different strategies, different positioning, smoke grenades, molotovs, flashbangs, etc. And then we'll typically play scrims on whichever specific map we've been practicing.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Yeahhhh, CS back in the day was a long time ago. I was on a clan for a little while. These days I hardly have the time to devote to get really good at anything. I remember talking to the leader of the clan at the time, who had amazing KD ratios like I'd never seen. And I asked him if it was more reaction/aiming or familiarity with the guns, or more positioning, tactics. And his reply was that despite what most people think, positioning, tactics, knowledge of the map and the flow of rushes is what counts more. And he said you don't need to burst fire, countering the recoil with the mouse is much more effective than crouching, double-tapping or whatever. So that caught me as a surprise.

OT: Yeah the only thing I've been "slightly above average" in lately would be Resident Evil 6, got pretty damn good at Mercenary mode there for awhile. For awhile I was slick with the Hitman games, up until Absolution I could get Silent Assassin rating on every damn level, is how much I loved it. Which is weird because nowadays I can hardly be bothered with stealth games at all.

Rainbow 6: Vegas 2. seems I mention this game in my every other post, but anyways. I can do pretty much any map on Realistic difficulty, Lone Wolf, highest enemy density, with only a pistol. It would take me a buttload of tries to attempt that nowadays, but I think I'd be able to do it eventually.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, I have three entries, basically.

{1} While I can apply this to just about any RPG, it is a matter of fact that I have great skill in games that are Shin Megami Tensei related, especially Persona. The one and only real complaint there is about these games would have to be the difficulty curve. People like them for what they do, but I know that plenty of people find it pretty hard. But for me, this is Tuesday. I plan, I power up, I bring Shadows/Demons to their knees. I kill everything until I have squeezed out enough experience from it...and then the bosses are breezy. The only difficulty I have is with bosses that are complete and utter BULLSHIT (I'm lookin' at YOU, Trumpeter!), and even then, I still found a way through.

{2} Of course, naturally, my ability to survive the wastelands of Fallout games has to be mentioned. Starting with the first core games, I took to the originals and had hella-fun with them. And then, when Fallout 3 and New Vegas offered new challenge, new fears, and new ways to see the wasteland, I did not shirk from it. True, Deathclaws are a terror can barely be overcome, but I managed. (Once I got Pew-Pew and a ton of energy cells, they were DONE.) I get the most killer perks and such. And always...ALWAYS...does Jack have Bloody Mess. Anyway, this all translates to and from sandbox games in general, as I have fun frolicking through GTA: San Andreas and Saint's Row games.

{3} The last is a bit calmer. You see, one of the most addictive games in the world...is Tetris. It's a simple game that used a simple study of sounds, shapes, and colors to keep you coming back for me. So, out of powerful nostalgia, I had purchased a Game Boy Color and a Tetris game. (Prior to this, I had actually beaten a couple of game tournaments of this at conventions.) One day, and then several times after, I played and played and played - generally switching between big scores and quick clean-up to keep the block level low enough - and I discovered that once I reached and acclimated to the highest level, I could do it perpetually. My coordination and reflexes had come that far. It's scary when you realize you have a center and a focus to do something like that for a while.

 

[distortedreality]

I used to be quite a decent CSS player, spent a lot of time playing, couple of different clans over the years, but eventually life got in the way and I could only play it casually. Skills tend to deteriorate quite quickly with any FPS I've found.

Picked up CSGO a while ago, and while I'm probably above average, I've got nothing on the new class coming through, and don't have the time or motivation to sink into it.

What set me apart? Reaction time and hand-eye coordination are kind of necessary and a common trait amongst the better players, but the fact that I'm not a complete moron helped.

Wait...so you didn't notice people's shadows or listen to their footsteps with uber headphones? Damnit, I knew that guy was lying to me!

It's really just reaction time and hand-eye coordination? You didn't practice with the weapons and determine exactly the amount of time you had to wait between shots to minimize spread, or anything like that?

All of that comes under the "not a complete moron" heading.

When I first started competitively, I had a shit Logitech 5.1 system - moved to a decent set of headphones eventually (can't remember what they were now), and a decent mouse helped (the G9 was my favourite).

But learning the game and using what you learned to beat others was a big part of CSS - much more than in more modern shooters.

 

[smithy_2045]

I'm pretty fucking good at F-Zero X. Beat every cup on every difficulty with every car, and beat a fair few of the ghost times. Not the worlds best F-Zero X'er, I never really did manage to get drifting right, but on tracks that don't need it I'm a gun.

 

[CeeBod]

I can remember a Counter Strike clan temporarily banning use of the shotgun on their server when I was racking up "too many" kills with it - I was poor at best with most guns, but was almost unkillable when I had a boomstick! Staying hidden, and only coming out of cover to take 1 lethal short range shot and then go back into hiding was how I racked up the kills )

I also used to think I was a pretty good hunter in WoW, but I can remember when a semi-legendary solo player joined our guild (he'd solo kited everything it was even theoretically possible to kite including taking Kazzak to Stormwind, and no I don't know how he managed that) realising that maybe I wasn't as good as I thought I was! However good you get, or however good you think you are there is always someone capable of humbling you! ;o)

 

[Lightknight]

I could play space invaders without ever losing, literally. I can play until my patience finally wears thin with the invaders never reaching the bottom. At my longest time, when I found a version that allowed me to pause, I once played for 15 hours over 3 days just because. That was also the last time I played it or likely will ever play it.

I'm also crazy good at shooters. I have a much faster reaction time and a better feel for killzones for some reason. I usually finish in the top three regardless of game mode.

 

[Fappy]

I guess I would consider myself "amazing" at any of the main games that I've obsessed over at one point or another. Most of them are single player games though, so they're hardly worth boasting about. Relatively recently I was pretty fucking good at the ME3 multiplayer. I carried bad groups through Gold matches with sub-par and rarely played classes all the time, and was doing Plat runs frequently (with decent groups). There was a time in my WoW career where I was basically the go-to player on my server for kitty raid DPS advice (this was near the beginning of WotLK though, so there were very few kitties doing progression raiding).

Most competitive games I have played I am at least competent at - usually good enough to stomp my IRL friends consistently.

I can pick up just about any game and succeed, but rarely ever become an "amazing" player. I guess I'm a jack of all trades, master of none.