What the hell are you doing?

[Maximum Bert]

I was just wondering has anyone else tried to play with someone else or handed the controller to someone else for them to have a go and the other person just shows a complete unability to actually play the game in any way shape or form.

I only ask because just recently I let my friend play Metal Gear Rising on PS3 and while he is not great at action games he does game a lot, way more than myself or anyone else of our age that I am aware of. He put the game on easy and couldnt even clear the first stage he finally got to the second Metal Gear Ray fight (with me helping him out) before he quit. I was pretty amazed to be fair I think it was the camera that was screwing him over (and it isnt great) but it was like he had never picked up a controller before I have never seen him play any game so ineptly.

[i/]Edit: just for clarification I have seen my friend play other action games and even fighters hes never going to be the best at them but hes certainly decent he can generally pick up any game fairly quickly at least from all the years I have seen him play except it seems for Revengeance which he could not grasp even the basics of like parrying (on easy no less where its almost automatic) he also had no problem with Bayonetta and DMC1 when they were on the normal settings I just dont know why this one game seemed like a complete anathema to him.[/i]

I also tried to play Divekick with the old dear who is the person who cant get past the first goomba in that Mario game. I explained the controls i.e this button jumps and this one kicks (complicated stuff) after an age we finally got into a match annnnnnd shes forgotten the controls so I tell her again and show her how to play finally after about 20 minutes she actually got the hang of jumping and kicking. Im just amazed how hard some people can make pressing two buttons let alone getting anywhere doing it (we didnt get into special moves pressing two buttons at the same time is way to technical).

So anyone else had any experiences like this or maybe the opposite where the other person turns out to be some super prodigy and kicks your ass or blasts through the sections you were struggling with while getting top scores despite not having played the game before?

 

[Dandark]

I noticed that anyone who doesn't play games regularly especially older people who may not even use computers as much struggles greatly with even the very basics of most games. I guess its just not being used to it but I have to suppress a giggle to imagine someone who can hardly even play Mario trying to play more complex games like Dark souls, metal gear rising or a large scale RTS like supreme commander.

My sister started playing my xbox a couple of years ago starting with Modern warefare 2 multiplayer as her first game. She was terrible, I couldn't understand how she could be doing so badly as just moving around seemed to be a struggle but eventually she got more used to it and within a few months was able to play at the same ability as most normal players on it.

Eventually she became pretty decent at it and could even get some high scores sometimes given that she not long ago could hardly move her character and the camera at the same time. Now she usually plays left 4 dead and is usually better than most of the other players she finds on there. She has also done pretty well on Red dead redemption multiplayer and recently GTA V online.


It seems that people have a lot of trouble with the concept of controlling characters in games at first but I think that eventually anyone could get used to it and do alright in most games.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Some time ago, me and some friends were pad-passing Portal 2. My friends all played video games, but weren't the brightest bunch, to say the least. Cue the buttclenching. I just let them get on with it, they had fun and that's all that mattered.

And another time, another friend who had literally zero experience with using a controller and we were playing some shooters *shudder*. I had to resist the urge to introduce him to Demon's Souls. He did get better surprisingly quickly, though. And he enjoyed it a lot and bought a PS3 some months later. Mission complete!

 

[Tom_green_day]

I tried to make my 12 year old sister play Portal. She couldn't.
To be fair she's really smart for her age and finds Minecraft fun so I thought she'd like Portal. I guess I'm just a bad brother.

 

[Barbas]

I'm certain that I've already explained this to the jury almost a hundred times: what a man does in the privacy of his own attic-...Oh.

It's probably a bit like learning to drive when people pick up a controller for the first time and start playing fast-paced FPS or fighting games. Or racing games. Or RTS games. I was playing Kung Fu Chaos for the XBOX way back in the distant past, when my friend came in and I passed the controller to him. He quickly got the hang of things and was kicking everybody's ass to Okinawa within five minutes. He later went on to be a very successful business person.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I usually hand the controller to someone else when I'm at a portion I'm frustrated with and I think they could do better by virtue of being not as angry with it yet (like shoehorned minigames in my jrpgs).

That being said, just because a person plays a lot of games doesn't mean they're good at all games. You're naturally going to be better at a type of game you play more often than others. I'm good at platformers, give me a first person shooter and I can do decently, but compared to an avid FPS player, I downright suck. My roommate, though can perform nothing but headshots in an FPS, but give her a platformer and she dies spectacularly.

Another friend of mine can pretty much pick up any traditional fighting game and win, but he struggles with Super Smash Bros.

 

[Teoes]

My lady's exposure to games is playing Solitaire or Angry Birds on her phone, then not being able to tell the difference between most FPS games. She recognises Civ4 and FTL though - she should, given the amount I play/played them. It'd be nice to get her to sit down and play a game with me, but she writes most games off as "only being about scoring points". She knows she'd have a hard time with the controls, but sadly attributes this to her being stupid as opposed to the simple truth of not being familiar due to not spending most of her life practicing.

I was playing Kung Fu Chaos for the XBOX way back in the distant past, when my friend came in and I passed the controller to him. He quickly got the hang of things and was kicking everybody's ass to Okinawa within five minutes. He later went on to be a very successful business person.

Right I'm calling bullshit here, because you and I both know that nothing good ever came of anyone who played a videogame.

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

But Hitler never played video games and you don't want to be like Hitler, do you?

 

[nariette]

I used to be the kind of sister that if her brother asked her to play FIFA with him, she'd just go on a rampage for getting as many red cards as possible and scoring in her own goal. I also managed to shoot myself in halo. My brother was not amused while I was completely losing it. I'm now enjoying games a lot and my brother and me love to discuss them.

My friend loves to watch let's plays and acquire knowledge about gaming, but she doesn't have a console, and doesn't want to buy one because she doesn't have a lot of free time. I let her play Skyrim at my home. I expected her to become an awesome dovahkhiin but when she escaped Helgen all she did was giggle, collect flowers and run around the rocks screaming "I'm going mountaineering!". At first I was a bit annoyed but then it just became silly and cute.