Different Games and Genres to Fit the Situation

Enemi

Read at PixelJumpers

Most likely, you do not play only one genre of video games. You probably try to fit your games into the current setting and situation. When other people aren’t around, a single player adventure, such as a role-playing game or the campaign mode of a first person shooter, would be ideal. If you have ten minutes to kill every morning before you go to school or work, you might want to boost your reflexes by playing free-for-all in Halo. After you’ve accomplished everything you need to during the day, you might want to just relax and chill with some friends while playing a multiplayer game.

Some gamers play video games because they have nothing better to do. They’ll spend countless hours immersed in the fantasy world of a single-player RPG such as Final Fantasy, leveling up their party so they can stand a chance against the next boss. These games can be addicting because they allow you to see how much all that hard work you put in to grinding lower-level beasts has paid off. By the time you get to the last boss, your party has become so well-equipped and stat-boosted that no one can take you down. Then you finally defeat the final boss and you realize there is no one else in the world you can pick a fight with to show off all that power you spent so much time gaining. Unless there was a way you could connect your game with a friend’s game and battle it out. Well, that’s what Pokemon is for. With Pokemon, you have more reason to continue playing after defeating the Elite 4 to prove to your friends that you gained more knowledge from the adventure than they did.

Since most role-playing games don’t have a multiplayer feature, they would become boring to any observer that might be in the room. In order to not bore the hell out of your friend, you probably have a few multiplayer games in your collection. First person shooters have become one of the most popular genres as they appeal to most male adults as well as some females and younger gamers. They test your reflexes and ability to adapt to the situation, which makes for the ultimate competition for bragging about your skills. You can test your skills against your friends or gamers around the world online. It’s a shame that Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t allow two players on one console to play online together, but you can play through the campaign cooperatively. If first person shooters aren’t your type of game and you have three friends over and you’re wondering what to do after someone cashes that bowl, put in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This game is perfect for playing either cooperatively or competitively.

Since most of you have lives outside of games, you don’t always have a lot of time to sit down and play for as long as you want. This is when a short ten-minute match of an online shooter comes in handy, or a short skirmish of Starcraft. There are many ways to test your skills without having to dedicate several hours in an epic adventure. Games like these are convenient to have around when you know you’ll be leaving soon, or if you need to kill some time while you’re sitting on the bus waiting to arrive at your destination.

Whether it’s a lonely day for immersing yourself in an adventure or a social gathering for having fun with your friends, you must all have certain games in your collection fit for any type of situation. Even if you’re the loner type that only plays adventures, you can still play multiplayer games considering many games have online modes, meaning you don’t need to make real friends. Tell me what kind of games you play and in what situations you play them.
 
I play many genres, what I play depends on my mood at the time. As far as single player games go, its rpgs, strategy games (AW, FE, FFT), action/adventure, platformers, shooters (Uncharted, RE4, MGS), mystery/thriller/horror (Silent hill, Heavy rain, RE4).

These are all genres and games that I play the single player mode, and usually when i'm by myself and I have nothing better to do.

As a freshman college student in an all guys dorm on a science/engineering campus of my college (I'm an IT major), we play a lot of multi-player games.

Mainly we play FPSs and fighters. We play a lot of Lan Halo 3 games, and MW2 is also big, but not as much as Halo. As far as fighters go, SSBB wins this fight, actually it beats the amount of hours all other multi-player games we play in the dorm combined, a Wii is pretty much left in the lounge and people play from ~1pm - 5am, everyday without fail.
 
I'm always a bit puzzled as to why certain people dislike certain genre of games entirely, but I understand my reasoning for being open is different than others would be. Game design is who I am, and a small part of that is playing and appreciating games with good design. I've tried to play culturally and critically significant games, though alot of new games tend to slip past me. Anyway, that's my permanent situation, so my answer is that I don't tailor games to specific situations. I play the last one I haven't beaten.
 
I play mainly FPS games and RPG games. For FPS, I usually only play the single player campaign, with a few exceptions. I play L4D2, and COD4 online. I played the Crysis series, Bioshock, Half life 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2 with only single player. For example, Crysis just doesn't seem right to me playing multiplayer. I could never get used to it. In single player, it was a lot more in depth experience, especially because I could pick what I wanted to do by myself, whether I wanted to do the mission with stealth or rush in, guns blazing.

L4D2 and COD4, I only play with friends. I play CS very rarely if not at all. I'm just not into multiplayer FPS. I'm into single player FPS, although it gets a bit stale sometimes (I'm always on the look out for good FPSes).

For adventure games, I really like the Pokemon and the Final Fantasy franchises. They've addicted me for God knows how long.

I dislike puzzle games, maybe because my mind isn't intricate and complex enough to solve them =/ I gave up half way in Portal, and my best puzzle game is minesweepers. I wish I could be better at them, but I don't have the time to invest in them yet.
 
vonFiedler said:
I'm always a bit puzzled as to why certain people dislike certain genre of games entirely
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I am no good at the games I dislike. But then I'm no good at many games I do like.

I never get on with FPSes. I've wrote about this before - I believe it is basically because proprioception - the sense of knowing where your body is - is absent from a game, and it cannot be replace by the visual sense in an FPS (whereas in a game with a third-person view, you can see where the character is so you don't need proprioception). I've also never enjoyed most fighting games - the notable exception being the Smackdown series of wrestling games. And I've never been any good at soccer games.

Enough of what I don't like. What I do like: racing games, definitely - whether it's Mario Kart, Gran Turismo, or Wipeout doesn't really matter. Quite enjoy flight simulators though I'm not very good - can never seem to fly straight and level.
Some of the extreme sports game - Tony Hawk's, Matt Hoffman BMX, etc. Never been great but still enjoy them.
Eastern-style RPGs, big time. Never liked many of the western-style ones though. I like my RPGs linear and easy. I have enjoyed some of the more action-style RPGS, like the Kingdom Hearts series and Star Ocean 3 (which has action-RPG combat). Not a Zelda fan though.
Strategy games of various sorts.

Perhaps going against the OP somewhat - I tend to play one game "at a time". By which I mean I'll start a playthrough of a game, and it will usually be the only thing I play until I finish or give up - then it will stay on the shelf for weeks or months until I pick it up again (and likely start a new game). I'm not really playing anything at the moment mind. There are some games I'll more "pick-up-and-play".

One notable thing - watching Formula 1 makes me want to play a racing game. Quite often after the Grand Prix I'll take a spin on Gran Turismo 4.
 
Personally I play a lot of fighting games, RPGs, and recently I'm breaking into playing some FPS games.

Fighters, I've always loved. It started with Mortal Kombat when I was around 5 or 6, and as I grew older, I started playing the fighters that required more finesse. I clock in at least 4 hours a day playing Street Fighter, my love for that game has become ridiculous. Just like spending countless hours crunching numbers to come up with a good EV spread, I spend my time in training mode looking at framedata and deciding which combos I'll grind on until its just a reflex to hit them when I see an opening.

RPG's I had to grow into. Since I started with platformers and fighters, I didn't have the attention span to complete an RPG...until I got my hands on Pokemon Blue. At first it was about immersing myself in the story, but when I started to understand how stats worked a lot better, playing RPGs for me became becoming that force that utterly obliterates whatever should dare interrupt me from humming my tune as I walked across the overworld map.

I hated FPS's for years because I couldn't get a grasp on the whole I can't see the character I'm controlling thing. And by the time I was willing to sit down and try to figure it out, I was playing Halo 3 with my roomates. Not the best FPS to start with. Now that I'm into Left 4 Dead 2 however, I'm thinking about branching off into other series. Battlefield Bad Company 2 looks pretty tasty, and will probably become the game that replaces L4D during my SSIV breaks.

There's not really a genre I hate anymore. If a game is good enough, I'll play it and love it.
 
cantab said:
I am no good at the games I dislike. But then I'm no good at many games I do like.

I never get on with FPSes. I've wrote about this before - I believe it is basically because proprioception - the sense of knowing where your body is - is absent from a game, and it cannot be replace by the visual sense in an FPS (whereas in a game with a third-person view, you can see where the character is so you don't need proprioception). I've also never enjoyed most fighting games - the notable exception being the Smackdown series of wrestling games. And I've never been any good at soccer games.
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Have you played Mirror's Edge? It's not a first person shooter, but it is in first person and has this amazing sense of self that you don't get with many first person games. Your character has a sort of weight that you can feel as you run and do your moves. It's a very decisive game, but should be around $10 so see if you can pick it up and give it a whirl. It's on PC, 360, and PS3.

As for my game playing habits, it's usually depending on my mood. I usually alternate between more colourful fare like jRPGs and platformers and darker, bleaker games like most shooters and western-developed action-adventure games. I usually try to only juggle one or two home (PC, 360, PS3, Wii) single player games and one or two handheld (DS, PSP, iPhone) games at a time though.

Much like vonFiedler, I try to play as many significant games as I can as I do have an interest in game design and the evolution of the industry and I feel it's important to have that experience so you have some perspective of the state games are in right now. I also don't believe a game needs to be "fun" in the traditional sense to be worth playing, but that's probably for another topic!
 
Much alike Firestorm and VonFiedler, I generally play games to experience the craft.
I really play games to appreciate them, every part of them. I want to get into the buisness some day and playing games and even looking through the game files to see how they're done gives me the experience I love.
 
I play FPS until I'm bored and pissed off. Then i play MTG online and Shoddy - my life is amazing. I don't really play any other games. I prefer to talk about and analyse them.
 
It seems like most people here play single player games. There's nothing like getting consumed in an adventure, but lately I haven't had the patience to start something big so I've just been playing Halo: Reach Beta. Maybe I'll get consumed in Monster Hunter Tri that I just rented. Has anyone played that yet?
 
I play mostly FPS and RPG games, with a sprinkle of racing games as well.

For FPS games, I tend to stick to tactical shooters more often; I recently picked up a copy of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for $10 and it's going pretty well. Tactical shooters also has that slow(er) paced feeling so it tends to keep me sucked in for a fair amount of time. As for RPGs, I tend to gravitate to online ones. I've played Ragnarok Online for a pretty long time (lol korean grind) but Guild Wars has been a recent favorite. Single-player RPGs usually drag on too long for my tastes (although there are exceptions), and tactical FPS games are usually enough for me in case I wanted to sit down and play for a long time.

As for racing, I tend to like arcadey/kart racers. I still have Need for Speed: Most Wanted on my laptop and it's my favorite NFS game to date. Racing is also the genre of my choice for split-screen multiplayer as well.
 
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