PC Gamer Confessions

I read an article at PC Gamer quite a while back (actually it’s from October 2015) about gaming confessions. They talked about being opinionated; about having pet peeves and quirks.

During the years of completing now around 500 games (mostly on PC) I have of course maintained my own internal list of these. So why not steal this idea and try it out for myself? I guess it’s time to let it all out.

If you’re been looking for post where you’ll see really questionable opinions, this will be it. I’m sure there’s going to be a few oddities below that will make almost anyone’s head spin.

• I’m so close to hating all kinds of competitive multi-player, you can almost taste it. Mostly I’m just not the competitive type at all. The very few times I’ve tried it out in MMORPG and LAN parties, it also seems to bring out the worst in people (sometimes myself included). I also don’t have the reflexes needed to compete like life has been sped up to about 400% or so. Co-operation is usually where it’s at and I’ve also done a fair share of PVE dungeons and raids in various MMORPG. But if I have to be absolutely honest, I just like being on my own and not having to depend on anyone else.
• So it probably goes without saying that racing and sports games are not for me. They’re mostly just about competition and that’s rarely what I want out of games.
• My serious gaming only takes place in front of my desktop computer in its room. The living room and its television is strictly for relaxing, like reading a book or watching a movie. I’ve only owned a few consoles for a very brief time many years ago. To me, gaming with a gamepad in front of the TV somehow feels wrong, just as watching a movie on my desktop PC also feels wrong.
• I only use keyboard and mouse to control my game. Never a gamepad. No exceptions. I’ve played a lot of games that were marked as being nigh on impossible without one. I love to prove to myself that it can be beat like this anyway. It’s not even because I despise gamepads as such, I guess it’s because they are part of the console culture and spacing out in a couch (see the previous step).
• I usually skip reading long books whenever I find them in RPG. Reading is good. It’s soothing. It adds wisdom. It entertains. But only when I’m reading one by itself (typically in my couch). When I’m playing a game, I want to play. A paragraph or two can be okay, but that’s about it.
• I almost always choose the “Easy” difficulty level because I know most developers won’t hold back anyway. I think most games are generally too difficult. I’m playing to have fun and explore, not to endure torture therapy. Of course, it also depends on the genre. I really suck at FPS.
• So naturally I also despise the idea of rogue-likes, including that awful genre designation. Having procedurally generated levels and permadeath, forcing me to completely restart a game upon dying, goes against most of what I want out of computer games. I avoid them like the plague.
• The game doesn’t absolutely have to hit 60 frames per second – anything above 30 is usually fine. But VSYNC is pretty much a must.
• I always try to delete or rename the logo movies whenever possible to reduce the time it takes to reach the title screen. (Another good reason to be a PC gamer.)
• I actually think most games are too long. Even in the shorter 4-6 hour games I often think an hour or two less would have been nice. A good example of the latter is Monochroma. If it had stopped after the sequence with the big eye boss, that would have been absolutely fine with me.
• When I start a game, I have this voice in me that really tries to make me complete it. That probably explains my track record. But to contradict this, most games nowadays have a hard time grabbing me to begin with and I always have to push myself and stay with it. Then at some later point it usually does manage to grab me. If it wasn’t because of that voice…
• I have completed over 400 PC games. Especially in 2001-2005 I went completely nuts and pretty much completed games back to back. I also played a lot of classics before that time. But in spite of that, I’ve never played any of the Ultima games.
• I always play strictly goody two shoes in RPG. I just can’t stand to play evil unless it’s an integrated part of the game design.
• I used to love 2D adventure games more than a decade ago, but today, 99% of them bore me. The gameplay feels like it’s missing something. Maybe it’s the third dimension that I’m missing. Or it has to try something new, like the “movie”-story focus in The Walking Dead games.
• Likewise, I loved Planescape: Torment and the Baldur’s Gate series and I respect Pillars of Eternity as nostalgic gaming art, but the isometric 2D RPG genre with lots of text feels like it’s too oldskool and out of time for me now. I just couldn’t get into it.
• I don’t play strategy games, but the weird thing is that the few times it’s been forced upon me in other genres (like in Final Fantasy VII) I actually thought it was nice. I’ve always pondered trying this genre for real, but I’ve just never gotten around to it. Maybe I never will because of the abundance of all the other genres I play. My backlog is big enough as it is already.
• I’m usually wary about stealth as a part of games that try to be several things at once, and chances are that I’ll avoid it. In my opinion, stealth only works really well when it is the main focus of a game, such as in the Thief and Deus Ex series.
• I’m actually not that fond of the GTA type of open world. It doesn’t click with me. The exceptions, such as e.g. Mafia and L.A. Noire, worked for me because of the heavy focus on story and quests.
• I’m not entirely opposed to a “walking simulator” (I like “facile adventure” better) and like some of them, but it has to have substance. A little bit of interactivity, a story, or a narrative. Proteus was way too simplistic and should have been free.
• I despise mobile ports on PC. If it was designed for casual touch gameplay then it should stay on the mobile devices where it belongs.
• As a side note, I usually can’t do anything else than casual puzzle games on mobile devices. I just can’t take them seriously. If I want to play seriously, I want to sit in front of my desktop PC and have the best graphics and immersion I can get.
• I’m a save-a-holic in games with Save Anywhere. Turn one corner, save. That being said, I’ve learned to embrace Auto Saving because it does make gaming life so much easier.
• I didn’t like Dark Souls at all. Having all trash enemies respawn after dying is absolutely not okay.
• The first Half-Life was fantastic and will always have a special place in my gamer heart. Half-Life 2 was okay, but also considerably overrated. It didn’t manage to capture the same magic again.
• I thought the story in Metal Gear Solid 2 was bloated nonsense and it kept me from wanting to continue the series. A shame as I actually liked the first one.
• Dragon Age II was good. I can see the problems people point out, but it didn’t bother me much.
• I didn’t hate the “Desmond Miles” sequences in the Assassin’s Creed games (played the first two then watched the next two expansions on YouTube). They were a nice departure and I liked the idea.
• I think boss fights are an archaic game design element and I wouldn’t mind if it was removed or somehow replaced in any new game.
• I rarely like night times in games with a day cycle. It’s darker and harder to see. If the games has a wait or sleep option, I often use it as soon as I see the day waning towards dusk. I like it better when the game just has daylight on all the time. (This does of course not include games where darkness is part of the main design such as in stealth games like Thief and Deus Ex.)
• I dislike the idea of a list of production babies in end credits. I just think it’s so pretentious – maybe even downright pompous. It’s not that it shouldn’t be there somewhere, I just believe it should be part of the classic “Thanks”-section along with other personal stuff.
• Shaking and tremor, especially in caves. I get it, things are coming down and you want me to hurry up or maybe just add to the immersion, but most of the time it just makes it harder to see what’s going on and I might also make more mistakes.

You want to rant on some of this, don’t you? The hate is swelling in you now. Take your comment box. Type in it. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger!

If you found this interesting then I also recommend Worn RPG Tropes.