andrewducker | Tell me how you play computer games

I find myself playing games mostly on the iPad these days - although that will change when the next expansion comes out for Civ V, and when Sim City comes out.

I haven't been able to play FPS type things well since Quake - I just can't get used to the mouse + keyboard combo. (I found some of the later levels in Portal difficult for that reason - difficult to move quickly and accurately.)

I'll generally prefer the keyboard when given a choice on a PC, although that's probably due to having been using the keyboard to play games since the BBC Model B.

My family has decided that I am controller-impaired.

I just could never get the hang.

I don't play many games of this style, but the one that comes to mind is Fatal Frame (and its successors), where you're looking at the character from the side most of the time, except than when she looks in her camera, you go first-person there. I personally find first- and third-person games pretty disorienting, all told; I'd rather see the whole body of the person I'm controlling.

And my 'something else' on the third question is that I like to play video games with lots of people in a room, only where only one of the people has a controller, and the rest of us are talking, giving pointers, and watching the story. But my friends and I play a lot of plot-heavy games, and very few that are primarily shooters.

I don't think I've played enough games to have a favourite style or type of controller, though most of the games I do play, are on a PC.

There ought to be an asterisk to part 3, as the true answer is often on my own, but with Rob shouting instructions over my shoulder. Especially if the game in question is Star Craft 2. :)

Sorry, terrible comma usage there. I'm tired.

I enjoy FPS games (e.g. Quake, Half Life), and have been using WASD/mouse since forever (I used to be extremely good at them, but lately they seem to have been giving me motion sickness). I suppose Minecraft kind of fall into that category too. Point and click RPGs like Neverwinter Nights are fun. Not sure which category Plants vs Zombies falls into, but I like that too.

However I also love 2d and 3d platformers (e.g. Mario, Zelda, and Metroid). My favourite ever controller was the GameCube controller, followed by the SNES controller. I'm growing to enjoy Skyward Sword, but in general I'm not hugely impressed by all these wands, remotes, and hand wavey things. It seems a bit gimmicky to me, and I don't think it's improved gaming for me (although maybe okay for games where you shoot things, because analogue controllers are passable at best for FPSes). I also used to like racing games, like Diddy Kong Racing, but I don't really play a lot of those.

So I split my time between PC gaming and console gaming, but I couldn't definitively tell you which I prefer. Games where the music is good is usually a good start (good music >> graphics any day).

If it was side-on it would be Terraria.

Ditto.

I love the concept of FPS, but get motion sick rather too quickly. Over-the-shoulder just feels weird. So given the option I play pretty much everything like a Diablo clone.

Mouse and keyboard, strictly single player.

Actually DX:HR did the same thing and probably did it better.

Third person works brilliantly for melee combat however.

1. Strong preference for top-down/isometric except that I have weird little islands of other preferences all over the place. eg. I hate playing FPS games in general but enjoy playing them with friends in the same room, and when I do that I prefer first-person and can't imagine enjoying it any other way. Similarly, for racing games it's better in first person.

2. Depends too much on the game. For strategy, mouse and keyboard all the way. For rhythm games, appropriate dance mats/instruments/etc create a large portion of the fun (ever tried Stepmania for the PC? It's not completely awful but it's about 1000 times less fun). For the rest, traditional controller.

3. For strategy/puzzle games, by myself. For everything else, with friends in the same room, preferably on the same device simultaneously if possible (rhythm games, co-op platformers) but otherwise on separate ones (Diablo 2)

I do feel like PC controls are more responsive and that that might account for some of the preference.

1: I like different kinds of games to have different kinds of perspective. Something that is all shooting all the time, I much prefer first person view. For games where your character matters, I like third person.

2: I like using mouse and keyboard, except for driving games and brawlers which only crazy people play with KB&M.

3: I guess I like shooty games that friends don't often play on the same platform, or big RPGs that are solo play only. In theory I'd like to game with friends (and enjoyed, for example, brief forays into Borderlands co-op, and lengthier playing L4D and L4D2) but there aren't that many good co-op games, and people tend to have very specific preferences for more competitive shooters, or play on different platforms.

I wonder if solo gaming will become more social. The Modern Warfare games, for all their explosions, have a strong linear narrative content. If you were watching someone play them (particularly if they were good, or playing on a less difficult skill level so they could talk more easily during it and distractions wouldn't matter), it'd be much the same as watching an OTT Hollywood blockbuster. Hell, if Black Ops or Modern Warfare were films, they'd probably have less awesome set pieces. I enjoy watching other people play games.

Edited 2012-03-17 00:02 (UTC)

The over-the-shoulder view is something I associate with consoles primarily because a lot of the games that popularised that view have been big flagship console games, even if I've played some of them on PC (GTA if it counts, Tomb Raider, Gears of War, Resident Evil as examples)

In Fallout New Vegas, I used 1st person for combat and switched to 3rd person when I was wandering around the Strip etc talking to people. That said, on entering the Strip, my Courier also changed out of her armour and into a nice day dress and hat...

DE:HR did it very well. Also the way it had separate UIs for KB&M or joypad, and switched immediately if you touched the other control method. That was awesome.

I was very annoyed in Assassin's Creed 2 that they manage to have the focus of the game be on free-flowing cool movement, and then completely fuck up the camera for timed puzzles that needed quick reflexes in the temple puzzle bits.

Minecraft has third person now, I think.

haven't been able to play FPS type things well since Quake - I just can't get used to the mouse + keyboard combo. (I found some of the later levels in Portal difficult for that reason - difficult to move quickly and accurately.)

They actually took these kind of puzzles out of Portal 2. They were in one of the first trailers, but they cut them before release.

RPGs often have more character customisation options than in shooters, so your clothing/armour/character creation choices (whichever you're given in the specific game) might change how you look so give you a reason to want to see your character. If I reset the game mid opening cutscene three times just to tweak the shape of my character's nose, I damn well want to see it!

OK, that answers that one. Civ is the vast bulk of what I play these days, though I am non-trivially tempted by From Dust.

I would probably be much more drawn to first-person games as a style if I could play them with a nice chunky joystick, that being the interface modality of the Atari consoles of my misspent youth. I suppose it's possible that I could figure the hardware issues out there to get around that, but... not enough time in the day already.

(I'm very much a solo player. I'm an introvert and my People Stuff tolerance is saved for more important things.)

Edited 2012-03-17 01:56 (UTC)

The thought that occurs to me here is that it being possible to see your character in the game environment at all in Tension: the Void would not really work. (One is playing a disembodied soul in what appears to be a peculiar quasi-afterlife.)

Does enjoying watching other people play, and the occasional Let's Play on YouTube or the like, count as a preference ?

As I only play computer games on my phone now, my preferred control method is tilting the phone, plus some screen fondling. I like racing games which seem to favour accelerometer based controls.

Yeah, I'm the same. I can't play games like Oblivion or Fallout 3 because the 3rd person view doesn't work very well and the 1st person makes me ill.

I'm fine on boats though!

(Mind you, right now I've got labyrinthitis, so even typing this comment makes me feel sea-sick!)

I seldom play shooters; partly because first person can make me feel sea-sick but also because I just find shooters of themselves a bit boring!

I'm an RPG chap mainly, so that tends to gravitate towards 3rd person anyway (except the Oblivion and its ilk, which I can't get on with - see comment on sea-sickness above! I don't find the 'over the shoulder' option works terribly well.)

Other than that I tend to play (badly - I have the reactions of a small, dead whelk) 3rd person action games.

Absolutely what you say here. I play a zillion games, there's no general rule. (Civilisation would require a lot of hiking about to do in 1st person and tetris would be much more difficult, not to mention bad for people who had a thing with heights).

Some great gaming experiences require exotic controllers. I loved the sword fighting with wii mote of "zelda skyward sword". On the other hand, the precision of a mouse and keyboard is ideal for strat and traditional RPG.

Tell me how you play computer games

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