The Ideal Gamer III
So moving forward, towards more serious gamers, or people who take the games they play seriously.
These kind of gamers, will usually stick to one genre of gaming. And they’ll a lot about it too. You may not find them playing the biggest names, but you’ll find them playing the coolest ones. They’ll know, and they’ll know a bit.
These gamers exist on the fringe of geekiness. They know something about their hardware as well, and do not blindly trust what the assembler tells them. Often they put together their own PCs. They may not buy the ‘best the market has to offer’ but know what bits are over hyped and which essential. The kind of games these people play tend to be simpler than the glam gamer we met earlier. The titles are less well marketed, and lack the sheen, but are better on sheer playing experience. The FPS may not have the right detail to show a man die, but the guns, the targeting and many other more attributes will make up for that.
This gamer will deligently look for and download patches, and bug fixers from the net. He is very aware of what I happening to his game, which is why he is a specialist. He will indeed spend time practicing his craft, and in fact it is from this kind of gamer that the sportsman of the future, so to speak emerge.
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The Ideal Gamer II
So we were discussing the ideal gamer.
We have established that he has come a considerable distance from the socially ostracised geek, or nut.
Games today have transcended that idea, and are cool, hip, and a lot more, enough to them make popular with the youth, the ultimate mark of approval.
But when you think of it, the idea of Gaming is not as monolithic as the name would suggest. Meaning, that when one says gaming, one doesn’t mean a single activity, or similar types of activity, anymore.
Before, we discuss the gamer therefore, let us analyse games themselves. But since we are looking at games from the point of view of who plays them, we need to break them down differently to the normal, FPS, RPG, RTS, etc. or chronological, I, II, III gen, or the typical, good graphics to bad graphics categories. Games here will be divided slightly differently.
This is because these categories, are useful to a consumer deciding which game to buy, but when considering a gamer, you cannot categorise them according to their type, but according to which kind of a buyer they allure.
For example, I play RTS, RPG and Racing Games as well as some FPS titles and even the occasional wrestling game. So then to categorise me as a gamer in the way we are looking to do, we must find what is common to all my games.
I play Age of Empires, and in most of the other genres the EA titles, and a bit of counter strike, Max Payne, and a few others. When I look at all of them, together in my programs menu, what strikes me is the amount of publicity they’ve received. In a way I play those games with the best CD jackets. And I really don’t know what kinds of games exist beyond this. The best FPS ever made might be floating around as shareware online, but I’d never really know. I’d still be looking for another Hitman, or the like.
Basically, I buy what I see advertised, a consumerist… and we have the first kind of gamer. Someone who plays, but really knows the barest minimum about what he plays. And just goes with what the papers and tv tell him. Without any real research on the net. After all I’ve never played juiced.
This kind of a gamer is usually a purely recreational gamer, who doesn’t take his gaming too seriously, beyond a casual hobby. You’ll never find me practicing my skills for example!
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C&C review part I
Its funny, actually, it can be irritatingly so. But none the less, it’s a good break from all the ‘serious’ RTS games. With the corny cut scenes and some even cornier units, like intelligent dolphins outfitted with sonar disrupters… you wonder what the heck is going on, rather than what you should do.
The gameplay itself, might seem flawed but the fully co-operative, online campaign, that’s right, its an online multiplayer campaign, the first ever for such a game, is going to be really cool… though I’ve not yet started to play it, I have a hunch!
But the actual story of the game, is the worst thing you could imagine, some one travels back in time, from the future, to kill Einstein, trying to set in place a sequence of events that will benefit the USSR, and in the end only ends up creating the empire of the rising sun, I’m guessing its Japanese.
The game play is much the same for the allies, though with the other two factions, there is some flexibility in the deployment of structures etc. in that they don’t have to be built before being deployed. This may cause some irritation in the case of the rising sun. Plus with gem fields gone, the over all pace is much slower.
It’ll take me some time to figure out more of the game… though I hope, desperately that its no slower than it should be.
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