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Kurufinwe · 03-02-2012, 10:17 AM

My earliest videogaming memories (back when I was around 4 or 5) are of two adventure games (the nice Transylvania and the awful Orphee) and a party-based RPG (Tera). A quarter of a century later, things haven't changed much: the only two genres I'm interested in are still adventures and RPGs. I used to be primarily an adventure gamer with some RPGs thrown in from time to time, but over the last couple of years the balance seems to have shifted the other way, and I now always have an RPG of some sort going on, while AGs are only from time to time.

When it comes to adventures, I'm very versatile: sometimes I'm in the mood for a strong story, sometimes I want to explore a fantastic world, and sometimes I just want to sink my teeth into challenging puzzles — and I don't demand that games offer all three at once. Likewise, for RPGs, sometimes I just want a dungeon crawler, and sometimes I want something more story-heavy.

Above all, I'm a completist: I like finding everything, getting all the points, exploring all the locations, etc. I guess that's why I used to lean more towards Sierra than LucasArts (and why I spent hours and hours making a points list for the one LucasArts game that had tons of optional stuff, Fate of Atlantis). The fact that modern adventure games offer very little by way of optional content is probably why I play more and more RPGs, which still offer the option to do side quests, find all the best items, max out your level, etc.

I don't care for the other genres. In particular, I realize that I have no patience or, more accurately, that concentrating on waiting for something to happen (if that makes any sense) is for me the epitome of unfun. So I don't like games that make you do that, whether it's platformers (waiting until something moves into the right position to jump at the right moment), stealth-based games (watching the enemies move around to move at the right time) or modern shooters (I gave up on Mass Effect after a dozen hours because it was too much of a shooter for my taste). Either something is happening and my mind is focussing on it, or nothing's happening and then it's focussing on something else; but focussing on waiting is beyond me. (I guess that's why, in my scientific career, I do numerics and not experiments; and why I don't enjoy cooking.)

Also, I hate hate hate hate hate hate strategy games, whether they're turn-based, real-time, chess, checkers, or any card game that requires you to remember what has been played before in order to predict what your opponents are going to do. The type of thinking that those games require (basically building a decision tree and exploring it mentally to find the best branch) is my brain's big blind spot, and I hate hate hate hate hate hate anything that has anything to do with it.

03-02-2012, 10:17 AM	#21
Kurufinwe Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Santa Barbara, CA Posts: 3,038	My earliest videogaming memories (back when I was around 4 or 5) are of two adventure games (the nice Transylvania and the awful Orphee) and a party-based RPG (Tera). A quarter of a century later, things haven't changed much: the only two genres I'm interested in are still adventures and RPGs. I used to be primarily an adventure gamer with some RPGs thrown in from time to time, but over the last couple of years the balance seems to have shifted the other way, and I now always have an RPG of some sort going on, while AGs are only from time to time. When it comes to adventures, I'm very versatile: sometimes I'm in the mood for a strong story, sometimes I want to explore a fantastic world, and sometimes I just want to sink my teeth into challenging puzzles — and I don't demand that games offer all three at once. Likewise, for RPGs, sometimes I just want a dungeon crawler, and sometimes I want something more story-heavy. Above all, I'm a completist: I like finding everything, getting all the points, exploring all the locations, etc. I guess that's why I used to lean more towards Sierra than LucasArts (and why I spent hours and hours making a points list for the one LucasArts game that had tons of optional stuff, Fate of Atlantis). The fact that modern adventure games offer very little by way of optional content is probably why I play more and more RPGs, which still offer the option to do side quests, find all the best items, max out your level, etc. I don't care for the other genres. In particular, I realize that I have no patience or, more accurately, that concentrating on waiting for something to happen (if that makes any sense) is for me the epitome of unfun. So I don't like games that make you do that, whether it's platformers (waiting until something moves into the right position to jump at the right moment), stealth-based games (watching the enemies move around to move at the right time) or modern shooters (I gave up on Mass Effect after a dozen hours because it was too much of a shooter for my taste). Either something is happening and my mind is focussing on it, or nothing's happening and then it's focussing on something else; but focussing on waiting is beyond me. (I guess that's why, in my scientific career, I do numerics and not experiments; and why I don't enjoy cooking.) Also, I hate hate hate hate hate hate strategy games, whether they're turn-based, real-time, chess, checkers, or any card game that requires you to remember what has been played before in order to predict what your opponents are going to do. The type of thinking that those games require (basically building a decision tree and exploring it mentally to find the best branch) is my brain's big blind spot, and I hate hate hate hate hate hate anything that has anything to do with it. __________________ Currently reading: Dune (F. Herbert) Recently finished: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J. K. Rowling) [++], La Nuit des Temps (R. Barjavel) [+++] Currently playing: Skyrim Recently finished: MCF: Escape from Ravenhearst [+], The Walking Dead, ep. 1 [+++], Gray Matter [++]