What kind of gamer are you really?

Shryke

I'd consider myself a bit of a gamer but looking over the amount of games I own compared to how much I've played them I'm not so sure if I've become very casual. Being in my early twenties with a full time job and a decent social life I find little time except the odd day off or the wee hours of the morning to get a session in.
I find I've drifted from long games, games that take effort but reward. I want to pick up and play, but I also want story. Kane and Lynch 2 got some negative reviews from my friends because the campaign was short. Myself and a friend cleared it on hard in 2 sittings. I thought it was great. It was gritty, had a good story to drive the game along, the action was tight, the levels were designed well and it ended at a damn good pace. I'm not sure why I'm so pleased with that.
ME2 was rather more stream lined than the first, and while it felt more like a corridored game rather than a galaxy spanning one like the first, I still enjoyed it more. It's probably my favorite game this gen.
My games pile is maybe 30 strong but I haven't completed half of them. This is coming from a former completionist. I'm happy with how I game these days but looking back over the last year or two my only real accomplishments have been clearing the 3 CoD games on Veteran, which I loved every second of, playing the crap out of Arkham Asylum and ME. It would have been a lot more and I thought it was until I accessed it.
So I guess I'm rather casual and happy about it. I should probably try Guitar Hero for the craic!

I didn't mean to write half an essay on the subject but there you go. So be honest, whats the gaming life like these days? Caffiene riddled and screaming abuse at american kids 24/7? RTS it up with some old C&C? I'm genuiely interested. I like to think most don't just play new releases. Intrigue me.

SeantheMan

My gaming life goes up and down. A month ago I was putting in 30-40 hours a week easily, a week later I'd not play at all.

But my gaming range varies.
Within the last 3 weeks I decided to attack the games I just left on the shelf and half played as I had 2 weeks off work.

Daytime - Completed Assassins Creed, Assassins Creed 2, Kane and Lynch and Bioshock 2.
Night - Some games of Fifa with the mates and a few beers before heading out or COD4 matches with my clan.

Late Night - Left4Dead2 or Team Fortress 2 online

In between is Rock Band, Hitman ...also some Starcraft2 or Company of Heroes with my clanmates

Waiting on Medal of Honor/ Call of Duty / Fallout and Fifa11

I find it all depends on what mood you're in though ..but I fall into every category really. At time I'm the casual gamer, sometimes I'm the abusive ass in L4D, the competitive gamer and the rageaholic when being beaten :P

Overheal

Addicted Casual Gamer with Game-Related OCD

I played a lot of WoW this year but I also gave it up over the summer and lo and behold my gear is still relevant after 3 months of not farming for badges. Even now that Im back in it theres no point in doing all that stuff I got bored of in the first place. When I play I play to play, not play to work to play....

The rest is a bunch of TF2 and Starcraft. The former is a lot more fun now that I can play it smooth, and not at 15 frames a second. Sniping at the top of the chart in some matches.

Agricola

Im in the weird position of thinking about and reading up about games more than I actually play them. Id consider gaming my major hobby but I dont actually do alot of it! I built a pc last year so that I could run the latest games but I dont use it nearly enough as I should. When I get home in the evenings, I prefer to relax in front of the tv because its passive. Sometimes gaming feels like abit of a slog. When Im in the mood I like to fire up abit of Uncharted 2 or more recently Heavenly Sword on the PS3 for a couple of hours late at night. On a day off, its could turn into a 4-5 hour pc session. Thats Mafia 2 at the moment.

Im definitely slipping into the realms of casual where once i was fairly hardcore. Maybe its just natural as you get older.

Coriolanus

I'm a single obsessive gamer, or something like that?

Basically I play one game exclusively at a time pretty much. At the moment it's EVE and for the past few weeks I've played little of anything else, in the little time I have to play at all these days.

Whether I have a lot of time or a little, that's the pattern that largely repeats itself.

sink

I'm a binge gamer. I'll easily put in 60-100 hours in just a few weeks if I get into a new game. Then it could be months before I get into another game, with just a few short sessions in between.

Mr.Fantastic

Like many here i used to be hardcore owned a lot of consoles snes up to 360 wii etc.
Games collection be around 60 plus ds and 360 games mainly found as i got older just started playing less even online modern warfare just not bothered played 40 plus hours even up to year ago must be the event of going to college has matured me already:p

Overheal

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/255329/?tag=Cafeteria

Stan: I've read your book, it's just 540 pages of ripping on Wendy and calling her a slut.

Cartman: I did not directly say she was a slut. You didn't read the rest dude.... /flips page

Stan: .... "Or does she?".

Cartman: Or does she! See thats a question. I'm just asking questions Stan!

TetraxShard

I don't play enough to justify the amount of games I buy. My backlog is enormous and getting bigger all the time. I just can't resist those bargains.

That being said, I try to game most days. I definitely don't play for as long as I used too (maybe about 30-45 minutes, twice that if it's something I'm really enjoying) just don't get that engrossed anymore. Not that I think games aren't as good as they're used too, it's just that being older means you have more games, more often. If I had to play Mortal Kombat II on the Mega Drive for as long as I did back in the day, I think I would go bananas.

In summary, I'd be hardcore mindset, casual in practice.

Shryke

Good to hear from you guys. I'm not completely alone in feeling its to do with getting older then. Maybe more games means less appreciaton, good point. Someone was saying recently how they used to play their DS a good bit, they got an R4 card and filled the thing up and all of a sudden they didn't want to play anything. Oversaturation, everything was disposable.

Blowfish

I suppose I'd be classed as an 'epic' pc gamer in that I go more for games that suck you in and you can easily sink 100+ hours into. That aspect tends to mean I end up playing RPG's, strategy and MMO's a lot.

I do play some 'pick up and play' games too, I usually grab them when cheap during Steam sales. I tend to only play them for a couple of hours every so often though so it takes me a long, long time to complete them.

Next 'epic' game on my list is Civ 5 at the end of the month. Considering I put in 250+ hours into Civ IV, It'll most likely last me though a good chunk of the winter.

jaykhunter

To be honest I'm a casual gamer. I love hearing about new games, reading/watching reviews and being informed, listening to gaming podasts, listening to soundtracks etc but i don't actually sit down and play regularly. I have a ton of games i want to play but I don't make time for. Friggin' life gets in the way lol.

Over the Summer I only played Broken Sword 1, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Red Dead Redemption; so that's really struggling with 1 game/month. Usually when I play a game i play 'em in big gaming sessions over a few weeks; I usually can't put it down.

Anyway the games i wanna play aren't going anywhere and if anything will just get cheaper! I only really make time for my ol' favourites, like Zelda etc; so i guess that makes me casual. How about smart casual lol

Nehaxak

Can't see any point in playing (or buying) a game anymore unless it's a good multiplayer involving actual human players, preferably an MMO of one sort or another.
Subbed back up to Planetside for a month, to take a break from Wow. Shame there's no other MMO that comes close to Wow and that planetside is still the only real MMOFPS game after all these years.

Dave_The_Sheep

I'd usually game maybe 25 hours a week, maybe. Usually its RPG or Strategy, though I do have a bit of a hankering for games you can just pick up for half an hour and stop - like Borderlands, or Pro Evo, or something like that - before going back to the intense RTS games or into Warhammer Online (though I've stopped playing that now).

I too can't resist a bargain, as some poster above said. I've bought loads of games and while I got my money's worth out of them (since I bought them for squat) there are a lot of games I haven't finished. Braid, Assault on Dark Athena, Just Cause 2, Mass Effect, Armed Assault 2, GTA IV ... the list goes on. I've easily got a year of gaming in unfinished games (and even unstarted games - Overlord, Men of War, L4D2).

The ideal scenario would be getting another job that would start in say ... 2 months, leaving my current one and for those two months chewing through the backlog, dumping anything I wasn't enjoying. Though what's more likely would be just playing Oblivion/Civ/Total war games again.

Davidius

I don't play them as often as I used to, mainly because if I spend hours playing I feel like I've wasted time that I could've used to learn something useful. I also have far too many games that I never completed simply because I bought too many of them at once and tried to put time into all of them.

I'm beginning to suspect that I'm destined not to play games though. First my 360 breaks then my PC fries and I can't afford to replace the parts. Now I'm having problems with my TV which hinders any Wii playing.

That_Guy

Really depends on my mood. I'd be more a recreational type of gamer. I have a pretty active social life and most of my weekends are taken up by watching football.

During the week is when most of my gaming gets done after work with very little happening during the week.

However, if I've been waiting for a new release for ages I'll play it for hours when I first get it.

I'd usually play my PSP on lunch breaks though to get out of crappy conversations with people unless they've got something interesting to say.

deathrider

I'd usually play quite a few hours per week. If I dig into a game which I'm really enjoying, it would take quite a lot to drag me away from it. I there are a few achievements on the horizon that I know I'm only an hour or two away from, I find it very tough to put the pad down.
But, of course, this only works if it's a game that has really caught my interest. There has been more than plenty of game over the years that I'd only put a few hours into, and not really bother with. And those few hours are often just out of sheer bordom.

Collection-wise, I've got over 260 games. But that's collected over my whole life, not just current gen.

Red_Dead

Im a gamer with a short temper for some games and for some reason a humor towards others, My hours differ depending on work and edjucational studies but Id say minimum I get in 12 hours a week.

With the exception of sports games I play everything from Peggle to MW2 and right around to WoW and back to some classic NES fun, Though some games I have in my huge assed collection I despise because of their bad coding or just story and controllers that make no sense, I force myself to play them just for the sake of a good complaint and laugh about it, im currently laying Alone In The Dark for the 360 and let me tell you, Id rather be tortured by Liquid Snake and Ocelot than sit through another play though of bad acting and stupid controls :pac:


my collection id say is a minimum of 170 games, discounting the 60 GB hard drive of arcade 360 games i buy out of boredom, my favorite so far was Braid and DOOM