Games you play terribly, yet still gaze upon with half-demented zeal.

I was playing the NES version of Arkanoid and realized that I'd died twice on the first level. Greed, seeking the falling powerups, disasterously neglecting the bouncing ball in my pursuit of the lazily falling power-ups.

Arkanoid is one. I am pretty terrible at this game, yet I continuously come back to it. Same with Scramble.

What games can you just not say 'OK, I suck at this, let's move on to something more in line with my aptitudes", but stoically continue playing, despite not getting any better at said game?

That'd be the Homeworld series. I love em, but good god I suck so badly at them.

Stealth games like Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell. Right now I'm trying for the fourth time in three years just to get through the ship at the beginning of MGS2. I just can't seem to sneak my way through without constant dying or being detected. My attempts at playing the Splinter Cell games have also been unfruitful and frustrating as well.

Guitar Hero. I am so, so bad, but it's fun.

Ikaruga, Contra Shattered Soldier and both Maximo games. All brilliant titles, but oh so incredibly hard. Yet when I see this, I realize a certain amount of that just has to be me not being good at them.

If I suck at a game then I'm not having fun so I don't play it.

BF2. I'm no good at the actual combat and firefights, but it's so much fun anyway. I haven't seen it said around here lately, so I'll dredge it up....

It's not what you play, but who you play it with. Some of my best gaming nights have been GWJ BF2 and GWJ JointOps nights. I suck at FPSes, but it's still a blast with the right people.

Grayjedi wrote:

If I suck at a game then I'm not having fun so I don't play it.

BF2. On my best nights, I'll still run a 1:3 K/D ratio.

Civ4 maybe. I don't suck at it, but I have no desire to study these super-efficient build orders and strategies that people have developed. So I now only play the medium difficulties because the tougher settings just piss me off.

Pop'n Music on 9 button mode. It's infinitely harder than 5 button mode but a fun challenge.

Aetius wrote:

Guitar Hero. I am so, so bad, but it's fun. :)

Same here. I am on hard stuck on Stellar by Incubus.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Civ4 maybe. I don't suck at it, but I have no desire to study these super-efficient build orders and strategies that people have developed. So I now only play the medium difficulties because the tougher settings just piss me off.

I'm the same way... it's a great game, but to be really great you've got to get into the details, and I'm just not interested in that. In fact, I tend to be pretty mediocre at most strategy games, and yet I love 'em.

I've also got an inexplicable sweet spot for fighting games, despite being only marginally better than a button masher.

Let me add Steel Battalion to the list. I'm stuck on Mission 7 of the first campaign and those stupid Jarlacs keep tearing my Prominence M1 a new one. Comparison.

Any Madden game.

TRPGs. I've acquired Disgaea 2 and FFT in the last few days, and they constantly remind me how much I suck at them.

Any tactical/strategic game, really. I had a lot of fun playing Heroes of Might & Magic 2 back in the day, despite being terrible at it. After about a hundred hours of CivIII, I decided that getting beaten by a Pacifistic civilization on the lowest difficulty level was embarrassing enough that I had to stop, but I had fun getting to that point.

Winning Eleven

My abilities come and go, some days I kick ass, some days I can't complete a pass. I won a tournament among friends at work and have the styrofoam cup trophy to prove it, but most days I just can't bring it together and the CPU in WE 9 can be just brutal. I still play it and look into every new version that comes out.

Any real time strategy. Doesn't matter what :Homeworld, Starcraft, Dawn of War, Empire Earth. Love them, but truly suck at them.

Civ. I'd never beat the game if I didn't cheat.

Usually if I suck a lot at a certain game I get frustrated and quit after at the most a couple hours.

Most RTS games in multiplayer. Oh sure I can mess about in single player campaigns but I never even considered build orders before playing online and getting myself rushed in about ten minutes. I am completely clueless when it comes to that sort of thing. Won't stop me from getting Defcon and SupCom tho

Am I being a wiseass if I say "everything?"

Truly, there's just not much I would say I'm really good at. RTS: generally love them through the single player campaigns, then fold like an origami swan under the time pressure of a MP game. Occasionally there's a FPS I get into the groove enough where I'm holding my own, usually just by specializing. I'm a mean shot in an UT2K4 tank, and I'm a decent sniper. Put me on the ground in BF2, or HL2DM and I'm just ass. The list goes on.

But unlike the comments here: if a game is really easy, why bother playing it? If it's too hard, why bother playing it? Bliss is in the middle somewhere.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Ikaruga, Contra Shattered Soldier and both Maximo games. All brilliant titles, but oh so incredibly hard. Yet when I see this, I realize a certain amount of that just has to be me not being good at them.

Well, that's just not fair. That guy is like the Yngwee Malmsteem of Ikaruga, playing with a two-neck guitar.

f*cking awesome =O

Dawn of War.

Crappy multiplayer RTS gamers of the world unite! I crush the single player game, I am crushed (immediately) in multiplayer. In terms of still loving the game, though, I'd have to say only Starcraft and Rise of Nations. Even losing, I tend to have fun.

I do fine at Civ, but I always feel bad that all of my wife's Civ IV high scores are where she won a Time victory. I wouldn't think of telling her how to play. I'm pretty good at keeping the wife points in multiplayer. And seriously, who cares what level you play any of the Civ games at? Play at the level where it's fun. That's why yuh bought it, dood.

Staats wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Civ4 maybe. I don't suck at it, but I have no desire to study these super-efficient build orders and strategies that people have developed. So I now only play the medium difficulties because the tougher settings just piss me off.

I'm the same way... it's a great game, but to be really great you've got to get into the details, and I'm just not interested in that. In fact, I tend to be pretty mediocre at most strategy games, and yet I love 'em.

I've also got an inexplicable sweet spot for fighting games, despite being only marginally better than a button masher.

Same here: like the Civ but not enough to go to Civ college, love fighting games yet stink.

I really wanted to get into Dominions 2, but I usually ended up trying to read through the manual while laying in bed, next thing I know it would be morning and I would be laying on top of a increasingly creased D2 manual.

Table-top wise, I mustve bought 2 editions of Warhammer and though I enjoy reading the backstory and fiction included.... I suffer a similar attention issue when it comes to actually reading the rules. For now I consider it a 'painting hobby'.

Roo wrote:

And seriously, who cares what level you play any of the Civ games at? Play at the level where it's fun. That's why yuh bought it, dood.

You've got a point there. From my point of view, though, it's frustrating knowing that it can't get any easier.

You mean, narrow it down to just one game?
Can't do it.

I'd say it's super mario for me, I'm playing the new super mario at the moment, and my timing really sucks. But I am getting better at it. I used to die at the first creature I saw, now I'm at world 8 with mario! Woooo! But sometimes it frustrates the hell out of me.

Natural Selection. I always said that if I ever was to join a clan, it'd have to be called ISAMOG - "I suck at my own game".