The Gamer Test: How much of a gamer are you?
Score one point for everything you can answer “yes†to. Technicalities count. (Warning: spoilers exist below!)
Miscellany.
1.I’ve played a game.
2.I’ve played a game continuously for more than an hour.
3.More than 4 hours.
4.More than 12 hours.
5.More than 24 hours.
6….and it wasn’t an MMO or MUD.
7.I’ve discovered a bug in a game.
8.I’ve modded a game.
9.I’ve created a game.
10….that runs on something without a keyboard.
11.I know who Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux & Will Wright are.
12.I’ve met one of them.
Systems.
13.I’ve owned a PS3 or PS2.
14….an Xbox 360 or Xbox.
15….a Wii or Gamecube.
16….a Windows PC.
17….that I upgraded for gaming purposes.
18.I’ve owned an N64 or Playstation.
19….a Dreamcast or Saturn.
20….a Nintendo DS, DS Lite, GBA or GBA SP, or PSP.
21.More than one of the same type of machine.
22.I’ve got my console chipped.
23.I’ve bought an import game.
24….and learned Japanese to play it.
25.I still have an original Gameboy.
26.I once bought a console and I only ever had one game for it.
27.I’ve owned an arcade machine.
28….and multiple boards for it.
29.I’ve owned a SNES or Megadrive/Genesis.
30….an Atari ST or Amiga.
31….a Neo Geo, Turbografx-16/PC-Engine or other “minority†console of that era.
32….a Colecovision or Intellivision.
33….a Vectrex.
34….an Atari 2600.
35….a MAME PC.
Games.
36.I’ve played Quake.
37….Doom.
38….Half-life or Counterstrike.
39….Halo.
40….Command & Conquer.
41….Starcraft.
42….Populous.
43….Sim City.
44….a Civilization game.
45….The Sims.
46….one of the GTA series.
47….Ultima Online.
48….Everquest.
49….World of Warcraft.
50….a Final Fantasy game.
51….a Super Mario Bros. game.
52….Super Mario 64.
53….a Pokemon game.
54….a Legend of Zelda game.
55….a Super Mario Kart game.
56….a Street Fighter game.
57….Dance Dance Revolution.
58….Guitar Hero or Beatmania.
59….a Castlevania game.
60….Gran Turismo.
61….Tetris.
62….Space Invaders.
63….Pong.
64….Galaga.
65….Pac-Man.
66….Frogger.
67….Joust.
68….TIE Fighter.
69….Elite.
70….Grim Fandango.
71….a “Gold Box†Game.
72….an Infocom game.
73….a MUD.
74….Nethack.
75….Microsoft Flight Simulator.
76….Spacewar.
Gaming Culture & Age Bias 🙂
77.I cried when Aeris died.
78….gasped when Samus took off her helmet.
79….bawled when Floyd sacrificed himself for me.
80….solved the Babelfish puzzle.
81….escaped the Goblins’ dungeon.
82….cursed when the bat flew off, leaving me facing the red dragon with nothing but a key.
83.I have maxxed out my level in an MMO game.
84….with multiple characters in the same game.
85.I’ve seen Tron.
86….The Wizard.
87….The Last Starfighter.
88.I’ve attended a games conference or expo.
89….dressed as a game character.
90.I’ve stood in line at midnight to get a new console.
91….a new game.
92.I’m on first name terms with the guys at my local game store.
93.I’ve completed a game.
94….in a single sitting.
95.I’ve “clocked†a game.
96.I’ve repaired a joystick.
97.I know what lag is.
98….what mipmapping is.
99….what attribute clash is.
100. I think games these days are too easy.
44 :(, or is that 🙂
My problem is that somewhere around high school I sold my Genesis, parked my Game Boy, and Atari Lynx (what was I thinking getting that one?), stopped playing the NES at my dad's house, and renting the Super Nintendo on weekends, and didn't really touch a game again until late college, when a friend got me back into 4-player Goldeneye, and Perfect Dark battles on his N64 until the wee hours.
This means I missed a very large number of games in that tween time, and even after leaving college, the only system I had was a GBA, and later a GBA SP. It wasn't until a coworker was amazed I hadn't played anything that he got me caught up on a few titles (Half Life, Deus Ex, No One Lives Forever 2), and I got sort of back into it. I then got Warcraft III from a friend who worked on it, and actually beat it on hard. Then I got, and beat NOLF 1, and picked up the StarCraft battle chest, which had 3 old Blizzard games, though I lost interest pretty quickly on the one, and didn't play the other two. That lead me through a handful of other hits and misses, like a Harry Potter game, and Doom 3, which I couldn't get to run well enough to justify playing it for more than the first hour after I got it. I've avoided MMOs entirely. I'm trying to find more time in my own life, not trade most of it away 🙂
I have never played these from your list, shocking as it may be: Command & Conquer, Populous, Sim City, Civilization, The Sims, GTA, Ultima Online, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Super Mario 64, Pokemon, Gran Turismo (though I counted it, as I played a few minutes on someone's 360 at work), Galaga, Tie Fighter, Elite (never heard of this one), Grim Fandango, a “Gold Box†Game (a what?), an Infocom game (maybe, but as I don't know, it can't have mattered enough to me to count), a MUD (though the concept interests me in some ways), Nethack (born too late, I fear), Microsoft Flight Simulator (at least, I don't think so), Spacewar.
I've seen people playing a lot of these, and know of most of their existences. I was just usually off creating my own forms of pointless fun. These days I feel too impatient. Lots of projects, and life goals I'm working toward. It's not that the games are fun, I just find myself tapping my foot while playing, and quickly saying “Alright, enough, I have work to finish.”
(http://livejournal.com/users/greatbiggary)
NOLF was a really good game. I completed it while interviewing (multiple phone interviews over a period of a couple of weeks) at Monolith. It would have been better though, if they'd left out that stupid negotiate-the-laser-tripwires-of-increasing-difficulty-and-instant-death section. Sudden extreme ramp-up in difficulty is a bad thing.
You should definitely play all those games! I'll let you off the MMOs, MUDs, MS Flight Sim and Spacewar. The rest are on the table. And the “gold box” games are the old SSI AD&D RPGs. Pools of Radiance, etc. You can run them in Dosbox.
For the record, I score 80 on this test. It's naturally biased towards my experience. Mrs. Elbeno scored 42. She's an old-school gamer who lapsed, but has played a few MMOs.
(http://livejournal.com/users/elbeno)
51 or so, but I'm not really a gamer – I just sort of take an all-round interest in computery things. You could retool that into an online quiz to tell you what sort of gamer you are, as it would e.g. reveal that I'm a CLASSIC GAMER.
(http://livejournal.com/users/editor)
Ditto. I'm hardly a gamer, especially in the sense of what it is today.
I'm old school but never did consoles, then I lapsed for a long while before getting into MMOs.
(http://livejournal.com/users/sylvene)
63, I think. Let down by my MMO avoidance (I share Gary's outlook there), my lack of really old-school experience, coming to consoles at PS1 and my only 8-bit machine being a BBC, and questions 77-84. Do I get extra points for Peter Molyneux actually coming over to talk to me at GDC? 🙂 – Ben B
(http://livejournal.com/users/)