Game Master

[GPX | 1,372]

Which is the game you feel you’ve mastered the most? So if you were to select a game in a tournament of cash prizes and you had the choice to pick any game to play, which title would it be?

Coincidentally, has any one of you guys ever won any tournaments before? 

[GPX | 1,372]

I haven’t really been a hardcore gamer for over 10 years. The last game I’ve completed in full was Mario Galaxy 2, obtaining all the stars. So probably that would be my pick. Perhaps a lame choice as I think most Nintendo fans can probably do the same. 

[Nugfish | 652]

Dr Mario 64

 

There may not be another game I have spent more time playing and I have only played it since I have been an adult. Love me that Dr Mario!

[rdrunner | 422]

Mario Bros arcade version.  I no longer have the world record, but the only thing stopping me from putting up a ridiculous score is a lack of free time.

I've played in a few arcade tournaments and even won a couple.  My standout favorite was in 2011 when I won Funspot XIII in a photo finish.  4 days of competition on 15 games came down to the final hour, when I finally broke through and doubled my score on a tank game called "Strategy X".  The guy who finished second then almost beat me with a game of "Road Runner" but fell short in the last minute (thanks Wile E).

[mbd39 | 2,026]

NES Marble Madness. I'm #33 out of 160 on speedrun.com, and I'm one of several people who have posted scores over 180k on the internet.

I wish I was one of the better Tetris players but I never will be on par with those who can get maxouts and score millions of points. Nintendo Tetris is still my most played game.

 

[Sumez | 2,985]

Rainbow Islands

[Webhead123 | 687]

I hesitate to call myself a "master" of any game but the games I've probably gotten the most adept at over the years would include Contra, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, Thief: The Dark Project, Doom (1993), Doom (2016), Invisible Inc. and maybe a few others. I doubt I could compete with any "serious" players in a proper competition but if I had to choose one to attempt to compete in, I guess I might choose either Super Mario World or Doom (1993).

[Reed Rothchild | 9,566]

None.  I got other shit to play, once the game is cleared I move on.  I'd rather experience 10 games than try to squeeze blood out of a single gaming stone.

...but I was a pretty decent WoW player once upon a time.  Consistent top performer in a top raiding guild, consistently at the very top of the PVP matches.  Though things got a bit realer once the arena came around.

[nesmaster14 | 436]

All 98 of them.

[DarkTone | 987]

Not mastered but probably streets of rage 2. Unless its on points, not sure how to do a contest on it. Funny, I was just thinking this topic a few days ago. 

As for tournaments. I won a random game on the original xbox for playing burnout revenge before it released. Whats cool is it was a knock out tournament and every time you won, you got to pick a brand new PS2 or xbox game. I got 1 and my friend got 2. 

 

[Tanooki | 4,946]

Super Dodgeball I'd compete on for sure.

And yes I have won a local retail store competition ages ago, Gradius III caravan high score run for a decent little store gift card/coupon voucher.  Practiced up a bit in advance on coded in arcade mode, got quite methodical about it, went in and crushed the scores early on with no one able to top it for hours after and kept a nice little lead.

I used the voucher to get a Super Scope 6, totally worth it back then.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Tanooki

[DefaultGen | 5,424]

In an absolute sense, probably Pump it Up since it takes a long time to build up those dance skills. On the grand scheme of players, I am not good though.

In a relative to other players sense, probably Ninja Gaiden III because I play it all the time and I think most people tend to go back to the first 2 games.

[GPX | 1,372]

Guys, just for clarification, this thread is about game(s) you feel you’ve mastered. It’s not about you feeling like you’re an actual Games Master. In other words, you can be really good at one game and be utterly useless in all other games then you still qualify here. 

[GPX | 1,372]

On 2/6/2023 at 8:17 AM, Tanooki said:

Super Dodgeball I'd compete on for sure.

And yes I have won a local retail store competition ages ago, Gradius III caravan high score run for a decent little store gift card/coupon voucher.  Practiced up a bit in advance on coded in arcade mode, got quite methodical about it, went in and crushed the scores early on with no one able to top it for hours after and kept a nice little lead.

I used the voucher to get a Super Scope 6, totally worth it back then.

Caravan high score? Can you explain further on this? I’m kinda envious of those who competed in the 90s era tournaments. Would be such a damn thrill just to compete in one, let alone with the promise of winning extra games. 

[Tanooki | 4,946]

2 hours ago, GPX said:

Caravan high score? Can you explain further on this? I’m kinda envious of those who competed in the 90s era tournaments. Would be such a damn thrill just to compete in one, let alone with the promise of winning extra games. 

I was basically stealing the name you often will find within old Japanese space shooter games for a specific mode.  I usually have seen them with PCE but some Famicom titles, even Star Soldier on N64 had it too.  Basically you get these modes with a hard timer of 3 or 5min of play, not unlimited lives just the usual stock.  Within that time frame you have to rack up the highest possible score you can wrangle killing targets, chaining or clustering explosions, squadrons of ships, whatever it is to add multipliers and bonuses to really crank up the score.  Once time is over, it stops on that moment, and you get a total.  Obviously Gradius never really was about chains and multipliers, so it was about a methodical run to miss no targets and slide the vic viper into any spot that would pop an added bonus.

The Gradius III competition I did was a 3min run I believe given it really just played out over stage one and designed as such on purpose using a stock cart on hard difficulty.  I knew from the game at the time through NP magazine it had an arcade mode difficulty over the default easy, medium and hard, so I did caravan style play on arcade level and it worked to turn around and win it.

[T-Pac | 7,579]

I'm garbage at video games and I'm highly susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect, so I think its safe to say that I haven't mastered any game, even if I think I have haha.

-CasualCart

[GPX | 1,372]

21 hours ago, CasualCart said:

I'm garbage at video games and I'm highly susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect, so I think its safe to say that I haven't mastered any game, even if I think I have haha.

-CasualCart

I had a thought about your take on the Dunning-Kruger effect, and I think you can’t apply this concept to the field of games per se. Because games often test your level of competency more objectively, by your relative level of game completion. 

For example, someone who completes a game of 6/6 levels then they’re more likely to feel like a hardcore gamer than someone who completes only 1/6 levels. I would think it’s rare for someone who only can get through first stage and feel confident of having mastery over that particular game. 

[G-type | 2,499]

On 2/5/2023 at 5:39 AM, GPX said:

Coincidentally, has any one of you guys ever won any tournaments before? 

I got 3rd place in a Warlords tournament.

[Kguillemette | 1,547]

I came in second at a guitar hero contest before. I'm hardly an expert at it, but only one "pro" showed up to claim the main prize!

I cant really call myself a "master" at any game, really. I'm a casual gamer at heart. 

[peg | 372]

I guess it would be same damn game i mnetioned in the other thread. contra legacy of war since I have the unofficial speedrun world record. No real competition though so its not saying much.  I'm not even sure what my actual time is but I know it's much faster than the "official" record online.

Edited February 8, 2023 by peg

[T-Pac | 7,579]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:29 AM, GPX said:

I had a thought about your take on the Dunning-Kruger effect, and I think you can’t apply this concept to the field of games per se. Because games often test your level of competency more objectively, by your relative level of game completion. 

For example, someone who completes a game of 6/6 levels then they’re more likely to feel like a hardcore gamer than someone who completes only 1/6 levels. I would think it’s rare for someone who only can get through first stage and feel confident of having mastery over that particular game. 

Yeah - that's totally true for progression-based games.

But I play a lot of Atari, where the only measure of competency is high-scores (or sometimes loops), which are arbitrary without some frame of reference. It wouldn't be unusual for me to think I got a really great score in a game, only to later see some online leaderboard where my numbers wouldn't even take the lowest spot haha.

-CasualCart

[GPX | 1,372]

15 hours ago, CasualCart said:

Yeah - that's totally true for progression-based games.

But I play a lot of Atari, where the only measure of competency is high-scores (or sometimes loops), which are arbitrary without some frame of reference. It wouldn't be unusual for me to think I got a really great score in a game, only to later see some online leaderboard where my numbers wouldn't even take the lowest spot haha.

-CasualCart

Yep I agree and can relate with your hi score games analogy. I’ve been playing Geometry Wars 2 for some years, and thinking I’ve nearly mastered some levels. Then when I look up YouTube and seeing how my scores are dwarfed easily by a fair few, I realised I’m only  average relative to my perceived skills with this particular shooter. I guess when there are leaderboards and scores comparisons online, you become more aware of your relative skills.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds.  I know the game inside out.  And after acquiring the mail in strategy guide, I also discovered how accurate my childhood notes were.  I did a ton of number crunching on that game