A Confession (of sorts)

I have something I need to get off my chest. A confession, if you will...

I am, contrary to popular belief, not a true gamer. I mean, I LOVE games, but I don't play them often, or many. I enjoy storylines, cutscenes, even some gameplay, but most games I'm interested in I'm only familiar with second- or third-hand.

For example - one of my favourite game series in the history of games is Kingdom Hearts. I love the story, the battle system, the puzzles, the leveling system, everything about it. How many of them have I played? One. I own all but one (in English, anyway), but I've only ever played the one (which happens to be 358/2 Days), and not even all the way through. But I know the entire series inside and out. Youtube and wiki are my best friends sometimes.

Another such example is Devil May Cry. Okay, so DMC4 I watched my husband play all the way through start to finish, but the others, I've never even picked up except to buy. I'm *going* to play them... someday. In the meantime, I'm content with knowing the story through other people and teh interwebs.

There are few games I actually play that I enjoy. World of Warcraft I used to play *avidly* (unfortunate financial circumstances have prevented me from playing of late, but as soon as I have the extra moolah, I'm right back on US Kargath, baby! FOR THE HORDE!), Sengoku Basara 3 I really enjoy, even though it's fairly simplistic in both storyline and gameplay (but geez is it immersive), and there are some FPS I've enjoyed over the years. Oh, and Minecraft. I don't know if that even counts as a "real" game, but I FUCKING LOVE MINECRAFT. And I'm GOOD at it. I mean, yeah, what's there really to be "good" at, anyway, right? well, let's see YOU build bridges and minecart railways and grand towers of awesome all over the map while zombies are trying to eat your face and creepers are blowing up your shit! Chea, not so easy now, is it? O_O

A good, good friend of mine is trying to get me involved in the Diablo series right now; as soon as I make the switch to my new laptop we're going to co-op DII. That was the condition for getting the pc - I had to play DII with him. Okay, not a big deal. I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensely; I liked the first well enough. I'm probably also going to try my hand at SC/SCII, even though, y'know, I'm awful at strategy games. I'm always the first army out in RISK... planning is definitely not my thing.

But for all that, y'know what? I'm one hell of a critic. Most of the games I love I know so well, inside and out, that I can tell you what's good and bad about each of them. I can tell you gameplay techniques and strategies, Boss fight how-to's, and the best build for the type of character you're going for. I can tell you why certain games suck and others are the bomb, and I'm *always* up for learning about a new release/future release.

Games are INTERESTING, especially the ones with immersive stories. Which is why, even though I'm not a true gamer, I still enjoy the hell out of a wide variety of games.

So, that's my confession. That is all.