Six Things All Gamers Are Guilty Of

After recently having a few games of Crash Bandicoot for PS4, (still stuck on the High Road, it's bloody infuriating!!) I caught myself doing a series of things that I only ever do whilst gaming. It's a disturbing thought that something digital can cause even the calmest of gamers to lash out in rage when something doesn't go our way. So here's six things all gamers are guilty of.

The Rage Quit

Now this is a heavy one to open with but everybody has raged on some level. From tutting at your TV at the minor inconvenience you've been caused by not beating that boss on the first try, all the way to throwing your controller after the game punishes you in an endless fashion. Whether it's struggling on a boss battle, stuck on a certain level or an online player constantly quick scoping you. We've all felt this rage. Your sat there playing, escaping from the harsh realities of the world and you should be enjoying yourself as you double-jump your way through levels, punching out thugs and feel like you're making a difference in the confines of your game. But you can't get passed that one boss. No matter what strategy you have, be it run in and hit all the buttons (going on the offensive) or keeping back, stocking up on health potions as you chip away at your opponent bit by bit. It doesn't work. You die. Again and again and again. Sometimes you convince yourself "it's only a game, it doesn't matter, I just need to stay calm and - OMG LOOK HOW MUCH HEALTH HE JUST TOOK OFF ME!!" So you do the only thing you can. After seeing that screen for the hundredth time "Are you sure you want to quit?". Quite possibly the most patronising question you'll see on screen. Infuriating as it may be, as if the game is laughing at you, you begrudgingly hit "yes". You turn it off, eject it out the console and (if you're like me) you don't touch it for weeks.

Standing Up When You Lose

This is a bizarre move that we've all done at some point. You'll be racking up combos with ease as you play Arkham Knight. You're confident in your ability to take down all the thugs that come at you, you utilize your gadgets in impressive fashion, you feel like you are Batman. Until you take too many hits and die before you get a 50X combo. In disbelief you feel your thighs tighten, your grip is firm on the controller as you rise off your sofa/bed to THE STANDING POSITION. In this form you fully utilize your gaming skills, you are 100% focused as energy now fills your entire body as opposed to just the top half. You hit RESTART, your game face is on as your thumbs hover over the buttons you are Vengeance, you are the Night, you...are...dead, yeah you died again. You then realise that standing up does absolutely nothing to hone your gaming skill, it's about as instrumental as Ellie's swimming ability in The Last of Us Part One. Standing up is as useful as Ezio Auditore "blending in" by sitting on a bench between two courtesans.

Blaming Hardware

Oh yes, the classic "there's something wrong with this controller". Anything from losing a boss battle to a one on one versus match, sometimes it's not our fault. Sometimes our loss isn't down to our lack of skill as gamers, sometimes the controller seems to stop working just before we die. But it's fine, we don't get annoyed. We simply give a little tut and then (wait for it) "I pressed block but the controller didn't do anything". It's strange because up until that point, you're doing very well, you're smashing out combos, special moves (HADOUKEN!) but right before you die, your controller decides not to register that block button you DEFINITELY pressed. Other variations of this include "I DID jump!" when you fail to clear that gap, "I f***ing PRESSED SQUARE!" when your character doesn't throw an attack and "WHAT IS HE DOING!?" when your character is still sprinting face first in to a wall instead of scaling it. I caught myself doing this a lot on Crash Bandicoot I was even convinced the game (a piece of hardware) was lying to me when that short-wearing creature wouldn't jump precisely on the planks of wood on the High Ground level exactly when I asked him to. Little f**k!

Unwanted Guide From a Fellow Gamer

So you've just bought a new fighting game, maybe it's MKX, Injustice 2 or Tekken 7. You're enjoying that stage of playing as characters, learning their moves, discovering their combos. You're far from perfecting your skills on them but you know enough to win a fight. You'll be playing against the CPU or an online player, you're losing. Suddenly your friend who turns into Mickey from the Rocky movies, hovers in next to you "quick, press down back square". Yeah thanks. "Block, block, block!" Yeah, I got it. "Hold down circle that'll -". Go away and let me play!! Every gamer has a friend like this who knows every character's combos and specials it's even more infuriating on a fast-paced online game like COD, they basically become your corporal. "Fall in! Flank him! Grenada!" This also causes issues in story mode for virtually any game as your friend drops you hints as you discover this new immersive world of a brand new game often leading to major spoilers. It's as infuriating as the end to Arkham Knight when you find out it's actually....oh yeah, spoilers. I see now.

Trolling

This simply had to make the list as one of the more common things we all do for those moods where you just feel like being a d**k. This ranges from causing your team mates to die in COD all the way to insulting people on a headset whilst you're safely tucked away in the comfort of your bedroom. There are different levels of trolling, personally I like to disrupt people's view in COD by standing infront of them or blocking them in a door way, I even go as far as to mute their headsets so I don't feel guilty as i enrage an American teenager who can't get passed me and also cant kill me, as I'm on his team. Occasionally, I prefer the harmless fun of moving around the battlefield in the crouch position, knowing I'm gonna die at some point I go passed the point of caring and watch how it looks on the killcam. GTA 5 is another game I enjoy for trolling, which is probably why I've never completed it. The possibilities are truly endless. Often I like to hop into a Dune Buggy and floor it as high up a mountain as I can and accelerate down on to some poor motorists who don't suspect a fully grown, suit wearing civilian to come crashing down a mountain whilst jumping out of a vehicle at the height of a jump. Do I pack a parachute? Not always.

Reinstalling a Game

So you've now reached a stage where you have so many games, that it's chewed away at your system data faster than Pac Man. The only thing you have left to do is find a game you won't be playing anytime soon (for me it's gonna be Crash Bandicoot) and delete the application. Well done, you've now freed up about 40GB on your console. Some weeks go by and you organise a well constructed gaming evening with your friends. You've hoovered the rug, adjusted the furniture, the wife is off to her mother's, everything is set. Until (oh no) you remember that the game you're all so intent to play (let's say UFC 3 in this case) has been uninstalled to save space. So now you have to reinstall the game there and then and attempt small talk with your friends whilst the game takes forever to get back on to your console byte by byte, pixel by pixel. Your eyes locked on to the status bar "8%, 12%" yeah this may take a while. You're left feeling deflated, your perfectly organised evening has now been delayed by an hour all because you deleted UFC 3 because you needed the space to play Goat Simulator because you were in a funny mood that day.

So there you go, six things all gamers have experienced, if you're guilty of any of these, drop a comment below.

Thanks for reading.