I wonder how many gamers had there first experience with Super Mario Bros. ending with the first goomba on stage 1-1 wobbling straight into them while a bunch of people (who knew how to play it) watched with amusement. That was me. My mum and dad didn't buy me a NES so I always had an experienced audience when it was my turn to play. That eventually changed.

I saw the topic for this month's musing and had the immediate thought that I don't actually excel at any game, in any genre and my opening anecdote could be considered strong evidence of that. Perhaps this is because I'm conscious of just how much better many others are and more so because I am not into competitive gaming. I am for the most part a single-player gamer, I rarely enjoy playing with other people. The only games I've played online for any length of time were Medal of Honour: Allied Assault and Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. On both games I racked up impresive wins and I could dominate whole servers sometimes on MOHAA. But when I think back, I was well aware that there were far more skilled players than me. Being for the most part a single-player gamer does not mean that I'm not any good but even thinking of games I play well, I remind myself again that there are plenty of people who are a lot better.

The topic for this month came about around the time I was playing through the Insanity difficulty on Mass Effect 2. I usually only try the hardest difficulty on games I love and Mass Effect 2 is certainly one of them. I started the Insanity run immediately after completing the game on normal and I actually ended up going through it fairly quickly, with very little difficulty. My immediate thought was that it just wasn't that hard but browsing the GameFaqs boards, I got mixed resposes. Some found it extremely difficult, some had given up and others assured everyone, every chance they got that it wasn't difficult at all. This is fairly typical of gamers and indeed people, someone will always find something easier and even people who were challenged will sometimes tell themselves and others that it really wasn't difficult at all.

When I bought a GameCube in late 2004 I immediately began buying up all the games that I had missed. I had spent most of the previous five years playing PC (mostly RTS) games and I was glad to get back into Zelda, Mario and to play some new IP's like Pikmin as well. I remember after I'd played quite a few, starting a thread on a forum listing what I thought to be the hardest games on GameCube. Most of the titles were from the point of view of a completionist. For example: getting all the Ace Medals on Rogue Squadron (something I did), completing Metroid Prime on hard etc. Someone almost immediately came along and went through my list telling me how mistaken I was with each one and how easy he had found them. Being a new member of the forum I was quite surprised. Apparently the only games that were difficult were F-Zero GX and Ikaruga and my Elite Medals meant nothing.

Way back in 1994 when Nintendo vs. Sega was reaching its climax I could barely think of anything else in primary school but video games. Video games and dinosaurs. I still have a large folder full of unimaginative pictures I drew of Sonic and other characters. Something I didn't have was the Internet or even that many friends that played the same games as me so I was never sure whether I was any actually any good. I was better than all my brothers but I was the oldest and they didn't care nearly as much as I did. It has only been in the last decade that I discovered how difficult some of the games I completed as a child were. I played a lot more platformers back then and I used to literally play on every level of difficulty and challenge myself in an way I could. Most of the reason for this was my lack of income and the tiny amount of new games I got each year. I remember beating Gunstar Heoes on the hardest difficulty (something I'm pretty sure I couldn't do again). I finished every game I could get my hands on. This continued when I got a Nintendo 64 and I did everything on games like GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie and Zelda. It was also true of PC gaming which remained a constant throughout all the consoles I owned where I completed (what I thought to be) an impressive amount of RTS and TBS games.

So something anyone reading might of noticed is just how many different types of games I've been into over the years. For me, only platformers and adventure games have remained constant. I go through FPS, RTS stages and I'm currently playing a lot more RPG's than I ever have before. Something else I noticed thinking back is that how well I do at any game is related very closely to how much I enjoy it. There are exceptions of course. I just can't be bothered with some older difficult games anymore because a large part of their difficulty comes from having to restart the whole thing again if I make too many mistakes. This is something that is only getting worse as my body gets older and my time devoted to joyfully wasting time gets shorter.

To conclude, I'm no expert. I only have to brag about an accomplishment and have it belittled or laughed at to realise that. If someone fails to tell me just how not good I am, I can just look up a speed run of one of my favourite games and watch a stranger unconsciously school me. I can however play a lot of different games pretty well. Sometimes very well if I have the time, patience and I really enjoy them. And maybe I shouldn't think so much about the people that are better than me. There always will be someone better and if not now, someone would come along later anyway.

So I'm something of a Jack of all Trades, I'm good at everything; an expert at nothing.

...but I do suck at Guitar Hero.