I’m honestly not sure what my first experience with 2D shooters was or when I first played one. I would love to say it was Space Invaders but that would make me a liar and I would prefer that if I have to lie to my readers, it wouldn’t be two sentences into a blog post. It is a little embarrassing to admit this, but I am pretty sure my first exposure to 2D shooters as a concept was in a Kirby game. Don’t ask me to remember which one. I understand that is a weird way to be introduced to a genre, but in fairness I pretty much grew up on Nintendo. That and there is some sort of law saying every Kirby game must have a shooter section. I am pretty sure every other experience I have had with the genre has been in a dungeon crawler. Oh wait, I have played Space Invaders since then so nevermind. That being said, I wasn’t very good at it.
My first experience with 3D shooters is a lot less all over the place. I was in high school when my friends introduced me to Halo: Combat Evolved in high school. I was utter trash at it. Especially in firefights because I could not rely on anyone but myself. At least in team matches I could potentially be a decent meat shield. Throughout the years I would occasionally return to the genre, with similar results each time. In fact whenever I was able to get a kill, it was usually because I managed to melee someone from behind when they weren’t paying attention. Not really something I should be proud of, but sometimes when life gives you lemons then you’ve got to suck them dry. Wait… I think that saying was so that you wouldn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth? I feel like something is wrong there, but I should probably move on before things actually get sour. Besides there is only so much time I can spend on how I am not good at shooters. So, I decided that I would at least try to understand why I have so much trouble adapting to 3D shooters.
Now I know what you want to say, it is because you have barely any experience playing a decent shooter. That’s most certainly true. If I hadn’t started to come across the wonderful world of bullet-hells in college, who knows if I would even be able to talk about 2D shooters, let alone shooters in general. However, it should be more than that. I don’t mean to brag, but I have played a good amount of videogames since I have been introduced to them. I wouldn’t consider myself a pro gamer, not by a long shot, but I would consider myself someone who is capable enough to get used to a control scheme after playing for a little while. So the most likely reason is because I just can’t get used to the gameplay style. I am used to going in guns blazing and having different ways to dodge around. 2D shooters usually give me the freedom to do that, whereas in an 3D environment I am not sure where I should run to or who I am even running from in the first place. Maybe I just can’t feel as exciting without knowing who I’m going after and what I’m trying to do. Maybe because 3d games are more complicated, I feel like I need more context. Or maybe I am making excuses here. After all, no matter which one you prefer the objective is the same: defeat everyone else and try not to die. And I don’t need to make this all about me. There are some games I just am not as good at and that’s just fine. So I guess my thoughts after all of this is no matter how trash you are at a certain genre, you can at least write a post about it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t do much to improve skills. Oh well.
That Casual Gamer Guy 