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  1. Games

50 skills that every gamer should master

Features
By Matt Cundy published 30 June 2008

It's not just about playing games

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

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21. Perform tea-bagging like a pro
Don't bang away like a demented pneumatic penis. Get rhythm. Tea-bagging is an art - as our own educational video reminds us.

22. Immediately know what to dump when your inventory is full
Don't know what to drop after the Goblin's Cleaver of Apathy made you over encumbumbered? Stop being a massive tool and just relinquish some of the unused crap you've been pointlessly clinging on to for the last 30 hours.

23. Engage in the 'Are games art?' debate without sounding like a pretentious twat or a moronic dumbass
Find the middle-ground between this:

"I think you'll actually find that videogames are a post-modern expression of individualism while simultaneously collectivising its digital form and manifesting as abstract interactive entertainment."

And this:

"Art is for pussies. I just want to kill make-believe people."

24. Always spot the 'hidden area'
Remember: nothing screams "HIDDEN AREA!" louder than a cracked wall.

25. Gather enough tech speak to make it sound like you know how to make games better than developers themselves
"Sure, they might have nailed the anisotropic and bilinear filtering, but you can unzip me like a banana if the Cartesian coordinates and phong shading aren't an absolute bucket of wank." Smart sounding development speak makes you superior. This site is a good place to start.

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26. Memorise enemy/item spawn points
Want to know how tHE dEfec8or is always smoking your ass with the rocket launcher? It's because he's all over the longitude and latitude of those maps, and he's snorting up the coordinates of every spawn point and he knows exactly what it'll spawn and he knows exactly when it'll spawn it. It's called dedication and that's why tHE dEfec8or is a winner.

27. Complete unlocking/defusing mini-games first time, every time
Should be like making Einstein recite his five times table.

28. To never be suckered by game store offers pimping crappy games and shitty third party peripherals
An Hour of Victory and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty bundle for 40 noteswith a TatTech controller thrown in for free is not a bargain, it's a piss-take.

29. Be condescending, patronising and impatient when playing with non-gamers
Alternatively, feign kindness and offer to show them "how to do it". Once you've got the controller, never give it back.

30. Be shit-faced drunk and still be able to rock at Guitar Hero or other popular party game
Preferably be able to keep getting more drunker while playing.

31. Bluff your way through a conversation about a retro game you never actually played
Don't ever admit to having not played some geriatric, incontinent piece of gaming history that some rose-tinted retrosexual is eulogising. Just fudge your way through. It's not hard: "Geoff Spectacles and the Subatomic Android Invaders on the Vic-20? Of course I played it! That was the one with the monochrome 2D graphics and beepy sound effects wasn't it?"

32. Instantly identify enemy types by the sound they make
Don't stop with enemies. Utilise your ears as nature intended and recognise weapons, vehicles, power-ups, score multipliers... anything at all with the amazing power of hearing.

33. Confidently guess what a developer's secret project/unannounced title is
If all else fails, predict Shenmue 3.

34. Passionately champion at least one obscure game that nobody has ever heard of and win it some new fans
Ever heard of Warriors of Elysia? It's the long overdue sequel to Bikini Karate Babes. We're sure it's going to be awesome.

35. Get the highest possible rank/medal/award in any tutorial level
Tutorial levels are weak and pathetic. An insult to proper gamers, they're a monumental mismatch on the same scale as a bare-knuckles brawl to the death between Chuck Norris and Barbara Bush.

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Matt Cundy
Matt Cundy
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I don't have the energy to really hate anything properly. Most things I think are OK or inoffensively average. I do love quite a lot of stuff as well, though.
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