Skip to main content
Join The Community
- Join our community
Commenting
Join the discussion
Exclusive Articles Coming Soon
Member-only articles
Weekly Newsletters
Weekly gaming & entertainment news
Member Badges
Earn badges as you go
Exclusive Competitions
Members-only prize draws
Curated Deals Coming Soon
Tech and gaming deals worth grabbing
GET COMMUNITY ACCESS QUICK
For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. We will send a confirmation and sign you up to our newsletter to keep you updated on all your gaming news.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
FIND OUT ABOUT OUR MAGAZINE
Want to subscribe to the magazine? Click the button below to find out more information.
Find out more
GET Community ACCESS QUICK

Join the GamesRadar community for quick access. Enter your email below and we'll send confirmation, and sign you up to our newsletter.

By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over, have read our Privacy Policy and agree to the Terms & Conditions. Geographical rules apply.

Welcome to GamesRADAR+ Community !
Hi ,

Your membership journey starts here.

Keep exploring and earning more as a member.

MY ACCOUNT

Earn your first badge
Read 1 article to unlock your first badge.
Keep earning badges
Explore ways to get more involved as a member.
Latest Games News

Latest Games News

Breaking gaming news and updates

Read Now
Latest Games Reviews

Latest Games Reviews

Expert verdicts on the newest releases

Read Now

See what you’ve unlocked.

Explore your membership benefits.

Explore
Member Exclusives

Stay Ahead with GamesRadar+

Get the biggest gaming news, reviews, and releases straight to your inbox.

Explore

Sign Out
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+
US EditionUS CA EditionCanada UK EditionUK AU EditionAustralia
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Games
    • Game Insights
      • Games News
      • Games Features
      • Games Reviews
      • Games Guides
      • Big in 2026
      • Big Preview
      • Future Games Show
      • Golden Joystick Awards
    • Genres
      • Action Games
      • RPGs
      • Action RPGs
      • Adventure Games
      • Third Person Shooters
      • FPS Games
    • Platforms
      • PS5
      • Xbox Series X
      • PC
      • Nintendo Switch
      • Nintendo Switch 2
      • Tabletop Gaming
    • Franchises
      • Grand Theft Auto
      • Pokemon
      • Assassin's Creed
      • Monster Hunter
      • Fortnite
      • Cyberpunk
      • Red Dead
      • The Elder Scrolls
      • The Sims
  • Entertainment
    • TV Shows
      • TV News
      • TV Reviews
      • Anime Shows
      • Sci-Fi Shows
      • Superhero Shows
      • Animated Shows
      • Marvel TV Shows
      • Star Wars TV Shows
      • DC TV Shows
    • Movies
      • Movie News
      • Movie Reviews
      • Big Screen Spotlight
      • Superhero Movies
      • Action Movies
      • Anime Movies
      • Sci-Fi Movies
      • Horror Movies
      • Marvel Movies
      • DC Movies
    • Streaming
      • Apple TV Plus
      • Disney Plus
      • Netflix
      • HBO
      • Amazon Prime Video
      • Hulu
    • Comics
      • Marvel Comics
      • DC Comics
  • Hardware
    • Insights
      • Hardware News
      • Hardware Reviews
      • Hardware Features
      • Buying Guides
    • Computing
      • Desktop PCs
      • Laptops
      • Handhelds
    • Peripherals
      • Headsets & Headphones
      • TVs & Monitors
      • Gaming Mice
      • Gaming Keyboards
      • Gaming Chairs
      • Speakers & Audio
    • Accessories & Tech
      • Gaming Controllers
      • Tech
      • SSDs & Hard Drives
      • VR
      • Accessories
      • Retro
  • Deals
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • Lego
    • Dungeons and Dragons
    • Merch
  • Video
    • Videos
    • GR+ Replay - Submit Your Clips
    • G+RLS Podcast
  • Newsletters
    • Quizzes
    • About Us
    • How to pitch to us
    • How we score
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
  • Home
  • Games
    • View Games
      • Games News
      • Games Features
      • Games Reviews
      • Games Guides
      • Big in 2026
      • Big Preview
      • Future Games Show
      • Golden Joystick Awards
      • Action Games
      • RPGs
      • Action RPGs
      • Adventure Games
      • Third Person Shooters
      • FPS Games
    • Platforms
      • View Platforms
      • PS5
      • Xbox Series X
      • PC
      • Nintendo Switch
      • Nintendo Switch 2
      • Tabletop Gaming
      • Grand Theft Auto
      • Pokemon
      • Assassin's Creed
      • Monster Hunter
      • Fortnite
      • Cyberpunk
      • Red Dead
      • The Elder Scrolls
      • The Sims
  • Entertainment
    • View Entertainment
    • TV Shows
      • View TV Shows
      • TV News
      • TV Reviews
      • Anime Shows
      • Sci-Fi Shows
      • Superhero Shows
      • Animated Shows
      • Marvel TV Shows
      • Star Wars TV Shows
      • DC TV Shows
    • Movies
      • View Movies
      • Movie News
      • Movie Reviews
      • Big Screen Spotlight
      • Superhero Movies
      • Action Movies
      • Anime Movies
      • Sci-Fi Movies
      • Horror Movies
      • Marvel Movies
      • DC Movies
    • Streaming
      • View Streaming
      • Apple TV Plus
      • Disney Plus
      • Netflix
      • HBO
      • Amazon Prime Video
      • Hulu
    • Comics
      • View Comics
      • Marvel Comics
      • DC Comics
  • Hardware
    • View Hardware
      • Hardware News
      • Hardware Reviews
      • Hardware Features
      • Buying Guides
      • Desktop PCs
      • Laptops
      • Handhelds
    • Peripherals
      • View Peripherals
      • Headsets & Headphones
      • TVs & Monitors
      • Gaming Mice
      • Gaming Keyboards
      • Gaming Chairs
      • Speakers & Audio
      • Gaming Controllers
      • Tech
      • SSDs & Hard Drives
      • VR
      • Accessories
      • Retro
  • Deals
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • Lego
    • Dungeons and Dragons
    • Merch
  • Video
    • View Video
    • Videos
    • GR+ Replay - Submit Your Clips
    • G+RLS Podcast
  • Newsletters
    • Quizzes
    • About Us
    • How to pitch to us
    • How we score
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
Trending
  • Prime Day PS5 deals
  • Golden Joystick Awards 2026
  • Deal of the Day
  • Countdown to GTA 6
  • G+RLS Podcast
  • Join our monthly RPG Club
  • Submit your clips. Win prizes
  • RPG Hub
Want more Switch 2 news?

Sign up to our Switch 2 newsletter to make sure you get the very latest news on Nintendo's new console and its games every week


By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You are now subscribed

Your newsletter sign-up was successful


Want to add more newsletters?

GamesRadar+

Every Friday

GamesRadar+

Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.

GTA 6 O'clock

Every Thursday

GTA 6 O'clock

Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.

Knowledge

Every Friday

Knowledge

From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.

The Setup

Every Thursday

The Setup

Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.

Switch 2 Spotlight

Every Wednesday

Switch 2 Spotlight

Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.

The Watchlist

Every Saturday

The Watchlist

Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.

SFX

Once a month

SFX

Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!


Join the club

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.


An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
  1. Games

What's your inner fanboy?

Features
By David Houghton, Andy Hartup
Published 14 March 2014

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

  • Facebook
  • X
  • Pinterest
  • Flipboard
  • Email
Share this article
Join the conversation
Follow us
Add us as a preferred source on Google
Subscribe to our newsletter

Did you spot Satoru Iwata in this feature?

All of your favourite games involve cute animals and physics

Youve never seen a bald-headed space marine. You know not the ways of the armoured wielder of steel, nor the decades-honed skills of the stoic martial artist. Youve never fired a gun, or sliced a dragon, or summoned the very Chi energy coursing through your body into the form of weaponised fire. No, you much prefer to make birds fly over things. Or make birds fly through things. Or make birds fly into things. Or make sweets fly over, around and through things to feed a monster.

You like doing that. Birds are cute. And so are monsters. Making them do things with physics is fun. All you need to do is hold your thumb down. Youre like some kind of crazy, physics-bending thumb-wizard. God, games are fun. And cute.

Latest Videos FromGamesRadar+
Watch full video here:

Your gaming sessions last five minutes or five hours. There is no in between

An hour or two of gaming after work? Not for you. People might think youre softcore, but youre a gamer of extremes. A quick blast while waiting for a bus, or an entire, game-devouring day, thats how you roll. Those supposedly dedicated part-timers just dont get it. Youre in it for intensive bursts or utter marathons, and nothing else. Both provide a more vigourous challenge than the relaxed, short-term schedules those guys use. They just have no idea how badass your holding-your-thumb-down skills really are.

How did it end up this way? Youre not really sure. There just seems to be something about the games you play, You wouldnt say that theyre disposable, exactly. They really, really require all of your hard-trained skills in thumb-holding-down. Its just that if outside circumstances (like the arrival of the aforementioned bus) do stop you playing them, you seem to forget all about them, instantly. If you have an uninterrupted block of time though, youll be hypnotised, indefinitely. You wont even notice the passing of an entire day. Its almost like the games you play are built around the kind of never-changing repetition that prevents the human brain from processing a meaningful temporal narrative. Like your mind isnt really fully engaged. Like theres an absence of the usual workings of your mind. Like the games are in some way mindless.

You may like
  • PS3 photo taken by Future Studios The 25 best PS3 games of all-time
  • In the age of AI and layoffs, playing old games in 2026 is about more than nostalgia
  • Spyro the purple dragon looking determined in front of blue cloudy skies As a Spyro fan from the '90s, here's what Spyro: A Realm Beyond needs to get right

You pay barely anything for your games, but somehow spend a lot on the pastime

90% of your games are free. So why the hell is your credit card bill always astronomical?

Sure, you throw the odd bit of cash into a game from time to time, just to speed things along. But you dont spend that often. And anyway, it would be impossible to blow the kind of money listed in your statement on a mere video game. The kind of business model that drove that sort of spending would require a really cynical kind of thinking, designed purely to prey on the weak-minded. And no-one would make games like that now, would they?

Want more Switch 2 news?

Sign up to our Switch 2 Spotlight newsletter to make sure you get the very latest news on Nintendo's new console and its games every week

By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Gaming gives you all the deep, satisfying nourishment of eating popcorn

Some gamers talk about their games in terms of deep, challenging journeys of discovery and long-term, committed explorations of new worlds and new skills. But who wants that stuff, right? Sounds like a load of old hard work. Games are supposed to be fun.

The games you play arent so much five-course dinners as large snack-bags filled mainly with sugar and air. But thats fun. Thats what games are supposed to be about. Simple, undemanding diversions that imprint upon ones life in no meaningful way, positive or negative. Theyre just time-wasters. Theyre just fun. Fun, you know? Youre not missing out on anything. Youre not missing out on anything at all. Holding your thumb down is just fine. You have cute things. And, and physics And thumb-holding What more do you possibly need in life? Art? Adventure? Emotion? No, your games are just great. Really. No, really, they are.

You dont know what a mech is. Is it a kind of bird?

What are its physics like?

You may like
  • PS3 photo taken by Future Studios The 25 best PS3 games of all-time
  • In the age of AI and layoffs, playing old games in 2026 is about more than nostalgia
  • Spyro the purple dragon looking determined in front of blue cloudy skies As a Spyro fan from the '90s, here's what Spyro: A Realm Beyond needs to get right

Can you control it with a thumb?

Youre a mobile gaming fanboy

You dont really know what games are. You only really heard about them four years ago. Youre pretty sure that theyre just a thing that people do when theyre bored, or have a spare five minutes, and you only play the things that the guys at work tell you theyre playing. They were right about that thing with the birds. You really enjoyed it. Or at least you think you did. You certainly played a lot of it, and thats the same thing, right?

You have never heard of any other format, and you do not know what a fanboy is, even though you sort-of are one. You are almost certainly not reading this, so we can say what we want about you, smelly-pants.

How did you do?

Still clicking through? Either you've fallen asleep on / died at your keyboard / smartphone, or you don't fit into any of the categories we listed here. Maybe you just wanted to read all the funny words (if so, we love you). Anyway, hope you enjoyed the feature and, as always, please leave your comments below. There's bound to be some fanboy arguments starting up real soon, so enjoy that, yeah?

Bustin' for more GamesRadar quiz-style features? Why not check out What Generation Of Gamer Are You? Alternatively, give your brain a workout by playing Where's Tingle?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Current page: Page 5

Prev Page Page 4
CATEGORIES
Android iPad iPhone PC Gaming Wii-u Nintendo PlayStation PS4 Xbox Xbox One Platforms Mobile Gaming
PRODUCTS
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Halo 4 Super Mario 64
Andy Hartup
Andy Hartup
Social Links Navigation
Read more
PS3 photo taken by Future Studios
Games The 25 best PS3 games of all-time
 
 
Games In the age of AI and layoffs, playing old games in 2026 is about more than nostalgia
 
 
Spyro the purple dragon looking determined in front of blue cloudy skies
Adventure Games As a Spyro fan from the '90s, here's what Spyro: A Realm Beyond needs to get right
 
 
A multiplayer skirmish in N Plus Infinity Times Two
Platforming Games These devs spent 22 years building the perfect platformer, and the Steam apocalypse won't stop them
 
 
Composite image with screenshots of Modern Warfare 4, Spyro: A Realm Beyond, Gears of War: E-Day, and Fable in the wings of the Xbox logo
Games "There has to be a reason for people to buy an Xbox": Making sense of Microsoft's messy return to console exclusivity
 
 
Witcher 3 Remastered key art featuring Geralt and friends
Events & Conferences Everything announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026
 
 
Latest in Games
Silent Hills
Silent Hill Hideo Kojima shares native PC port of P.T., leaving the modder who made it "speechless"
 
 
Arc Raiders player in skull helmet with blue lens eyes
Third Person Shooters Arc Raiders lead says Steam player count discourse doesn't feel great, but Embark "accepted" it
 
 
Lara Croft in a screenshot from Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis.
Tomb Raider Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis devs are cutting back on modern hand holding
 
 
Old School RuneScape dev Mod Kieren in yellow shirt on RuneFest stage
MMO Games After accidentally killing players and deleting billions, Old School RuneScape devs rush out a fix
 
 
Arc Raiders player in helmet with gas mask
Third Person Shooters Arc Raiders lead encourages players to "take a break and play some other games" if out of content
 
 
The Last of Us 2
The Last of Us Troy Baker says The Last of Us 2's devastating final scene was originally at the start of the game
 
 
Latest in Features
Silent Hill Townfall
Silent Hill Silent Hill Townfall's real hero is hiding in plain sight
 
 
Summer H. Howell as Carrie White in Prime Video's Carrie TV show
Horror Shows Carrie ending explained: Who dies and is Emaline real?
 
 
Hideo Kojima
Games Xbox doesn't need the "console wars" – it has Hideo Kojima
 
 
Summer Howell as Carrie White in Carrie TV show
Horror Shows Will there be a Carrie season 2?
 
 
Ana de Armas and Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049
Sci-Fi Movies Blade Runner timeline: The movies, comics, and TV shows in order
 
 
Splash art for Fortnitemares 2026
Fortnite How a trip to Universal's Halloween Horror Nights got me hooked on Fortnite
 
 
LATEST ARTICLES
  1. "You have to stick to your guns a bit"
    1
    Arc Raiders lead says Steam player count discourse doesn't feel great, but Embark "accepted the fact that we would have less players"
  2. 2
    Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis devs are cutting back on modern hand holding: "Get on your own, get lost, then find your way back"
  3. 3
    After accidentally killing players and deleting billions in gear, Old School RuneScape devs warn the MMO's community and take worlds offline to fix things
  4. 4
    Arc Raiders lead says it's good to "take a break and play some other games" if you're out of content, and he's right
  5. 5
    The Last of Us 2's Troy Baker says the ending's devastating final conversation between Joel and Ellie was originally supposed to be at the start of the game

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

Add as a preferred source on Google Add as a preferred source on Google
  • About us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...