Monthly Musings: the Areas of my Expertise

Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.

Whether we’re talking about videogames or life in general, everyone is good at something. I can read you a hundred-page list of the games I suck at, but I can take some small amount of pride in the fact that I can speedrun Braid like nobody’s business, and reliably complete Far Cry 2 permadeath runthroughs.

I deeply envy the sorts of people who can pull off insane combos in fighting games or completely master the mechanics of any given RTS game. Yet even though I will never be able to beat Red Alert 3 on anything but the easiest difficulty, or reliably pull off a half-decent air combo in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, I’ve still got my own little skills.

But, more importantly, we want to know about yours. What sorts of games do you positively excel at? Which genres do you understand so completely that you can showcase a level of skill that leaves others confused and mildly jealous? How did you come to possess such, as the kids say, mad skillz?

Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme.

The long and the short of this month’s theme is that I can’t help but watch a video like this and demand to know how the fuck anyone is capable of doing that. To the dude playing Frank in that video, it’s probably child’s play; he can do that with the same degree of urgency I reserve for picking my nose. And that blows my mind.

In many ways, this theme might be a failure. It’s entirely possible that the skills which allow that guy to know the exact moment to summon a zombie-cart simply cannot be conveyed through text. Maybe they’re purely internal. Instinctual. But then, maybe they can be explained.

You are great at something. What is it? If you’re spectacular at Counter-Strike, how did you become spectacular? What does being spectacular require of you, and how does being spectacular change the way you look at the game? Is being spectacular a gift, or a burden?

Make a cblog, title it “My Expertise: blah blah blah,” and make sure to pick the “monthly theme” category. If your article is particularly well-written or sparks interesting discussion, we’ll frontpage it.