Are you a social gamer?
 

If so, what kind of games do you like to play when your friends come over? I pick some games just because they look fun to play with friends. Pretty much any fighting games, racing games, fun platformers or shooters with a multiplayer mode. What are your favorites?

like board games or other games? i like truth or dare a lot, and um...careers

I'm a social gamer. I like to meet new people, act differently in every group, and see which behaviour takes me further. I guess it could be called social engineering, but it's fun. And it's good for learning how to adapt in social scenes. The boistrous meathead, the cool hipster, the quiet intellectual. It's all in the face, mostly the eyes.

Video: San Francisco Rush (N64), Gauntlet (Xbox), Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Xbox), Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (Xbox - we trade off the controller everytime someone kills Indy. We handle a LOT of single player games this way, a tradition we started when the N64 was new on the market and the only games we had were SuperMario64 and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter)

Board, Card, and Tile: Mah Jong (the real thing, not the solitaire matching game, Apples to Apples (hilarious party game if you havent' tried it), Kaliko (aka Psyche-Paths), Scattergories, Picture This, Taboo, and this game I forget the name of that uses tiny rubber pigs as dice (pass the pigs?).

We kinda morphed into a board and video gaming group from what had started as a role playing game group. We in the past have played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, ShadowRun, Champions, Toon, and GURPS, but the players have changed over the years and there are really only myself and one other hard-core RPGer left.

I'm not much of a social gamer at all. I'll take a good single-player game over a good multi-player game any day. Morrowind, for example, is my idea of a near-perfect RPG (minus the crash bugs, of course), whereas I wouldn't play a modern MMORPG if you paid me.

A single-player game is as good as the designers made it. A multi-player game adds complications: getting people together in one place (or on one LAN, etc.), dealing with different skill levels, dealing with cooperation/teamwork issues, the incredibly annoying split-screen effect, and the fact that one uncooperative or disruptive player can ruin things for everyone else.

That's not to say that I won't play <a href="http://www.netrek.org">a good multiplayer game</a> now and then, but it's rare for me these days. About the only head-to-head game I play with my closest gamer friend is Fire Pro Wrestling D, and usually that's in a battle royale mode where we're independently trashing six CPU bozos.

My favourite social game ever? Hand and Foot, the card game. I've seen many variations of the game, but the rules I play by are here.

Case has a few video games she likes, and so we play Baldur's Gate on PS2, Mario Party and SSX Tricky on the Gamecube, and maybe, just maybe, I'll get her to play Halo with me (Thanks, Dave!). At one point she liked playing Soul Calibur on the DC, but for some reason SCII isn't high on her "must play" list.

I'm a social gamer, but with a select core group of people. To join, one must be able to perform - or know where and how to do so - the shortcut on Rainbow Road in Mario Kart 64. Then, and only then, may you join the circle.

He he. I play hand and foot with my aunts and uncles (on my mothers side) while they tell Ole and Lena jokes and belly laugh.

Theres a ton af variation in that game. Do you play by any particular house rules?

Chewbaccus, Mario Kart was one of my favorite "social" video games! I can't wait for Mario Kart Double Dash to come to GC. Fighting games, racing games and multiplayer shooting games are the best for social gaming. My girlfriend and I tend to like playing platformers together though. We just beat Harry Potter together and next we're going to play I-Ninja. Have you seen this one? It looks really fun-->http://www.ininjagame.com. I love clever, humorous games like this.

The only time I ever socially game is when I hang out with Dave...and that motherfucker kicks my ass every time.

DOMINOE'S!

Well dude, in your defense (you won't hear that often), we play games that I've played a ton and you've never played. So it's an experienced player beating up on a newb. I usually feel kinda bad about it, but I guess I'm just trying to get you interested in new games. Heh. We can play something that you're experienced with next time you're down. Or maybe something that's not a fighting game, like FIFA World Cup 2002 or something. Yeah. That game rules.

I might as well answer the thread while I'm here...

I play both socially and by myself. I enjoy a good single-player game a whole lot. I also enjoy the camaraderie of multiplayer games.

I play one computer game - <b>Quake III Arena</b>. Specifically, I play Capture The Flag in the OSP competition mod. It's a great game, but what makes it really special is the friends I have through it. I've been gaming with the same group of guys for three years now (and have been playing the game for almost four), and it's been a blast.

On consoles, I love playing games with other people. My friend Andrea and I recently beat <b>Halo</b> (Xbox) co-op. We're working on <b>TimeSplitters 2</b> (Xbox) now. A great party game is <b>Super Smash Brothers Melee</b> (GameCube), which my group of friends and I play regularly, along with <b>Soul Calibur II</b> (Xbox, GameCube and PS2 - I own all three). (Yes, fighting games are popular in my bunch.) I enjoy playing soccer games with Paul (tokenidiot on the Cellar) - we've logged a bunch of hours together on <b>FIFA World Cup 2002</b> (PS2 and Xbox - he has the former, I the latter). I have a ton of games, and if it's good fun to play multiplayer, then I almost certainly do.

But as I said before, I definitely enjoy a good one-player game. I'm looking forward to <b>Half Life 2</b> and <b>Doom 3</b> mostly for the single-player aspect. <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> (PlayStation) and <b>Splinter Cell</b> (Xbox) are both single-player adventure/action/stealth games, and are two of my favorite games ever. Way back in the day, I enjoyed <b>Metroid</b> (NES) and earlier this year was totally absorbed by <b>Metroid Fusion</b> (GBA).

I know people that like to play games only by themselves, and I know people that only play with friends. I'm not in either of those groups. I enjoy a good game, period - whether it's by myself or with friends.

I'm not a hardcore gamer anyway. Haven't been since I owned an NES.

I like fighting games, particularly Tekken. And we have Marvel vs. Capcom for the PSOne. But I fell in love with the sports games once Genesis came out. I believe all but one of our PSOne games is a sports release.

I tend to get more enjoyment playing solo. Dave's pretty good when it comes to competition, though we've only played competitively a few times. But a lot of people I've played against just get too ramped up and shit. I'm for getting hyped, but not if you're going to be an asshole about it.