In C&C: Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge.

I sometimes like to play skirmishes where I only use Psychic units and try and crush the enemy with their own forces.

In RPGs I insntly try to level up as much as possible. In FFXII I was at level 99 before I even got Penelo for the first time (when you power up the sunstone) and in FFX I had all of Tidus' Overdrives before the octopus boss fight. Also in Dragon quest VIII I was at level 30-something by the time I got Angelo.

I also have the habit of making sure I've done everything possible in an area before leaving it, I've gotten all the chests and examined everything just to make sure I've not missed anything.

And when online sometimes I just put on strange accents and say I'm from a made-up country. Once I put on a Russian accent and said "I ham from Yugoslovekrachia." and one guy I was playing said "Oh yeah, I've been there on holiday a bunch of times!"

I have occassionally gamed in my boxers.

Smash Bros:
I tend to use the Falcon Punch often, even when I know the opponent is going to dodge/block it

Soul Calibur:
- After killing an enemy, I'll run off the ring before the replay begins.
- When killing an enemy with an attack that doesn't knock them down, I'll keep hitting them to keep them standing for as long as possible, then use a throw on them just before the replay begins.

Resident Evil 4:
In my inventory, all of my items are upside-down.

I just remembered another...

After playing games like Resident Evil or Silent Hill ( ESPECIALLY SILENT HILL ), I can't turn lights off when it gets dark. I have to walk around with my DS Lite on high if I want to walk 3 feet through my closet to get to the bathroom at 3 AM. I'm cool like that. x3

do not, i repeat DO NOT play silent hill for the 1st time while stoned in a dark room.

i expected another resi evil & got messed up 4 life :(

I know this sounds wierd, but I like to rent a game, ether beat it or do a lot, and then not play it. I've done this with Virtua Fighter 5 (Still have it), Metroid Prima 3, etc., and I don't know why.

In RTS games... I must have reasearched everything possible before I send out my armies to attack the enemy.

Explains why the enemy is pounding at my door all the time, then me at his door.

FoxDiamond:
-When I play a game (especially on the PC), I absolutely cannot have anything close to the screen in front of it (i.e. post-its on my monitor). It distracts me too much.
-In addition, I also obsessively readjust my monitor's (and my own) position in order to get it *just right*.
-Continuing on that vein, I think I may need to start gaming naked: when I play a twitch based game, I become *very aware* of every slight discomfort in my clothing (my shirt is wrinkling funny, my socks are drooping, etc.) This combined with my monitor adjusting means I get killed in stupid ways a lot.

I have all of those problems. Some days, I just cannot get comfortable, and my gaming performance suffers horribly for it.

-I game to music a lot. If it's a single player game, sometimes I try to time my actions with the song (i.e. burst out of the vent shooting as the song really picks up). Sometimes I load the game and restart the song if I don't get it just right.

Me too, especially when I'm making gameplay videos. Say I'm making a video of a police chase in Need for Speed: Most Wanted - I put a lot of thought into the song I choose, and once I start recording, if even the slightest thing goes wrong and breaks the flow, I restart. Once, I restarted a level dozens of times to get one video. (Things kept going wrong) The video I got in the end was pretty damn sweet though, so it was worth it.

Before a FPS clan match (or before a session of Team Fortress 2) I always, without fail, go to the nearest sink and thoroughly wash my hands. I feel as though it makes my hands/fingers more...nimble (for want of a better word).

I do that, but then, I'm a compulsive hand washer all round, I wash my hands at least a dozen times a day.

That reminds me.

If I ever get that strange glare from the sun on my monitor or TV when Im playing a game. I MUST get rid of it by any means!

1. Shutting the curtains, somtimes works but can fail on a bright day
2. Making a tent using a large blanket around me and my monitor
3. Using a towel to add another layer of curtain to thw window, no matter how stupid it looks!
4. Destroying the Sun bringing an everlasting eternal night! But it has'nt come to that. . .yet

This is a fantastic thread, I just had to post some of mine.

1) I too have been known to occasionally game nude. Well, oay, I'm not KNOWN to game nude but I'm admitting it here and now.

2) I too, am also a reload junky, which, when using the breen gun in COD4 ensures many a failed deathmatch.

3) I also like to nod my character's head in FPSs, just for the immersion factor.

4)In a slightly twisted fashion, I tend to cackle maniacally when I perform a particular gruesome or gratuitous kill in a FPS or other typically violent game. My favourite in particular was when I turned a corner in Half Life 2, didn't even aim my gun, and nailed a combine soldier with one magnum shot to the head. The bloodstain hit the wall at a perfectly straight projectory, he slumped over the table he was behind, and despite having his gun primed over the table he was hiding behind, he barely had a chance to fire a shot.

5) If I'm playing a game with catchy music, I tend to narrate my onscreen actions in time and pitch to the melody. Playing Symphony of the Night and singing to a skeleton worrior about how exactly I'm going to kill him is both juvenile and entertaining.

6) If I've been left alone all day with nobody to talk to, 9 times out of 10 I'll fire up my console and if I'm not talking to my onscreen assailants, I'm talking to myself, congratulating myself for good kills or puzzle-solving skills.

7) I get through some of the hardest puzzles in a game, then get stuck on the really easy ones, give up within a half hour, look at a walkthrough, and then feel really guilty for the remainder of the game. I did this earlier today for the Milkman stage in Psychonauts. The solution was so simple, and I love the game so much that I'm still feeling dirty for it.

8) If a game is bright, colourful, relaxing, strange, and simple (Katamari Damacy being a great example) I tend to wait until I'm really stoned before playing it. Makes it so much more fun. Ditto with scary games - I don't normally get freaked out by horror titles, but FEAR, a few tokes, and surround sound, and you're in for a terrifying treat.

9) As a kid, I used to play games to enjoy and complete them. Nowadays, I want to see a game through to the end to critique it. I do still enjoy playing through my games (why else would I play them?) but I aspire to be either a game designer or critic, and when I play through a game it's very rarely for storyline closure, but so that I can look back and analyse what did or didn't make the game great.

10) I absolutely detest Oblivion. It's universally loved by many, others are impartial, but I find every last piece of binary that holds that game together totally objectionable.

weapon testing in games with 2 controllers by myself
eg COD4 which pistol (yes PISTOL deagle is a cannon) is best
...i get bored easily

When I am playing game if I have problems with a boss I put on angry gangster rap on the next try. Usually works.

Apparently gangster rap gives me gaming super powers.

I've got the same thing with buildings in RTS games. I've actually went and distroyed buildings before because they weren't in line.

For some reason I have to name characters with some variant of my name. My main back in WOW was Luisfranco (seriously, it's my real name), with an alt being papafranco and then a bank alt named Francobanco. I guess it's due to the fact that if someone tried to grab my attention by saying "sirbrohan", or something stupid that I made up, I wouldn't pay attention. Although I've always wanted to try out what Yahtzee said and name a character "I say"...

Once I beat an open world game (Gta) i make up little stories ,like run down the pedestrian to get a gun and shoot the other strangley dressed pedestrian to buy my freind's drug dealer off

I play any action-y games better when it is on the hardest difficulty and I am about to die.

Also, if I wear pink silk, I cannot seem to be enthused by a game.

In hitman contracts, since the walking animation doesn't start for a second after moving, I tap forward so 47 slide elegatly across the floor. Great when your doing it backwards firing twin pistols into a crowd of people.

HITMAN ON ICE

In RTSs I make all my units in 10s. I'll never send anything out to attack unless I've got ten of each type of unit. If that doesn't work, I send out 10 more of each next time.
In Final Fantasy games I never use the attack spell items (Zeus' Wrath, Antarctic Wind etc.), telling myself I'm saving them for a boss. Then forget about them in the boss fight.
In RE4 I spent ages reorganising Leon's case.
I obsessively order the Pokemon in my boxes, with a different system in each generation. Currently, it's one of each in numerical order with extras in the one remaining empty box.
In Soul Calibur 2 I always run out of the ring after getting ring out on an opponent. If I KO them normally I try to throw them before they fall over.

In Smash Brothers, I always have to taunt just as my opponent is knocked off screen. I also HAVE to use a set combo as a KO if its the deciding KO--IE, if I'm playing as DK, I have to fully charge a punch, headbutt my opponent into the ground, then punch them off the edge of the screen.

RPG's I have to open every chest, look through every bookcase, look in every pot, etc. Don't even get me started on the shovel in The Legend of Zelda games...

Finally, whenever I play Counter Strike, I HAVE to steal my opponents weapons if I kill them. Doesn't matter if I spent $8000 on my gun alone and my opponent is using dual pistols, I have to steal their weapons and kill someone else with them just to prove I'm better at that weapon than them. Kinda douchey, I know.

I'm just gonna list my most frequent:

I can't not complete a game in one sitting the first time I play it.
I talk to the TV while playing sometimes.
I if my inventory can be organized, it will be. No matter what.
In FPS games, I reload before the clip runs out.
In RTS, I enjoy overwhelming.

In FPSes, I cannot leave a single enemy standing. Even in places like the first level of Deus Ex when your brother asks you to only take down enemies with severely limited and painfully slow-acting tranquiliser darts and a cattle prod, I can't finish the level without laying out every dude that shows up red in my crosshairs. I just can't. Spawn points cause me grief because I know that by the time I reach the end of the section another zombie/splicer/alien/terrorist/fascist stormtrooper/exploding clown on a unicycle (I love Serious Sam) will have appeared and there will be no-one there to send him on his way to the next spoke of the karmic wheel of computer game villains.

-Nick

I will never finish a race in any driving game unless I get first. Even a silver means an automatic restart.

For some reason, I'll always make up stories in my head based on what I'm playing.

It is physically impossible for me to play ANYTHING with lag. Even the tiniest bit of it screws me up.

Whenever I accomplish something in a Wii game which only uses the remote, I'll hold the remote upside-down, and spin the wrist strap like a mace. Always.

whenever i see someone i say "Hello!" then shoot them. i also have a habit of using some beginner weapons just so i can rub it someones face that i destroyed them with low level guns. like CoD 4 i like to use the M9 and M21 or M40A3 eventhough i am lvl 49. i also talk to myself alot....

I am now physically incapable of doing "vanilla" taunts in TF2. I am forever obliged to spin the minigun, play the flamethrower, spin the wrench, wave with the machete, play the medigun, ride the bat, drink from the grenade launcher, fence with the sapper and beat myself over the head with the rocket launcher.

mind you, it puts the fear of God into some people when playing on Dustbowl if they see a Heavy stroll up, spin his minigun on one finger and exclaim "You! Yes, YOU! You are DEAD!"

what else...?

here's one: I can never, EVER bring myself to do something in a game that offends my moral code. For this reason, I will never the the Dark Brotherhood missions in Oblivion, gain many Renegade points in Mass Effect, use Dark Side powers in a Star Wars game. If we're using the DnD system of morality, then I am never anything other than Lawful Good, 100% of the time.

I'm told that I'm missing out on a lot of good stuff, but I don't care.

This has been a very entertaining thread to read.

I guess my only strange gaming habit (I sort of have the reload one for fps's, not evens or anything like that, but I always reload between fights. Although isn't that just common sense i.e. being prepared?) is that I can only play on days I have off. I can't play after work or on a night before I have work the next day.

AngryMan:

here's one: I can never, EVER bring myself to do something in a game that offends my moral code. For this reason, I will never the the Dark Brotherhood missions in Oblivion, gain many Renegade points in Mass Effect, use Dark Side powers in a Star Wars game. If we're using the DnD system of morality, then I am never anything other than Lawful Good, 100% of the time.

I'm told that I'm missing out on a lot of good stuff, but I don't care.

I am similar.. I tend to have my character act in the way I would if I were in that situation... My actions are Pure Darkside in KOTOR II, but my conversations earn me light side points simply because I don't speak like an asshole...

Morrowind's a good example. One of the "recommended" ways of making money in that game (which is otherwise fairly limited) is to find people who live alone, sneak into their house, kill them (they live alone, so there's no chance of being caught, unlike with Oblivion's psychic guardsmen) and then sell everything in their house.

There's no way I could do that. Seriously.even if I had a single gold piece to my name and needed to make a 1,000-Septim bribe in order to proceed with the plot, I'd still spend time and effort looking into legitimate ways of making the money instead.

I always play with Daisy in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. It's the red hair. When playing with another character, I kind-of go 'I don't really care if Sonic wins'.

I ALWAYS give characters their proper names
i remember spending 10 minutes deliberating what to call the character on pokemon gold because he wasn't ash

in MMO's my characters have to look good, i Don't care if it gimps me, Looking uber > being uber, it's also compulsory they have fitting names, and a back story.

If it's an option in a game, I'll go with the old fashioned/rustic approach, like old weapons (bolt action snipers, revolvers) or races (minmitar in eve e.t.c). I'm not sure why, i just have to

Also nearly always a support (or lacking that, defensive) class, even in oblivion.