For anyone who knows me, I'm a pretty competitive person. I'm especially competitive when it comes to games that I've been playing for a while. If you give me enough time with something and I enjoy it enough, I usually learn to play the game at a fairly high level. I was randomly thinking about some of my achievements and decided I'd share it on the blog.
Let's take my oldest example first, Westwood's online tournament for the '96 RTS hit: C&C Red Alert. This tournament was ladder based and head-to-head only; no teams. If your opponent had a higher rank, you had more points to win (I think it was up to 40) and less to lose. Playing someone with a much lower rank didn't yield many points and put at risk a lot if you lost. I started in '98 of August and at first, just thought of the tourney as a fun way to kill time after high school. But eventually my competitive nature kicked in and other players noticed my potential and started mentoring me. As you can see via my monthly log below, I gradually got better, posted a 57-9 record in January of '99, and ultimately that was the month I won it all. The 1st place prize was a whopping 4GB hard drive that I ended up selling for $90. LOL. I wasn't in it for the prizes tho'. I really just wanted to have the pride of claiming myself as a champion in a world-wide gaming tournament. Shortly after winning it all, I retired and moved on.
My Win Percentage for Red Alert: 85.2%
At work I'll occasionally have some down time and if I'm not watching baseball or playing on Asobrain with my office mate, I like to load up some Freecell. I enjoy Freecell the most out of the Windows games 'cause I feel it requires the most strategy. Every game has a solution, so I know I won't inevitably get screwed by a bad game, which can happen in Solitaire.My Win Percentage for Freecell: 91.5%
Another old game that I'll still play is another RTS hit from '98: StarCraft. I handle this a little differently than Red Alert however. When I play online, I only play if I have someone else to team up with. That's usually Johnathan and occasionally Matt. We usually play 3v3 games against random opponents and I've played sooo many games that I basically have my entire build order memorized from start to finish. Experience is invaluable in this game (I've literally seen everything) and it allows me to laxly play this game but at a very high level.My Win Percentage for StarCraft: 96.4%
Enough about PC games, what about 'em consoles? I don't have any records of my superior Goldeneye skills back in the day, but I'm sure my high school friends could tell you plenty of stories. A newer game that I had really gotten into is MarioKart for the Wii. I've always been a stud at MarioKart and the Wii really opened a new level of gaming for me. I don't really have any friends who play enough and can keep up with me, but there are definitely some good players out there online. I'm not sure what constitutes as a "Win" in this game. I figure you get a win if you get 3rd or better when there are 8 players, or 4th or better with 10-12; something like that.My Win Percentage in MarioKart: 75.9%
Games are one thing though. It could just be that I was blessed with mad reaction and hand-eye coordination skills like most Asians. ;) Another "game" I'm really passionate about is Fantasy Sports. I referenced to my Fantasy Profiles in a previous blog entry, but figured I'd revisit it here and discuss more winning percentages. I have two profiles that I use. My private ID (ATrain64) is for competitive money leagues with friends whereas my public ID (AsDgSaGsR) is mostly for fun. I really take my fantasy sports seriously; not denying how dorky that sounds. I mostly just do the major American sports: baseball, basketball, and football. I check on fantasy and sports statistics everyday and it's really a big part of my life. The amount of time I put into it pays off in terms of winning. Over the two profiles I've accumulated 109 trophies out of 209 leagues so far (a trophy is awarded for a 3rd place finish or greater). Considering I really don't have any control over the performance of real-life athletes and am doing nothing but picking which one is on my fantasy team, I think the fact that I place 3rd or better in more than half the leagues I'm in is pretty damn good.My Win Percentage for Fantasy Sports: 52.2%
So when it comes to games, I really like to win. That's not saying I can't play a game, lose, and not be sore about it. There are many games out there that I just downright suck at and I know I'm gonna lose, so it doesn't bother me. Also, with ridiculous win percentages comes great responsibility. Rubbing victories in someone's face is definitely not cool; no one likes an arrogant asshole. :D And there are definitely times I wish I weren't so competitive. Sometimes when I feel I should've won, I really get down on myself. But in the grand scheme of everything, it's just a game anyway! Right?
