Expanding your horizons?

Recently, my best friend picked up the Dead Space series and fell in love with it. So much that he got through the first 2 in less than 2 weeks and just bought the 3rd yesterday, which he's already decently far into. Before this, he'd mostly play car games, Soul Calibur, and occasionally Bayonetta or Lollipop Chainsaw, which I convinced him to buy with the intention of variety . I'm pretty proud of him that he's actually playing a decent game with an actual plot and storyline and is generally paying attention to it. This makes my stays at his house a lot more fun when it comes to video games, since I don't need to watch cars driving in circles much anymore.

Anyway, my story leads me to ask: have you had a similar experience? Have you fallen in love with a game out of your usual genre? Or anything like that?

As for me, I don't have many glittering examples. The closest I can think of was playing Tony Hawk and generally enjoying it despite it being sort of a sports game but not as lame.

 

I discovered recentl how much I enjoy Persona 4 Arena. I don't particularly like fighting games at ALL, but this one surprised me somehow.

 

Me and my brother grew up not being allowed to have any gaming systems. The reason for this was because this would be yet another device taking up time in addition to the computer. This also went for mobile gaming systems, such as the GameBoy Color that was popular back then. So me and my brother grew up pretty much only playing games that were available for PC. By no means were we forbidden to play them period, our parents just never wanted us having any in the house nor wanted to spend money on that kind of thing. So it was kind of a treat for us whenever we'd get to play any console games at a friends house or somewhere else.

Every year, me and my mom's side of the family gather together and stay at a beach house for no less than a week. Some time before the time we gathered in Summer 2002, our oldest cousin acquired a GameCube. For a while, spending (semi) early mornings and late afternoons playing Super Smash Brothers throughout one week during the Summer became me and my brother's childhood highlight of getting to play console games. But then in 2005 something happened. He did bring his GameCube, but he also brought an Xbox. Much to my dismay (and to my brother's some as well, but he didn't make it quite as obvious), we didn't play very much Super Smash Brothers. Instead, most evenings were spent playing split-screen Halo 2. This was the very first FPS I ever played. I did have fun playing this, but not nearly as much as I did playing Super Smash Brothers, even though I sucked at the latter until I was twelve. Things got even worse when the next year, my cousin didn't even bring his GameCube, and only brought his Xbox. So evenings were really only spent playing boring Halo from then. This caused me and my brother to become prejudiced toward Halo and the whole FPS genre due to replacing Super Smash Brothers.

Really, the only reason we didn't enjoy playing Halo that much was because we weren't very used to playing with controllers. That all changed though, once we started playing it on our own platform. In 2007, one of my brother's friends gave Halo (the PC version) to my brother for his birthday, and we both immediately fell in love with it. And of course this made us get a hold of Halo 2 as soon a possible. This then opened me and my brother's eyes to how fun FPS can be. We later got Crysis, Mirror's Edge, Modern Warfare 2, and then Portal. And after my brother left the house, he got TF2.

And that's how I've expanded my horizon of games that I like.

 

I've always been a console gamer. I still am, and I still enjoy being one of course, but my friend is trying to get me into PC gaming. He plays TF2 almost 24/7 and since I've recently obtained a nice Laptop, I have no excuse not to play it now. I'm still not really into PC gaming, as playing with an actual controller (no gamepad thank you!) feels much better, even if the actual console is much more limited in many aspects.

 

Actually thinking about it, Grand Turismo 3 fits this topic for me. Though it might have been because I played it with my cousin.
Unlocking the cars, doing ridiculous 2 hour races, etc etc... It left a surprisingly fond memory. For a genre I don't often play.

 

If not for my first shmup tourney in '09, I probably would have never sat down with them long enough to get interested, and now they're my most played genre. I also really don't like fighting games but Joy Mech Fight owns.

 

A while back I used to play only platformers without any type of storyline at all.
I can't remember what changed my view of games but now I'm entranced by the story of many games that I play. I love playing games with exciting story or lasting impacts on the player. Sad stories and tragedies particularly tickle my fancy.

Sorry if I rambled a bit there. Basically my version of "expanding my horizons" consists of me discovering new aspects of games besides gameplay.

 

I like n!, the freeware ninja game. I rarely play a game without violence (should I worry about it? lol)

 

Rpg, i hate those genre's until i played red alert (2). my big brother forced me to play 2 player campaign,i played then i love it.

 

Red Alert 2 is not an RPG.

 

I thought this thread was about expanding your horizons in real-life activities...

But since it's about gaming, I guess the super robot wars series on GBA are quite interesting. Never in my life did I think I'd enjoy those games.

 

It's a shame that playing a game is not a real-life experience.

 

Well, I thought I hated fighters up until a Smash tournament at my dorm last year, a few rounds in something just clicked and I suddenly felt like I was in complete control. From then on I'm always up to play SSB.
I also never thought I'd ever enjoy any kind of PC RTS-ish games, but during a power outage last year I ended up playing LoL for a week with people because I had nothing else to do, and that really stuck. Now DotA clones are pretty much all I play anymore which is awful but yeah, it's something different.
A friend will soon also be making me play Kingdom Hearts, and hopeful that'll break my distaste for hack & slashes.

I guess going to a nerd school has done good things for me.

 

Expanding my horizons? Of course, my friend had 8 "shoot them up" games and each one of them was a terrible experience of boring-ness.

 

A friend will soon also be making me play Kingdom Hearts, and hopeful that'll break my distaste for hack & slashes.

Kingdom Hearts is cool. Although sometimes insane.

Anyway, my story leads me to ask: have you had a similar experience? Have you fallen in love with a game out of your usual genre? Or anything like that?

Well... Dunno if this counts, but I >think< it does.I hated racing games, although TrackMania Nations Forever is one racing game that I like a lot. Mainly because of all the insane racing tracks I can build (like one with 50+ loops or a 50+ lap race)... and because I like crashing into flags (because for some reason, the flags are steel or something, if I remember correctly).I also hated RTS games, until I played the demo version of Warlords Battlecry 2.And then I also hated platformer games. Until I played Cave Story....And initially, I liked Mobile Forces (a first-person shooter) but now I hate all games of that genre. So I guess that's the opposite then...And usually I played RPGs like Grandia II (which was also the only one I had prior to my 12^th birthday) - that's where my current avatar is from.

 

I didn't use to play FPS games until I played Far Cry, Serious Sam (The Second Encounter and SS II) and Painkiller. Seriously, these games are great.

Also, the Heroes of Might and Magic series. These are the best of RPGs (aren't they RPGs? I don't know).

 

I grew up with sonic the hedgehog, it wasn't until I got my first ps1 before looking outside of the traditional "nintendo games" like
mario, zelda, pokemon, kirby, and metroid.
since then I got all the playstations, and enjoyed CoD despite everyone's distaste.

 

It's a shame that playing a game is not a real-life experience.

Come on GIR, you know what I meant...

 

Yume Nikki really got me to like more exploration games, games that might not even have a serious goal, where the experience is not entirely focused on the gameplay.

Being gifted Guitar Hero for my birthday got me into rhythm games which I had previously dismissed. I have since logged a sad amount of hours on Stepmania, and am actually helping my friend build dance pads to play Dance Dance Revolution at his house.
Fun stuff.

Other than that, all video games are cool man I'll try 'em out if people say they're good. I hate listening to people go off about how they hate such and such a genre of games entirely, just thinking about how many awesome games they're missing out on makes me want to try every game ever.

 

Before getting NBA Jam on fire i didnt play any kind of sports games. But one day i found it free on psn (thank you ps plus) and played it. The rest is history.

Zenonia 3 gave me an important lesson, that mobile gaming can be fun whether you play angry birds or final fantasy. Before getting an ipod touch and playing zenonia 3 i thought all mobile games were like angry birds, short and (in my opinion) boring. At the time i decided to check out some games suggested by game informer. Eventually i got to Zenonia 3, and it occupied me for a good 2 to 3 weeks.