Stupid shit you do to amuse yourself while playing games

[Afterburner]

Frequently, when I'm playing a Civ-type game -- particularly Civ2 or SMAC/X -- I will set my nation/faction name to "The Cajuns" and proclaim myself "King Boudreaux." And then I will name all of my cities/bases after cities and towns in Louisiana.

Alternately, I will sometimes name all of my cities/bases after people, places, and things from the Cthulhu mythos, e.g. Arkham, Whately Base, Cthulhu Junction, etc.

[Donesh]

When playing MoO2 I used to enjoy naming ships after different famous Sci-fi ship names. I had a lot of ship classes named Lenin and Mac Arthur because of the Mote in Gods Eye.

I think I also enjoyed naming everything star system after Earth. So there would be Earth, New Earth, Urth, New Urth, Sol, New Sol, etc.

[Stantz]

When playing Time Crisis 3 (which is really way too easy until the second level), I try and Vash my way through. Charge in and waste everyone in my way using only non-lethal pistol shots. Nick the guy with the rifle on the shoulder, shoot the gun out of the hand of the guy behind the crate, take out the guy with the flamethrower with four shots to the four limbs, that sort of thing. I make an exception for the guys in white. If the powers that be wanted them to live, they wouldn't have stuffed them full of candy.

I also have the bad habit of singing along to background music.

[Dorchadas]

I always name my Civ rulers after gods. That way, it makes sense that "Zeus Pankrator" ruled for 6000 years unchallenged :-p

I tend to end games like Resident Evil 4 by committing suicide. Or (in that case) by killing Ashley. In Icewind Dale, when I was playing it with my roommate back in college, every session would end with a battle royale between our characters.

[Afterburner]

When playing MoO2 I used to enjoy naming ships after different famous Sci-fi ship names.

This reminds me of another thing I do.

Whenever I'm playing a game that allows the naming of individual space ships, I always name my ships some long, unweildy adjectival name. e.g.:

The Parsimonious
The Indefatigable
The Perspicacious
The Insurmountable

...and so on.

[Stantz]

The Ocarina of Time is the awesome before you learn any songs for it. I used to just plop down in the woods somewhere and rock out for a while.

[David J Prokopetz]

Whenever a CRPG allows you to name the main character, and the main character is male, I name him after myself. If there are enough letters, I enter my full name - which has about eight syllables - just to to watch the NPCs rattle off a list of names as if I'm some kind of royalty every time someone refers to the protagonist.

(For extra kicks, if the game really lets you go overboard on the letter-count, I throw a title in there, too - typically "Lord".)

[domino]

When I was playing MoO2, I made a ruler named Ugh and proceeded to name every star system and ship class after him, without distinctive designation.

My fleet of Ughs washed across the galaxy, using planet-busting technology on anyone who dared get in my way.

[domino]

Ooh, and the old Rare Goldeneye: Shoot everybody's hats off before you kill them.

[The SkaerKrow]

In Mercenaries I used to get bored and Airstrike myself to death.

[lelak]

There's the old "wall up your Sims in a 1x1 square and watch them melt down" trick. Even more fun if you supercaffeinate them first...

[AWOL Joe]

Ooh, and the old Rare Goldeneye: Shoot everybody's hats off before you kill them.

I did that too! I'd Alamo up and get a nice Russian hat and gun collection. I do all sorts of stupid shit in FPSes...

-AWOL Joe

[old hat]

In the GTA games I played that's practically all I ever did. Run around town picking fights, stealing random cars only to crash them and steal another one and other generally pointless activities. I hardly played the game (as in going on missions) at all. I never got close to finishing either one.

[Stantz]

In multiplayer, smack talk is always more fun in character.

"Your Snake Style cannot hope to match the power of my Duck Style kung fu!"
"Who justa kicka you ass. Who justa kicka you ass. It'sa MEEEE! Mario!"
"Winemaker stirs the barrel! Raise a toast! Winemaker stomps the grapes! Drunken stagger! Beiruit throw! Freshman throws up on self!"
"You lika thata beetch? That'sa whatta I say to you mama lasta night."
"Oh, looks like I face a master of the secret ninja art of get-taken-down-like-a-chump."
"Yousa hear that? I fooka you mama!"

[Trilobite]

Back in the days of Wing Commander, I used to make it my goal to not just be the best pilot on the carrier, but to be the only pilot who ever killed anything. I'd start off missions by blasting the hell out of my wingman and then ordering them to return to base, just so all the kills would be mine. ALL MINE! MUHAHAHA!

This ridiculously obsessive self-aggrandizing streak popped up in most of the space combat sims, in fact: in X-Wing, I was the guy who insisted on destroying every enemy vessel in every mission, even if that meant taking an additional thirty minutes to make solo strafing runs on the shield generators of two Star Destroyers so I could blow 'em up with lasers.

And Thief 3, for me, was all about leaving bodies in compromising positions. I'd knock out guards and try to toss them onto the couch so it'd look like they were napping, or knock out the high priest of the Hammerite cathedral and leave him sprawled on the altar surrounded by wine bottles, or make massive serving girl orgy arrangements in the dining room. (It's not as good as the guy who did the Ramirez mission in Thief 1 by knocking out everyone except Ramirez, and then piling all the bodies and every single movable item in Ramirez's mansion on his front lawn. That's pretty fucking classy, right there.)

Apart from that, it's pretty much run-of-the-mill type stuff. Setting up Sim murder houses, doing only really insulting throw moves in fighting games, trying to write my name in bullet holes on the walls in first-person shooters...you know, the kind of stuff everyone does.

In Civ and Alpha Centauri, conquered cities always got renamed to reflect how much I hated their previous rulers and despised the town I had stolen from them. My own cities would have names that would start off fun and lighthearted but begin to slip towards nasty and juvenile sometime after "Funky Town" showed up, which was usually around the middle of the "make lots of settlers" phase.


In fact, naming characters is basically a thread unto itself: if it's a CRPG where you get to rename characters, they all get insulting names. Moron, Loser, Bungster, Dorky, Bitchy, Asshole, and so on. It makes the inevitable flurry of introduction and greeting scenes that follow very amusing in a very compelling playground kind of way. ("Wake up, Moron!" "So, this must be the wonderful Asshole you were telling me about!" "I'm Bitchy!")

My favorite example of this isn't mine, though: I was watching a friend of mine play FF3 (or FF6 if you're feeling pretentious) on the Super Nintendo, and he named the feral boy "Psycho." This led to us breaking up with laughter every time he joined the party, when he would say "I'm Psycho! I'm your friend! Let's travel together!"

In more conventional PC-style CRPGs where you simply create and name your character from the very beginning, I have a stock collection of names I fall back on that can be roughly grouped into two varieties. First, you have the insulting set of names, like "El Bastardo" or "Wanky Loser." And then there's the second set, which includes my favorite name for female PCs, "Angela Deth." (Frequently accompanied by her friends "Hell Razor" and "Snake Vargas," of course.)

--
and anyone who doesn't recognize where those names come from is a sad, sad person
ryan

[J Arcane]

Back in the days of Wing Commander, I used to make it my goal to not just be the best pilot on the carrier, but to be the only pilot who ever killed anything. I'd start off missions by blasting the hell out of my wingman and then ordering them to return to base, just so all the kills would be mine. ALL MINE! MUHAHAHA!
Heh. I was pretty obsessive about being the best of the best.

But I never had to send them home. I was just that good. Plus, they made for good bait, to keep the kitties distracted while I killed them one by one.

Usually I'd have Iceman beaty by a factor of three after about 3-4 systems . . .

[Phantom Grunweasel]

See just how small an area I could squeeze all the lemmings into before nuking them, so the blast would go straight downwards.

Name the roller-coaster that crashed and killed seven in my theme-park 'The Grim Carnival of Death', paint it in black and red and charge extra for rides.

Conscientiously and painstakingly kill every living thing in the post-nuclear wasteland of California (okay, I got bored with that before I even hit the NCR).

[Robovski]

OK firstly, in my wife's Civ games, I wait until she has to go off to the toilet and I start renaming her cities and units things like 'Losertown' and 'Unpaid Welfare Mob' and sit back to see how long it is until she notices.

In my games, I'm partial to naming civilizations "Eloi" or "Morlock". Also fun is causing the heat death of the world through global warming or nuking the creeps just 'cause I felt like it, and then NOT occupying the territory. Then maybe send another few nukes later - maybe take a city or two, maybe not.

Populous was really fun for just dicking with the computer player. Zotting enemy castles for no reason, dropping volcanoes all over...

[Max]

In FPS games, I frequently shoot smiley faces onto walls and stuff.

[Mr Adventurer]

In Baldur's Gate 2, I went through a brief phase of naming my character "you bastard" with no caps. Some of the dialogue with NPCs was pretty funny. The main problem was if they started a sentence with your name.

Another favourite name of course is " My Leige".

[Mapache]

I once set out to win a game of Civ3 through world conquest, so I took the Chinese, renamed them the Texans, and named all my cities after ones in Texas. My wife usually comes up with silly themes for her games, like the time she was the Barrayarans and named everything after things from Vorkosigan novels.

When playing Escape Velocity and its sequels, I always give my characters goofy names like Angus McGregor, Dingus "Carjack" Maguffin, Anna Conda, and Jean d'Arc-Lightning, then name my ships increasingly better names with stupid themes, like upgrading from the Sack of Potatoes to the Shillelagh to the Dirty Limerick. The Porkchop was still my most upgraded ship ever.

[snafubar]

I think the best thing on my list was playing Street Fighter 2 on the Sega with the TV turned off and headphones in the Genesis.

An old, old classic was in Archon. I'd try to get the opposing color's power point, killing his last unit, without benefit of magic in any way shape, or form, when the color was at the extreme end against me.

[ReallyBored]

I played through Quake 2 with nothing but the blaster on hardcore and about halfway though with nothing but the blaster on nightmare before I got bored with that. I think I got through 3 levels of Quake 3 on hardcore with nothing but the gauntlet.

[Weltenreiter]

Alot of nerdy mental RP even when the game in question isn't particularly conductive to RP (the Civs for example), moreso when it is (ala SMAC or any actual RPG).

[Elizabeth Brooks]

In the GTA games I played that's practically all I ever did. Run around town picking fights, stealing random cars only to crash them and steal another one and other generally pointless activities. I hardly played the game (as in going on missions) at all. I never got close to finishing either one.

I do that when I'm bored and playing Vice City.

Except I get the tank out of the garage.

[Ataxerxes]

Whenever I play some 4x space strategy like MOO2 or Space Empires 4 I tend no name my ships/ship classes with something that begins with In-, like:

Inperceivable
Inconsistent
Indefinable
Inconsiderate
Incorporeal
Incandescent

[Menteroso]

...Sim murder houses...


I would hear more of these.

[Alka-Seltzer]

Sim Murder Houses

I did that, in the first one. I started out with the Goth's house, which is filled with ghosts at night and has a large cemetary in the backyard. I had three main ways of killing sims. The first, and most obvious, is to wall people in to things without doors, watching as they yell and wave at you and piss themselves and cry and weep and pass out in their own urine. It takes a while but their fun to have around. I liked the people beneath the stairs thing but I also like to wall people up in hedges, tombstones, toilets or other things that wouldn't really keep you in real life. I guess I liked the idea of the other sims being to able to see and hear them but not being able to help.

The second way was by fire. This was nice because you could kill lots of people at once, and because the sims totally flip out over fires, yelling and running around, and actually coming in to the room to stare and point at it like idiots. I'd fill the walls of rooms with fireplaces, then order sims to go around the house lighting all of them, or just wait for them to do it on their own. Or, if I wanted to do it quick, I'd just light off some fireworks indoors.

The third, and most effective, method was the Pool of Death. Simply put it's a pool with a diving board but no ladder. Without a ladder the Sims can't get out of the pool so they just swim back and forth till their energy reaches zero and they pass out and drown. With a large enough pool you can get lots of people in there at once. Put the pool in the front yard to attract more people as they pass by on the sidewalk. The only problem is that eventually the tombstones build up so that no one can get to the diving boards anymore.

[Robovski]

Sim Murder Houses

*great stuff snipped*


OK, that's almost enough to change my mind and actually play The Sims.

[The SkaerKrow]

In Earthbound I named everyone after beans. Pinto, Lima, Green and Kidney.

[aiwendel]

I've developed a history of how I managed to acquire so many damn cars in GT4 and what it "really" means to enter the same race over and over again for cash. (I give myself the excuse that it's for TV appearances regaling the crowd with stories of my victories).

And I name my B-spec drivers. They're all girls.

[Jason Hinds]

Sim City 2000:

Build lots of signs that say "OBEY," "SUBMIT," "YOUR MAYOR HATES YOU" and the like.

Shoot down the traffic helicopter and let the fire rage out of control.

Send the military to block off traffic jams.

Cut roads, power and water to neighborhoods that displease me. Displeasing me could manifest in not raising the property tax rate fast enough, asking for too much money, or in some cases, not creating buildings that I find visually appealing.

As long as the virtual people suffer mightily, I am pleased.

[Epoch]

This reminds me of another thing I do.

Whenever I'm playing a game that allows the naming of individual space ships, I always name my ships some long, unweildy adjectival name. e.g.:

The Indefagitable

I hope I don't get in trouble for this joke:

What is that, the ship that is really, really, really self-consciously heterosexual?

(I think you mean, "The Indefa<b>tig</b>able")

[Bobaloo]

I had a Civ 1-2-3 naming convention where I named the city based on the nearby terrain: Two Peaks, North Hill, Southwood, etc (boring, I know). I would also rename the default capital by inseting my name: Bobamanca, Bobdon, Bobbes, Bobington, Zimbobwe etc. However in my current game, I've named all my cities after Rush songs and Albums, and renamed the one legendary unit I got so far Geddy.

In the Icewind Dale games, I would always create a dwarf with Khar- as a first syllable. (And I've replayed this like a dozen times, not always finishing.)

The goofy thing I've been doing in Mercenaries, is trying to replace the "Favorite Vehicle" on the stats page, but the Allied M1025 is still like 10KM more.

[Cassander]

In Morrowind I steal everything that isn't nailed down. Not valuable things, mind, just anything lying about the houses I visit. I like the idea of eggminers coming home after a hard day's work and puzzling over the sudden lack of cutlery in their home.

[CADmonkey]

Got a good laugh out of the other players in a Full Thrust (miniatures) game when I named all of my ships after Canadian Cities:

Ottawa
Montreal
Toronto
Vancouver
Quebec
Halifax
Etc...

And I made sure to include my parents home towns, so there was a destroyer named Oshawa (Dad) and a corvette by the name of Eganville (Mum). :D

[Trilobite]

The first, and most obvious, is to wall people in to things without doors, watching as they yell and wave at you and piss themselves and cry and weep and pass out in their own urine. It takes a while but their fun to have around. I was using a variant of this devised by a cost-conscious player on another forum: he called it the "Pen of Pain."

See, that garden fence is cheaper than an actual wall, so you can save a lot of money by using it to starve Sims to death on your front lawn...


I also used to set up families so that there would be one Gimp character. This would be the guy who cooked all the meals, cleaned up everyone else's messes, was forced to sleep in the cheapest bed in a tacky little shed outside the main house, and got slapped around by the rest of the family. While the other members of the household lived a life of sybaritic luxury, their gimp spent all his free time going on extended crying jags and wondering why no one loved him.

--
i often think the whole point of the sims was just to be a sandbox for evil

[ForceflowX]

The second way was by fire. This was nice because you could kill lots of people at once, and because the sims totally flip out over fires, yelling and running around, and actually coming in to the room to stare and point at it like idiots. I'd fill the walls of rooms with fireplaces, then order sims to go around the house lighting all of them, or just wait for them to do it on their own. Or, if I wanted to do it quick, I'd just light off some fireworks indoors.

Heh, I loaned all my Sim CDs to my roommate, and he installed them all and made a family and a nice house and everything, then starts. First things the son in the family does is light a firework indoors. It starts a fire, the mom runs in to fight it, and the fire kills her. My roommate was in shock. 'I didn't know that could happen!' Me and our friend were laughing our asses off.

[Noon]

In Mercenaries I used to get bored and Airstrike myself to death.
In mercenaries, I like to drop a carpet bomb just a few meters ahead of me. And then when the rolling carpet of destruction comes, I run ahead, just behind all the death and destruction the wall of explosions reaps. It feels tremendous.

Ohh, and I almost forgot, I picke up SK special forces chicks while cruising in my car, and we cruise around town. This is even more awesome when you get access to a sports car, and when you both step out and she's gunning down the enemy beside you with her SMG while showing off her kevlar clad curves.

Why aren't more women like that? ;)

[Ghola]

(It's not as good as the guy who did the Ramirez mission in Thief 1 by knocking out everyone except Ramirez, and then piling all the bodies and every single movable item in Ramirez's mansion on his front lawn. That's pretty fucking classy, right there.)

I have a new hero. That is smooth!

[Ghola]

A buddy of mine named his Halo account "a vehicle." It was amusing during the multiplayer. "You have been killed by a vehicle." This was funny at three a.m. when he sniped somebody on a board where there were no vehicles in sight.

I guess you had to be there.

[wingedcoyote]

See just how small an area I could squeeze all the lemmings into before nuking them, so the blast would go straight downwards.


I used to do that all the time!

[Valandil]

A buddy of mine named his Halo account "a vehicle." It was amusing during the multiplayer. "You have been killed by a vehicle." This was funny at three a.m. when he sniped somebody on a board where there were no vehicles in sight.

I guess you had to be there.

I had a friend who played a thief in Ultima Online way way back.
When you pickpocketed someone, there was a chance the victim will get message that says "You have been pickpocketed by [Name]!"

So he named himself "someone" (lowercase).
Then when he pickpocketed somebody it would say "You have been pickpocketed by someone!"
And the n00bs wouldn't think it was actually a name.

[Valandil]

When we played deathmatch in Duke Nukem 3d, we replaced all Duke's smacktalk sound files with appropriate samples of Yosemite Sam.

Good times.

[Bloodcat]

Love the Wasteland reference someone made.

In Moo 2 I generally name my ships after anime cap ships. So there is usually the Yagami, Macross, and Yamato class ships. (Why bother building small ships? Medium size or better yo.)

Of course I have an advanced upgrade and maintenance plan so it ends up with ships being renamed Yagami 4a, Macross IIIag, and so on.

Usually landing at my named planets of Arrakis, Optera, Kilrah, Praxis, and so on.

For RPGs I tend to name my characters from the giant generations long scifi/fantasy saga that mostly runs in my head. In some cases, this has helped me finalize some character names for it.

[Valandil]

Whenever I played Ultima Underworld 1, I always went and cleaned up my personal apartment.

It's at the bottom right of Level 3.
http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~palenstn/uw1/level3.html

Has plenty of storage, a shrine, and running water.
What more could an Avatar ask for?

[Stantz]

Whenever I played Ultima Underworld 1, I always went and cleaned up my personal apartment.

It's at the bottom right of Level 3.
http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~palenstn/uw1/level3.html

Has plenty of storage, a shrine, and running water.
What more could an Avatar ask for?
I did the same thing in Morrowind. Whenever I cleaned out a nice dungeon, I'd always drag some new furniture in there, add in some decorations, edit in a few guard animals, the works. People wonder why I never got anywhere in that game, and why I love it so much regardless.

[some guy]

During civ2 when I was playing the egyptians, I always added a three letter word in front of the cities that came from certain empires. Kinda like how LotR has Minus Tirith and Minus Ugol (or whatever it is). I think I had Kal Kesari, Kal Ulteth etc.

[Matt David T.]

I did the same thing in Morrowind. Whenever I cleaned out a nice dungeon, I'd always drag some new furniture in there, add in some decorations, edit in a few guard animals, the works. People wonder why I never got anywhere in that game, and why I love it so much regardless.

Yeah, I did a lot of Morrowind decorating.

Once, in the temple in Balmora, I killed all the NPCs, and built "Pillowhenge" which was a replica of Stonehenge made by stacking pillows, generally levitating to reach to the top. I covered said pillows in candles of different colors, to lead to an interesting rainbow-like lighting effect.

I also painstakingly placed glass shards on the floor of a house so it was entirely green and shiny.

And there was the room of floating skulls. I stacked a bunch of objects, and then placed a bunch of skulls on top of them, then re-picked up the objects. The skulls stayed where I'd placed them, so I had an entire room just full of floating skulls.

I also made it my point to kill all of the named individuals on the continent of Morrowind. I've gotten pretty much the Northwestern half of it clear of named guys. Now it just spawns monsters and guards, which is pretty creepy.


The only other thing I can think of, was when I crammed every vehicle spawned on the Blood Gulch map in Halo into the Blue Base.

That was a big clippy nightmare :).

[Stantz]

Something I forgot about: When there's a bunch of Yu-Gi-Oh kids crowding the weekly Magic game, see how much melodrama you can inject into the match.

"Now, I sacrifice two of my blood pets and tap seven land to summon Kuro, Pitlord! With his ability to lower the power of your creatures, he'll soon be the largest creature on the field."
"Not if I destroy him first. I play Afterlife, destroying everything but the pure parts of your creature's soul. I doubt that a Pitlord's conscience can be a threat."
"Countered!"
"What? You don't have two islands open, how could you have possibly countered my spell?"
"With Circular Logic. This card allows me to counter any of your spells for only one mana, provided I can discard it for another effect, which my Psychatog provides."
"And now you realize that you cannot defeat me! Soon, I shall take your soul and rule this store. Then, just because I can, I will inject this puppy WITH AIDS!"
"Never! I believe in the heart of the cards. Now I shall draw my next card in an overly elaborate fashion and... poop. A land. Good game."

[Bloodcat]

Take a laugh point if you want.

That's just too cool Stantz.

And I have only seen a single episode of that damned show. You have my utmost respect sir.

[old hat]

In Baldur's Gate 2, I went through a brief phase of naming my character "you bastard" with no caps. Some of the dialogue with NPCs was pretty funny. The main problem was if they started a sentence with your name.

Another favourite name of course is " My Leige".

I named my character 'you asshole' in that one.

[Stantz]

Take a laugh point if you want.

That's just too cool Stantz.

And I have only seen a single episode of that damned show. You have my utmost respect sir.
Taken. Even if that was a near-transcript of an actual game, I'm more than willing to take credit.

[Afterburner]

I hope I don't get in trouble for this joke:

What is that, the ship that is really, really, really self-consciously heterosexual?

(I think you mean, "The Indefa<b>tig</b>able")

I'll take "Brain Farts" for 300, Alex.

[AdrianChapman]

When playing EQ2 or WoW I tend to talk to the screen. I sometimes demand that whatever I'm fighting "Submit to my awesomeness!" or other really idiotic phrases. (today I demanded that a moat rat outside of Qeynos bow down before me lest my Cat-Headed God strike him down like a heretic....) God help me if I get teamspeak.

I often have BADWRONGFUN with SimCity. I name the place Golgotha, name all the various city sites after places where other bad crap happened in the bible and when it gets large enough... I unleash the disasters while cackling madly.

I play Jack the Ripper with the GTA games...


AC (yeah, I do stupid crap with games)

[Odie]

A buddy of mine named his Halo account "a vehicle." It was amusing during the multiplayer. "You have been killed by a vehicle." This was funny at three a.m. when he sniped somebody on a board where there were no vehicles in sight.

I guess you had to be there.

Shit, man. We used to do that on a regular basis. In fact, it got really fun when we did Classic Halo (not Halo 2) 8-on-8 matches, and everyone would name themselves along themes. One Xbox was the Four Horsemen, one was disease (I was AIDS, my friend Eric was SARS, and so it'd say "You were killed by AIDS" and the like), one was venereal disease ("You were killed by the clap"), one was drugs ("You were killed by heroin")...

One time we did a Matrix theme. The Blue team consisted of Twin1, Twin2, Persephone, Merovingian, AGENTSMITH, agentsmith, Agent Smith, and AgentSmith.

Also, in StarCraft, I used to kill all my units save a couple SCVs and Ghosts, and build a bajillion Missile Silos, then nuke the hell out of the CPUs I'd play against when I was bored.

-B

[Odie]

When playing EQ2 or WoW I tend to talk to the screen. I sometimes demand that whatever I'm fighting "Submit to my awesomeness!" or other really idiotic phrases. (today I demanded that a moat rat outside of Qeynos bow down before me lest my Cat-Headed God strike him down like a heretic....) God help me if I get teamspeak.

Uh, I do that aloud. In the game. In /say I will trash-talk whatever monsters I'm fighting. If I'm trying to use Searing Pain to attract the monster off a teammate and onto me, I'll /say "Hey, ugly. Over here." or "Yeah, that's right. Come get some." When monsters become enraged and near death, I'll /say "I don't think so." or "Not quite good enough." or "Is that all you've got?"

I speak to my pet demons, I order them to do things, I scold them for being impatient and lustful for blood...yeah. The stuff you do aloud? I do in-game.

:D

-B

[Trilobite]

I have a new hero. That is smooth!Another Cool Thief trick I read about was the person who practiced until they could play through the first mission (Lord Bafford's estate) successfully...

...with the monitor turned off.

--
that's right, the old 'blind robbing 'em blind' trick

[domino]

Something I forgot about: When there's a bunch of Yu-Gi-Oh kids crowding the weekly Magic game, see how much melodrama you can inject into the match.

*snip!*

My friend and I play Yu-Gi-Oh like this. It's the only way we can play it. =)

[shodan]

Another Cool Thief trick I read about was the person who practiced until they could play through the first mission (Lord Bafford's estate) successfully...

...with the monitor turned off.

--
that's right, the old 'blind robbing 'em blind' trick

I used to think I was a Master Thief.

But *this* guy... Day-um.

[AdrianChapman]

Uh, I do that aloud. In the game. In /say I will trash-talk whatever monsters I'm fighting. If I'm trying to use Searing Pain to attract the monster off a teammate and onto me, I'll /say "Hey, ugly. Over here." or "Yeah, that's right. Come get some." When monsters become enraged and near death, I'll /say "I don't think so." or "Not quite good enough." or "Is that all you've got?"

I speak to my pet demons, I order them to do things, I scold them for being impatient and lustful for blood...yeah. The stuff you do aloud? I do in-game.

:D

-B

I used to do it in-game as well...

But then I realized that at some point, you need to have friends in games like these.

AC (heh)

[pawsplay]

I used to regularly edit the newspaper headlines file for Civ I. My family considered this one classic:

MARX BROTHERS SPLIT, KARL BITTER

[Ghola]

I used to think I was a Master Thief.

But *this* guy... Day-um.

You? I never even beat the damn game. I'm not even playing in the same universe as that guy.

[Vigorous Ape]

Building Planet busters and terraforming (read annihilating) enemy territory, only leaving them one little island in SMAC is always fun.

In MoO2 I usually name the planets after heavy metal bands, like Pantera, Sepultura and Megadeth. Actually works quite well for remembering which is which.

[BlackSheep]

FF3 (or FF6 if you're feeling pretentious)

Oh, so 'pretentious' means 'accurate'. I've always wondered.

On the subject of FF6 and naming characters, I think I reached the height of my geekery when I named my Pokémon after the FF6 guys. That's right - I named characters in a video game after characters from another video game.

Mewtwo: Gestahl
Zapdos: Kefka
Articuno: Celes
Moltres: Terra
Pikachu: Leo
Snorlax: Umaro
Hitmonchan: Cyan
Ditto: Gogo
Chansey: Setzer

Other VG-named Pokémon on that save:

Onix: Solid
Ekans: Liquid (both MGS)
Voltorb: Bob-omb (Mario)
Doduo: Flammie (Secret of Mana)
Dugtrio: Monty (Monty the Mole)
Aerodactyl: Azala (Chrono Trigger)
Growlithe: Rei
Pidgeotto: Nina
Marowak: Garr (all Breath of Fire III)

Most of the rest were SF, fantasy or comics characters.

[Odie]

I used to do it in-game as well...

But then I realized that at some point, you need to have friends in games like these.

AC (heh)

Nah. You just start talkin' to yourself more often, is all. :D

-B

[Trilobite]

Oh, so 'pretentious' means 'accurate'. I've always wondered.Now you know, and knowing is half the battle! http://scarymonsters.net/~ryan/emot/eng101.gif


See, the label on the cartridge says "Final Fantasy III." But if you actually call it Final Fantasy III, someone always jumps out to tell you that it's actually Final Fantasy VI, and that the REAL FF3 was only in Japan and blah blah trivia blah. But if you call it FF6, then suddenly you're the guy who's going to outrageous lengths to provide pointless trivia that has nothing to do with the fact that everyone in the U.S. who played it on the Super Nintendo knew it as FF3, and someone will jump out to tell you that.

So it's a lose-lose situation no matter what you do, as this exchange illustrates in grand style.


I blame Japan.

--
or maybe canada; i always get those two mixed up

[David J Prokopetz]

I call it "6" anyway to avoid confusion, since the North American re-release was called "6", and IIRC, the original "3" came out 'stateside for Playstation at one point.

[Wil]

In Mobile Armored Division: Shogo multiplayer, there was a weapon that you could get...kind of a stuffed toy kitty dressed like Napoleon (I think) that said something when you squeezed it. When I would get bored with a level, I would find the kitty, grab and run around chasing people with it until someone killed me. If you hit people with it I think it stunned them or something...

There were also these bouncy energy ball type grenades. I used to fire them randomly in all directions.

In Team Fortress Classic I used to bowl headlong into the respawn rooms of the enemy team and pop off as many grenades as possible before I was cut down. I had the grenades hot keyed, so that usually meant a half dozen or so in rapid succession.

Good times...good times...

[Wil]

In Morrowind I steal everything that isn't nailed down. Not valuable things, mind, just anything lying about the houses I visit. I like the idea of eggminers coming home after a hard day's work and puzzling over the sudden lack of cutlery in their home.

Doesn't that cause problems later on if they're tagged with ownership? Say you steal something minor from a merchant, if you try to sell a different but identical item to the same merchant he'll identify it as his. That's the way I understood it working...

[BlackSheep]

It's FF6 everywhere in the world except the US. As I understand it, it's FF6 there now as well (as of the Anthology rerelease). It's the sixth game in the series.

I call it FF6, purely on the grounds that FF6 means 'the game with Kefka' while FF3 could mean 'the game with Kefka' or 'the game with the four Onion kids'.

[Shawn]

I first played FF6 in the FF Anthology set for Playstation, along with FF4 and 5. So I tend to use the real numbers.

Because you know, they're right.

[ForceflowX]

In Mobile Armored Division: Shogo multiplayer, there was a weapon that you could get...kind of a stuffed toy kitty dressed like Napoleon (I think) that said something when you squeezed it. When I would get bored with a level, I would find the kitty, grab and run around chasing people with it until someone killed me. If you hit people with it I think it stunned them or something...

The toy was a doll fo the main character from another Monolith game, 'Captain Claw', or soemthing like that. When you squeeze it, it says 'Magic Claw', which is a special attack the character has.

[Wil]

The toy was a doll fo the main character from another Monolith game, 'Captain Claw', or soemthing like that. When you squeeze it, it says 'Magic Claw', which is a special attack the character has.

That's right, it was dressed like a Pirate! I used to love taunting people with that thing...

Reminds me of a bug (I think, maybe it was a hack) in Team Fortress classic that allowed a Spy that was killed while playing dead to move around. You would see this prone body sliding by in a weird stop-motion kind of way with a bunch of others following it, shooting it, typing "What the hell is it?!", etc.

[Kevin J Chase]

Heh. I was pretty obsessive about being the best of the best.

But I never had to send them home. I was just that good. Plus, they made for good bait, to keep the kitties distracted while I killed them one by one.

Usually I'd have Iceman beaty by a factor of three after about 3-4 systems . . .

That was one of my problems with the game &mdash; you were <em>too</em> good to be believed.

So after I beat each game, I'd re-play it aiming for the worst score imaginable. Not actively hurting my own team, just incompetent enough to make Spirit and Knight look like dynamos of starfighter destructive force. Those games actually rewarded you by having a different mission tree for the losing side of each sector's campaign, so there was more fun to be had. Instead of finishing the game with a heroic attack on the enemy's main starbase, it was a last-ditch defence one system from Earth.


As for naming conventions, I always named ship classes something reasonable, with one exception: Whenever I played <cite>Star Wars Rebellion</cite> online, I didn't have the time to rename &ldquo;Lancer 31&rdquo; to &ldquo;Macabee&rdquo; and &ldquo;Lancer 32&rdquo; to &ldquo;Mameluke&rdquo; (I started running out of ancient warrior castes by the thirties). My opponent was waiting for me to get on with it, so I had to stick with the dull default names.

&hellip;Until one game, when I got a spectactularly good random selection of ships as the Empire: three Imperial Star Destroyers. I made sure my opponent got a good look at them before he was booted out of the core sector. After <em>just</em> enough turns that I could conceivably have produced another, I renamed <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 1</i> to <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 4</i> and sent it off to pressure the Rebels in another sector. Meanwhile I busied myself producing more modest escorts for the original three. 80 days later, <i>2</i> became <i>8</i>, and set off with some little friends in search of the Rebellion. Soon after that, a small fleet based around <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 13</i> was spotted reducing Sullust to rubble.

Messages from my opponent indicated that he was having heart palpitations, while the vast number of long-range Y-wings I shot down in the Imperial core indicated he was desperately seaching for this fantabulous shipyard that was cranking out star destroyers. I eventually did build a fourth, which I named <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 1738</i> just to let him in on the joke.


A friend of mine would name all his Imperial Probe Droids things like &ldquo;Hi there!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Say cheese!&rdquo;.


The game <cite>Warlords II</cite> was also good, because the fantasy landscape had freqent signposts with messages like &ldquo;Beware the Dragon&rdquo; and &ldquo;To the Mines of XYZ&rdquo;. These signs could be re-written by any unit in the hex with them. One ended up in the no-man's land between two warring kingdoms played by my friends Sean and Larry. So each turn, one would send a high-speed unit out to the sign to write something like &ldquo;End Seanish Aggression!&rdquo; and scurry back to his castle, and then the other would rush out to scrawl &ldquo;Larry likes goats&rdquo; over the last message. They kept this going for a while.


And of course, <em>any</em> table-top wargame was filled with written messages on index cards, and later in email, in the persona of our nations' historical monarchs or prime ministers. Smack-talk is one thing, but wide-eyed, pie-in-the-sky boasting in the persona of <i>Il Duce</i> is entirely another. :)


PS: There's a girl out there on the multiplayer <cite>Star Wars Battlefront</cite> servers named &ldquo;a girl&rdquo;, so whenever she kills you, you get the message: &ldquo;You were killed by a girl.&rdquo;. Cool.

[Arbane the Terrible]

&hellip;Until one game, when I got a spectactularly good random selection of ships as the Empire: three Imperial Star Destroyers. I made sure my opponent got a good look at them before he was booted out of the core sector. After <em>just</em> enough turns that I could conceivably have produced another, I renamed <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 1</i> to <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 4</i> and sent it off to pressure the Rebels in another sector. Meanwhile I busied myself producing more modest escorts for the original three. 80 days later, <i>2</i> became <i>8</i>, and set off with some little friends in search of the Rebellion. Soon after that, a small fleet based around <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 13</i> was spotted reducing Sullust to rubble.

Messages from my opponent indicated that he was having heart palpitations, while the vast number of long-range Y-wings I shot down in the Imperial core indicated he was desperately seaching for this fantabulous shipyard that was cranking out star destroyers. I eventually did build a fourth, which I named <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 1738</i> just to let him in on the joke.


That is evil and wrong and hilarious. :D

[passengerpigeon]

When I played Deus Ex for the first time, I got the impression for some reason that I was considered a huge prima donna of a secret agent. So I figured okay, if I have a bad reputation, I'd better earn it, so I beat the guy briefing me into unconsciousness with my police baton. For some reason he never got angry, although he might've said "Hey, stop fooling around," before he went down. I tried beating my brother up a couple times, but he seemed to be invulnerable.

Later on in the first level, you run across a soldier near the Army base who gives you a lot of lip and also turns out to be stealing stuff from the Army supply corps and selling it under the table. He said something rude to me, and so again I figured, well, he's a criminal, right? So I beat him into unconsciousness with my police baton as well.

At the end of the level, you return to the base, rendezvous with your brother, and enter the building. Unbeknownst to me, the unconscious body of the soldier I pummeled was close enough to his spawn point that he registered it and realized I had done it -- so when I met him, instead of engaging in preprogrammed dialogue, he just shot me in the chest as I frantically scrambled to zone out before he put me down.

The supply thief never showed up again, although people kept talking about him in a way that suggested he was supposed to. Maybe he was just avoiding me.

--p

[Jinja]

In Shaolin:Total War there was an option that if a diplomat came to negotiage with you an animated diplomat would actually talk to you the player face to face. If I was in a particularly cocky position, when I'd dismiss them I'd always wave my hand in real life, or nod bashfully when they thanked me for my generous disposition.

Also, the other lords were always able to behead your diplomats but you were never able to do it to theirs. So whenever I was particularly pissed off with a faction, when their diplomat visited I'd spend the entire time clicking on the sword on the screen hoping, just for once, that I'd pick it up and slice the dude's head off.

And I named all my X-Com soldiers after Star Wars characters and I played through Max Payne 1 without taking any damage (though with a lot of quicksaves and quickloads).

[Morrius]

When I play Stars! I name my race the Spaceballs, and all of my ships are balls of some sort. Bases are BaseBalls. Transports are BasketBalls. Scouts are EyeBalls. Bombers are BlackBalls. Combat ships are, depending on how far along I am, 8-Balls, SuperBalls, FireBalls, or Big Brass Balls.

[Tomahawk]

When I play Stars! I name my race the Spaceballs, and all of my ships are balls of some sort. Bases are BaseBalls. Transports are BasketBalls. Scouts are EyeBalls. Bombers are BlackBalls. Combat ships are, depending on how far along I am, 8-Balls, SuperBalls, FireBalls, or Big Brass Balls.


Wow! Someone else who plays Stars!

[AWOL Joe]

As for naming conventions, I always named ship classes something reasonable, with one exception: Whenever I played <cite>Star Wars Rebellion</cite> online, I didn't have the time to rename &ldquo;Lancer 31&rdquo; to &ldquo;Macabee&rdquo; and &ldquo;Lancer 32&rdquo; to &ldquo;Mameluke&rdquo; (I started running out of ancient warrior castes by the thirties). My opponent was waiting for me to get on with it, so I had to stick with the dull default names.

&hellip;Until one game, when I got a spectactularly good random selection of ships as the Empire: three Imperial Star Destroyers. I made sure my opponent got a good look at them before he was booted out of the core sector. After <em>just</em> enough turns that I could conceivably have produced another, I renamed <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 1</i> to <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 4</i> and sent it off to pressure the Rebels in another sector. Meanwhile I busied myself producing more modest escorts for the original three. 80 days later, <i>2</i> became <i>8</i>, and set off with some little friends in search of the Rebellion. Soon after that, a small fleet based around <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 13</i> was spotted reducing Sullust to rubble.

Messages from my opponent indicated that he was having heart palpitations, while the vast number of long-range Y-wings I shot down in the Imperial core indicated he was desperately seaching for this fantabulous shipyard that was cranking out star destroyers. I eventually did build a fourth, which I named <i>Imperial Star Destroyer 1738</i> just to let him in on the joke.


A friend of mine would name all his Imperial Probe Droids things like &ldquo;Hi there!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Say cheese!&rdquo;.

PS: There's a girl out there on the multiplayer <cite>Star Wars Battlefront</cite> servers named &ldquo;a girl&rdquo;, so whenever she kills you, you get the message: &ldquo;You were killed by a girl.&rdquo;. Cool.

That Star Destroyer thing is awesome. And I actually think I played a game with "a girl" once.

-AWOL Joe

[AWOL Joe]

In Shaolin:Total War there was an option that if a diplomat came to negotiage with you an animated diplomat would actually talk to you the player face to face. If I was in a particularly cocky position, when I'd dismiss them I'd always wave my hand in real life, or nod bashfully when they thanked me for my generous disposition.

Also, the other lords were always able to behead your diplomats but you were never able to do it to theirs. So whenever I was particularly pissed off with a faction, when their diplomat visited I'd spend the entire time clicking on the sword on the screen hoping, just for once, that I'd pick it up and slice the dude's head off.

And I named all my X-Com soldiers after Star Wars characters and I played through Max Payne 1 without taking any damage (though with a lot of quicksaves and quickloads).

That's awesome, too bad they didn't let you chop his head off. And I once heard about a guy who named his X-Com troopers after actors in ID4. :rolleyes:

-AWOL Joe

[Skinner's Pigeon]

Sim City 2000:

Cut roads, power and water to neighborhoods that displease me. Displeasing me could manifest in not raising the property tax rate fast enough, asking for too much money, or in some cases, not creating buildings that I find visually appealing.

As long as the virtual people suffer mightily, I am pleased.Wow... you made me regurgitate an ancient memory...

It was some version of Sim City, played on some damn computer over at a friend's apartment... I generally watched and played the role of mayor's advisor, while he generally screwed around and set up his masterpiece for inevitable destruction. At one point, we examined a commercial block in detail and stumbled across a Bed & Breakfast. Immediately viewing this as entirely too 'quaint and homey' for our steel-and-concrete industrial metropolis, we sent out the bulldozers to smite it.

Eventually we saw another, and smote it. And another. And another...

Needless to say, our quest for total landscape domination and Orwellian enslavement of the maximum number of plebes quickly took a detour into our quest to eradicate the pestilence of rebellious (and cozy) little Bed & Breakfasts that continually cropped up over our sprawling urban nightmare. We developed an entire mythology concerning the sneaky rebels who plotted to spread hope, happiness, and Belgian waffles to the people. They were opposed by our ruthlessly efficient squad of faceless jack-booted demolitionists, replete with black high-speed bulldozers that raced through the concrete jungle, sirens blaring, ever vigilant for Rockwellian intrusions.

We almost made an RPG campaign about it.

[Skinner's Pigeon]

PS: There's a girl out there on the multiplayer <cite>Star Wars Battlefront</cite> servers named &ldquo;a girl&rdquo;, so whenever she kills you, you get the message: &ldquo;You were killed by a girl.&rdquo;. Cool.
The truly sad thing is, I have been known to occasionally (i.e., when drunk) change my username to "your mom," for the exact same reason.

[AWOL Joe]

Wow... you made me regurgitate an ancient memory...

It was some version of Sim City, played on some damn computer over at a friend's apartment... I generally watched and played the role of mayor's advisor, while he generally screwed around and set up his masterpiece for inevitable destruction. At one point, we examined a commercial block in detail and stumbled across a Bed & Breakfast. Immediately viewing this as entirely too 'quaint and homey' for our steel-and-concrete industrial metropolis, we sent out the bulldozers to smite it.

Eventually we saw another, and smote it. And another. And another...

Needless to say, our quest for total landscape domination and Orwellian enslavement of the maximum number of plebes quickly took a detour into our quest to eradicate the pestilence of rebellious (and cozy) little Bed & Breakfasts that continually cropped up over our sprawling urban nightmare. We developed an entire mythology concerning the sneaky rebels who plotted to spread hope, happiness, and Belgian waffles to the people. They were opposed by our ruthlessly efficient squad of faceless jack-booted demolitionists, replete with black high-speed bulldozers that raced through the concrete jungle, sirens blaring, ever vigilant for Rockwellian intrusions.

We almost made an RPG campaign about it.

That's way cooler than what me and my brother did. We just had our cities run by evil cyberpunk megacorporations.

-AWOL Joe

[The Synthcat]

In Final fantasy 7, I once named all the characters Sephiroth, then went on with the game.

The flahsback scences were fun.

[Herrison]

In Deus Ex, I tried to go as far as I could with a body slung over my shoulder. I even used cheat codes to make one when I couldn't start out a level with a body.

In Privateer, I played until I had over 2,000 militia kills.

EDIT: My mind's playing tricks on me. I had way too large a number in there.

[Wil]

In Deus Ex, I tried to go as far as I could with a body slung over my shoulder. I even used cheat codes to make one when I couldn't start out a level with a body.

In Privateer, I played until I had over 2,000 militia kills.

EDIT: My mind's playing tricks on me. I had way too large a number in there.

You just reminded me of grenade climbing in Deus Ex. Affix a grenade to a wall low enough to be able to jump up on and jump up on it. Place another one and carefully jump on top of that one. Save between each jump and just keep repeating. Supposedly people have climbed up to the top of impossible to reach buildings.

[BlackSheep]

Bomb jumping is also a recognised part of the Metroid games.

[Questioner86]

I name my characters in RPG games "Dude". FF Tactics became the most ammusing game I had ever played because of this.

[Killer GM]

A friend of mine spent about an hour bouncing a dead body off the ceiling (by looking up, throwing the body, and catching it before it hit the ground) in Dues Ex: Invisible War. Then he spent another hour trying to stuff the body into a storage cube, but he could never get the lid to close.

What's worse is that I actually sat there and watched him do it.

No alcohol was involved.

[Alka-Seltzer]

In Age of Mythology sometimes I would build huge amounts of walls with gates in them for no reason. I would crisscross the map, steadily eradicating the natural landscape. Sometimes I would surround a lone barracks with walls, and then send in monsters one at a time, their coming signaled by the ominous opening and closing of many gates. I would slowly wear down the soldiers, tormenting them and taking pleasure in their fear. I would also produce huge amounts of villagers and set them to work clearing the map of all animals and trees. By the time the level was finished I would have completely sullied the area, turning it in to an urban nightmare.

[CyanideBreathmint]

Now I have my mount in WoW, I practice showjumping over the stiles in Hillsbrad Foothills, and over the hummocks and shrubs in the Arathi Highlands.

Yes. Showjumping. With an undead stead I'm calling Dogfood because he looks like the knackers were done with him already.

- Mel

[Beri]

A friend of mine spent about an hour bouncing a dead body off the ceiling (by looking up, throwing the body, and catching it before it hit the ground) in Dues Ex: Invisible War. Then he spent another hour trying to stuff the body into a storage cube, but he could never get the lid to close.

What's worse is that I actually sat there and watched him do it.

No alcohol was involved.

One day, I got an assignment in art class to draw 10 boxes stacked on each other - an exercise in perspective. Not having boxes of my own, I loaded up Deus Ex.
I went to the NSA compound, where Paul has you activate the transmitter on the roof. Just started picking up things from all over the level and piling them in the middle of the lobby. Gas barrels, explosives, TNT, the works. Once that was all done, I planted grenades all over, grabbed one little box, and walked up to the 4th story. (They were all walkways surrounding the central area.)
I heaved that little box over the edge of the walkway...it hits the stack, which jostles one of the grenades...then my computer just stops and thinks for a while as this massive explosion plays across the speakers. My framerate drops from about 30fps to 1/2fps as the lower level fills with transparent clouds upon clouds of green smoke.
It took me like an hour to set it all up. Pathetic, but fun.

[GoldenH]

man, the only thing i ever did was in WC2, i refuse to leave the map until all the trees were chopped down.

also sometimes i refused to actually build melee units, just using summoned zombies and spellcasters the whole time.

This wasn't as bad as when I played Doom though. I played doom until i could beat the entire game without being hit once. It's a wonder that it took me two years to find the quicksave/load button..

[Robovski]

In Civ3, my enslaved workers ALWAYS get the pollution clean-up jobs.

[Captain Howdy]

In Vampire:Bloodlines, the elevator to my downtown apartment was full of chairs, boxes, cans, and other crap that I'd kicked into it.

Then I got even more bored, and filled my apartment with the crap, along with any kickables I found on other floors.

Yay, source engine!

-Scott

[Elemental]

In Civilisation II, whenever I was bored, I'd have my spies give me a report on an enemy city, and I'd change the name to something embarrasing while I was there. Apparently, while attempting to steal money or incite civil unrest runs a risk of capture and death, changing the documents to change the city name is fine.

Strangely, none of the citizens ever noticed that their cities were now called Hellhole, What A Dump, and other oh-so-mature names.

[Thomas T]

In Final fantasy 7, I once named all the characters Sephiroth, then went on with the game.

The flahsback scences were fun.
My favourites are renaming Red 13 to Nanaki, Cloud to Zack and Tifa to Marlene.

[clark411]

While Master of Orion was loading between turns, I'd monologue.

[CodexArcanum]

Hoo boy, what haven't I done in games for amusement.

In Max Payne, my friend and I discovered that you apparently can't kill yourself in slow motion with the grenade launcher (this may have been a mod bug, but fun none-the-less). We'd dive into rooms in slow-mo, blowing up everyone and everything, including Max, who would walk away with 1 hp left. This was after we tired of shooting hobos with the sniper rifle and trying to get the bullet to go in their mouths, up their bums, and other sick diversions.

In Mechwarrior 4, I made a robot with 4 guass rifles, just to have a sniper that could take now cockpits in one hit.

In Half-Life 2, my roommate and I discovered that you can shoot exploding barrels into the air with the grav gun, after which they become "active". An active barrel will detonate on contact with ANYTHING. Our new hobby became barrell juggling. Miss just one and you're dead. It's the extreme sport of the futuer. Trying to maintain one of those electro-balls, just to use as a weapon, was a lot of fun too. I'd carry mine around stuck to the back of the buggy.

In GTA: Vice City, we used a car editor to make the Marvel Car. Marvel Car can reach speeds approaching light, hit things so hard that it travels around the world (While spinning, and scored mega-stunt bonus), climb walls (high traction), brake on 90 degree angles and park there, and so much more. It's mass was so high that it could punt swat vans into orbit. It was unflippable. Other great GTA amusments: the rocket bike. A motorcycle that can warp between diminsions. We'd accellerate up to terminal velocity, then hit a short wall and see how far we could get the guy to fly.

In Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, on the level with the huge tower. I planted all 50 of my proxy mines at my feet and moved one inch. After my computer unfroze, I got to watch Kyle's dead body rocket to the top of the tower.

In any game with several kinds of explosives (Postal 2 was a favorite, also Jedi Knight and Deus Ex), the fun never stops with explosive chains. A grenade here, a land mine there, couple of remote bombs, some gasoline, and fire! BOOOOOOOM!

Postal2, the hellcat minion experiment. Cheat to get a lot of cats. Drop cat nip, douse with gasoline, drop all cats. Once the minions have assembled, light on fire. The legions of burning cats will now terrorise the city.

Ultima7: built the stairway to heaven. Stole everything in Britannia. Got Iolo hooked on drugs and turned him into superman, and basically did everything that was reccomended in the IT-HE walkthrough.

Daggerfall: Used a bug with acrobatics and climbing to leap from the outer wall of Hammerfell's capital to the top of the palace. That was a hell of a jump.

Roller Coaster Tycoon: Ye Olde Death Coaster. A few sections of super-powered launched start, a couple of booster sections, and a short but steep ramp, aimed towards the merry go round or something. Charge a ton to ride, wait for some saps to get on, and let her go. Hehehe, I loved that game.

Ahh memories. I'm such a loser, but I love to screw with games.

[MaxKaladin]

In SimCity, I used to build my mayor's house off somewhere kind of out of the way and then build roads and parks and things to create a large, palatial estate for my mayor to live in style. In Transport Tycoon and Locomotion, I would do something similar with my corporate headquarters.

I have played games like Civ2 and MoO2 as "The Republic of Texas" and stuff like that complete with appropriate ship names where accurate.

[David J Prokopetz]

Bomb jumping is also a recognised part of the Metroid games.That one is legitimate, tho' - there are some optional puzzles in a couple of the games that actually require bomb-jumping to complete. In fact, if you leave Super Metroid sitting on the title screen, eventually it will go into a demo mode that shows off what all the different pieces of equipment can do, and somewhere in there, there's this clip of Samus on the surface of the planet going into morph ball mode and proceeding to chain dozens of bomb-jumps together - thus travelling several screens straight up, propelled by a series of carefully timed explosive blasts. :D

[Wil]

That one is legitimate, tho' - there are some optional puzzles in a couple of the games that actually require bomb-jumping to complete. In fact, if you leave Super Metroid sitting on the title screen, eventually it will go into a demo mode that shows off what all the different pieces of equipment can do, and somewhere in there, there's this clip of Samus on the surface of the planet going into morph ball mode and proceeding to chain dozens of bomb-jumps together - thus travelling several screens straight up, propelled by a series of carefully timed explosive blasts. :D

Yeah but rocket or bomb jumping is distinctly different than what I was speaking of in Deus Ex, where you actually *climb up on the undetonated grenades like stairs*

[JDM]

In Master of Orion II, I would colonize just one or two systems, letting my rivals fill up everything else. Once I had the technology, I would build several squadrons of Doom Stars and wage war until I had destroyed more or less every planet in the galaxy. I would also write down the population of each planet before I blew it apart, so I'd have a complete tally of the death toll when I was done.

[Jezrael]

When I got bored with MOO2 I would use the cheats to get myself a full spy network and all the tech, and then I would shepard the evolution of one or two species. Anyone who attacked my protege(s) would be bombed back into the stone age, but not killed. If I was voted head of the council I would decline, but if one of my sheep made it I aquiesced and ended the game. I had way, way too much fun doing that.

[SteppenRazer]

Playing Civ1 on my Jr. high macs, I'd name every city Bob. Every one. At the end I'd have 200+ cities named Bob.

[BigFatSlob]

In Civilisation II, whenever I was bored, I'd have my spies give me a report on an enemy city, and I'd change the name to something embarrasing while I was there. Apparently, while attempting to steal money or incite civil unrest runs a risk of capture and death, changing the documents to change the city name is fine.

Strangely, none of the citizens ever noticed that their cities were now called Hellhole, What A Dump, and other oh-so-mature names.

Whenever I conquer a base in SMAC, I always rename it something juvenile and offensive. I think my favorite base name was when I took New Jerusalem away from the Believers and named it "Handjob McGuillicuddy." When I play the Spartans, I name the bases after military installations I lived on growing up.

[Afterburner]

In SimCity, I used to build my mayor's house off somewhere kind of out of the way and then build roads and parks and things to create a large, palatial estate for my mayor to live in style. In Transport Tycoon and Locomotion, I would do something similar with my corporate headquarters.

This reminds me of something I used to do in Pharaoh.

In Pharaoh, you could build a Festival Square, where you could throw parties for your citizens. (In fact, not only could you do so, but it was highly advisable.)

However, the Festival Square did not have to be connected to any part of your city to provide its beneficial effects. So I would build my Festival Squares in the most remote and, if possible, inaccessible area of the map, far away from my developing city.

[SteppenRazer]

Playing Starcraft with friends, when I was losing, I would occasionally turn it into a game of "Hunt the Zergling" I'd turn all my production into creating Zerglings, send them in as many different directions as I could, and have them burrow.

[Afterburner]

In Civ1, once you'd founded enough cities to cycle through the list of cultural names (Athens, Sparta, etc, or whatever, depending on your civ), you'd start founding cities with more generic names.

The first two were "Cunaxa" and "Cremona."

I would catch myself humming "Cunaxa...Cremona" to the tune of the "A-hey-a...A-hah-ma" line in the Beach Boys' "Kokomo."

A-hey-a
A-hah-ma
Come on pretty mama

Cunaxa
Cremona
&lt;mumble mumble rhymes with 'mona'&gt;

[Epoch]

Playing Starcraft with friends, when I was losing, I would occasionally turn it into a game of "Hunt the Zergling" I'd turn all my production into creating Zerglings, send them in as many different directions as I could, and have them burrow.

Cracklings!

I used to play Zerg a lot, before the expansion nerfed them, and we all know the late-game strategy for Zerg, right? Guardians supported by Mutalisks or Hydralisks, with maybe some devourers or whatever in there to mix things up.

But sometimes, you've just got to go with your heart, not your mind. And your heart says, "What you want to do is throw 200+ fully upgraded zerglings at your opponent."

A fully upgraded Zergling is a "Crackling." Astonishingly, it's one of the most damaging units in the entire game, the benefits of attack upgrades which upgrade each hit by a large percentage (20% of the original total) and a speed upgrade which gives them the fastest rate of fire in the game.

However, they are painfully fragile and, of course, a melee-only unit that cannot attack air.

Cracklings were usually doomed to failure -- shot and killed before they could get up close -- but one time in four or so, your opponent just wouldn't put together the volume of fire needed to deal with them, and then they were... glorious. Watching broods of Cracklings take down an enemy base is a truly awe-inspiring sight. The health meters of buildings just <i>sprint</i> down towards red-and-dead.

[SteppenRazer]

I normally played either Protoss or Terran in Starcraft. I never got a hang of the zerg, so when ever I played them, it often ended with "hunt the zergling".

One time I did that, and I got whipped out, compleatly, all my zerg were found...except for one building in the corner of my base, I mean the ver corner. It must have been covered by the smallest possible bit of fog-of-war, because I could SEE 5 firebats standing beside it. It took my friend 45 min to find it while I wandered off and read a book. It was wonderful.

As for other dumb/fun things I've done:

I've had some really fun 12 person HALO2 games, where we play on Beaver Creek, maxed starting grendaes and king of the hill. The statagey is Spawn, run to the hill which is in the middle of the creek tossing grenades, jump in and try to live for a few seconds. We played with the first person to 30s won, it took upwards of 20 min, and the longest anyone was ever king of the hill was 4 seconds. It was great, I got a 8 person simultanious kill.

[Thomas T]

In halo co-op, my friend and I spent <b>Three. Hours.</b> flying banshees up to the highest point we could find, knocking them off the edge and jumping after them in an effort to recreate the opening sequence of goldeneye.

Didn't work.

[True Blue]

It was great, I got a 8 person simultanious kill.


Wow, a Killamanjaro...

[JDCorley]

http://www.it-he.org/deus.htm

[DeadManSeven]

In Tekken, laughing with Bryan when he lands a Fisherman's Catch. Also, doing things like landing a couple of hits, and then running away (Dr. B and Gon in Tekken3 were particularly humilating).

In Half-Life (and lots of other games with guns, but mainly Half-Life), shooting as many people as possible from as far away as possible. Preferably with a shot to the head.

In Metal Gear Solid, attacking the wildlife and getting told off for it (shooting the crows and sniping mice will earn you a call, from memory). And taking guards out from half a room away with the Stinger, trying not to set off an alert. Or punching guards in the face while invisible. Or strapping C4 to their backs. Or taking out those guards when they went to the toilet (you know the ones). Or shooting all the guards with the PSG-1 from under the door of that room filled with nukes that you weren't allowed to use any guns in. Or insiting on the final hit to Psycho Mantis be a pistol shot while he stood in front of the desk, so he flew over it and crashed into the chair. Metal Gear Solid was a big magnet for inducing stupid behaviour, really.

In StarCraft: Brood War, playing the Battle of Braxis mission (the Protoss one where you have to take out generators with only a finite number of troops) and finishing it with all units in perfect health.

Also in Brood War, on the last Protoss mission (the one about protecting some big temple tinger, after taking over a bunch of Zerg bases), mind-controlling a Drone in order to build up a solid defence of the temple with Spoor and Sunken Colonies, and using all the space for Protoss units to make as many Carriers as possible, and an Arbiter to hide them with. I would have loved to have seen what that looked like from the CPU's side - they've broken through the defences with vastly superior numbers, only to see a billion of those horrible little flying remote things fill the air, coming out of nowhere. That was cool. :)

[ReallyBored]

Cracklings!

I used to play Zerg a lot, before the expansion nerfed them, and we all know the late-game strategy for Zerg, right? Guardians supported by Mutalisks or Hydralisks, with maybe some devourers or whatever in there to mix things up.

But sometimes, you've just got to go with your heart, not your mind. And your heart says, "What you want to do is throw 200+ fully upgraded zerglings at your opponent."

A fully upgraded Zergling is a "Crackling." Astonishingly, it's one of the most damaging units in the entire game, the benefits of attack upgrades which upgrade each hit by a large percentage (20% of the original total) and a speed upgrade which gives them the fastest rate of fire in the game.

However, they are painfully fragile and, of course, a melee-only unit that cannot attack air.

Cracklings were usually doomed to failure -- shot and killed before they could get up close -- but one time in four or so, your opponent just wouldn't put together the volume of fire needed to deal with them, and then they were... glorious. Watching broods of Cracklings take down an enemy base is a truly awe-inspiring sight. The health meters of buildings just <i>sprint</i> down towards red-and-dead.

Eh, throwing 200+ cracklings at someone is just the beginning. What you need is 4-5 hatcheries continually pumping out cracklings (ok, and if you take the easy way out and use dark swarm, it helps :) ). Then it's not getting hit with an easily killed wave. It's getting hit by a constantly replenishing wave that at any point in time has 100-200 members. It still fails about half the time, more vs a dug in terran or templar heavy protoss. Just hearing the swearing when the wave shows up is fun, though. And the increased swearing when the wave doesn't stop. :D

[Samaritan]

Fight Night Round 2... try to get a record number of hits on the other guy just after I hand out the knockdown punch.

To date, I have a record of six hits before he hits the mat, after he's already on the way down.

[Quacthulhu]

In Dungeon Keeper 2, on Pet Dungeon mode, I would play the sacrifice-your-minions shuffle. I built a decent sized temple (the temple has this big pool in the center), then i would pick up 3 or 4 Dark Elves, and dump them into the sacrificial pool. either i'd get a buncha gold, or i'd get a troll or goblin. If i dumped in enough skeletons, i'd get a dark elf. trolls go in.. i forgot what came out. But in the end it was a giant loop.
I'd also line every square of the floor with traps, and then let some heroes attack the dungeon. The computer didn't like it much, but it was fun. And it made vampires, which were tossed into the temple waters when their numbers got to be too high. I would also make every room possible before allowing my imps to claim any portals (if possible). Then i would pick heroes out of the hero toolbox, and drop them either in the torture chamber or the prison. SO i either made traitors, bodies, or skeletons. Traitors (except for the drawf) got tossed into the Temple waters, as did 80% of my skeletons, and 50% of my Dark Elves. Next time i play, everyone gets sacrificed. Even the imps (hey i can make more.), just to see what all i can get as a reward for the sacrifices.

And just to waste time, i would pick up chickens, and also dump them into the temple waters. It paid. I wonder where the bodies of all the minions i tossed in went to. Then i wondered where all the bodies of the chickens i dumped went to. Then i wondered where KFC got its chicken from, and i started to think.....

McDonalds or Burger King?


Other games--
Grand Theft Auto; Vice City and San Andreas-
I never got into the missions too much, since i can cheat and get the good weapons/vehicals anyway, but i did do alot of crashing. I'd take out the tank in Vice City, then just drive around causing hell, getting as many stars as i could while tring to navigate without stopping as long as i could before the engine would blow up. I still think it's hilarious that the squad cars aim to run into me, in the big tank, after so many before have blown up when i so much as knicked them. Or blew them up with the cannon before they got in close. The only other thing i did in GTA's was to just walk about beating up people for no reason except to fill my blood lust. In San Andreas i liked to cruise around, looking for the best thing on 2 wheels.. then try to steal it when the driver (obviously) won't stop. And i liked to grab a tractor, pick up a truck behind me with the tow, then maneuver it all so i blocked a major country highway. Then i'd get some distance and start shooting at cars. Boom.

Unreal Tournament-
Not much to do here. I'd play Deathmatch mode, set the number really high, then grabs a sniper rifle, find the safest spot, settle down, and keep my eyes open for a respawn point. Everytime the bot respawned, *headshot.* I usually had to move every 20 minutes or so when a bot "learned" that i stayed in a certain place. The best spot was a place that was inaccessible without antigrav and superjump on. It was a rooftop beyond a large open archway. I'd sit up there, crouch down, aim for the doorway, and wait. They never saw it comin'.

[Jiawen]

In MOO2, I always have ship classes named Mykonos, Hand of God and First of God towards the end. I'd use Culture ship names (Ultimate Ship the Second, Can't We All Just Get Along?, etc.) if they fit.

In CivIII, I almost always play the Chinese and give the cities Mandarin names that are descriptive ("Near the Forest," "Dragon River", "Double Mountain", "Eastern Ocean", "Gold Hills", etc.). I've also come up with correctly-romanized hero and tribe lists.

[ascendance]

In more conventional PC-style CRPGs where you simply create and name your character from the very beginning, I have a stock collection of names I fall back on that can be roughly grouped into two varieties. First, you have the insulting set of names, like "El Bastardo" or "Wanky Loser." And then there's the second set, which includes my favorite name for female PCs, "Angela Deth." (Frequently accompanied by her friends "Hell Razor" and "Snake Vargas," of course.)Heh. Funny. I just dug that out. The default names were cool, but I decided to roll up Snake Gandhi and Killfuck Soulshitter to keep Angela Deth company. Sadly, Killfuck Soulshitter didn't quite fit.

Then I put it on hold. God knows where my manual is.

And of course, in Shin Megami Tensei II, I had to rename my character Jesus. If I knew more about the plot, Hiroko would have been named Mary.

[Ragnarok Engine]

In MOO2, I always have ship classes named Mykonos, Hand of God and First of God towards the end. I'd use Culture ship names (Ultimate Ship the Second, Can't We All Just Get Along?, etc.) if they fit.

Heh. That just reminded me of my habit of naming my Doom Stars The Stark Fist of Removal.

Made me giggle every time.

[IceShadow]

I name my characters in RPG games "Dude". FF Tactics became the most ammusing game I had ever played because of this.
This is quite funny in combination with your avatar.

[Redforce]

- GTAIII: Tank cheat. Or go to the hospital and use the weapon cheat to blow shit up all day with the rocket launcher, or shoot passers-by in the head or blow their limbs off with the sniper rifle.
- Dungeon Keeper 2: With the patch that adds the magic-using female spiders (forgot what they are called), create an 'all-girl dungeon' (only the spiders, Mistresses, Dark Elves, and Trolls [I pretended like the trolls were asexual])
- RFTS: Alliterative ship names for each hull size (Asia, Astra, Athena, Annihilator, ...)
- X-Com: blow up the gas tanks on purpose in city missions, set stuff on fire with the Incendiary, and use the waypoint-exploding-thingies to blow new doors in UFOs.

[Sujihime]

I SUUUUUCK at halo 2. They took away the pistol goodness from Halo so I cant shoot anyone anymore. BUT, me and my friends are a group of four. One player is MUCH better than the rest of us. So, I get put on his team as his handicap (Im not kidding either).

The rule is basically, dont kill or shoot Susie. It will make her sad a ruin her fun. So I have two options to keep me amused for the entirity of the game. I can get in the flying vehicle and go find new sniper locations. And snipe people until they figure it out and try to find my new spot. OR

the tanks. The cuties let me take a tank and decorate the landscape. If you shoot the tank directly at something it leaves a round scorch mark. I make the terrain practically polkadotted. Its great. PLUS, there is this one tree in Blood Gulch that has my ire (I dont remember why). But slim is often comepletely black and scorched by the time Im done with him!!

and thats how I play halo 2

its more fun than it has any right to be just goofing around and decorated blood gulch. (stealing the rocket launcher and a sniper rifle is run to do too when Im playing around)

[Wil]

I almost forgot about throwing peasants in Black and White (since it was mentioned in another thread). Especially that guy you get in the second level that can't be killed. He projects a little aura around him that if you do it quickly enough after he lands, even if it's outside of your influence, you can pick him right back up and chuck him again.

[True Blue]

I almost forgot about throwing peasants in Black and White (since it was mentioned in another thread). Especially that guy you get in the second level that can't be killed. He projects a little aura around him that if you do it quickly enough after he lands, even if it's outside of your influence, you can pick him right back up and chuck him again.


I loved that guy! It was funny how the camera centers on him while he is flying through the air.

After torturing him long enough I discovered a way to throw him into lower orbit (he was so high in the air I could barely make out the ground). It would take minutes for him to slowly freefall back to the ground and when he hit, crunch. :D

Of course, watching get right back up made it even funnier.

[shodan]

Especially that guy you get in the second level that can't be killed.

It's been years since I've played this game, but I remember /that/ guy.

(Now, keep in mind, my memory is years outta date, so I could well be misremembering this particular anecdote. But anyway, here goes.)

I eventually got sick of that guy, so I marched my Creature over and made it eat the hermit. Finally, he shuts up!

Eventually, after some time had passed, my Creature needed to take a dump.

*poot*! There's the hermit again, good as new!

[Front Toward Everybody]

In Mercenaries I'll lay on the horn to get nearby friendly troops to load into my vehicle. As soon as they are near enough to almost get in, I gun it a little, and lay on the horn again, watching them scramble to enter again. I do this four or five times, in then let the frustrated troops get in and get on with the mission.

[Robovski]

Beyond simple willfull destruction in Half Life 2, I spent a good 15 minutes painting a room in Ravenholm using the Grav Gun and some cans of paint that were in a room. Grab a can, throw a can - Splotch! And repeat... Interesting how the paint never gets on an adjoining surface ;)

[Crayne]

- X-Com: blow up the gas tanks on purpose in city missions, set stuff on fire with the Incendiary, and use the waypoint-exploding-thingies to blow new doors in UFOs.

Oh yeah. :D

Take a squad of soldiers on a Terror Mission, equipped only with incendiary missiles and proceed to target only civilians. I don't shoot aliens, as they are the opponent in this murderous matchup. :p

Whoever kills the most civilians by the end of the mission wins.

Fer

[Deacon Blues]

GTA: Vice City - "Trapping a tank." Sure, you can get a tank with the right cheat codes. But you haven't really lived until you've sniped cops for an hour from the roof of your druglord mansion, waited for the National Guard to roll up in a tank, then cleared the street with rockets, jacked the tank and driven it into your garage. That was a hell of a Sunday morning.

Morrowind - The whole game is "stupid shit to amuse yourself" if you ignore the main quest. It's a blast. I made an Imperial with 85 Personality (as a 1st-level character) who dresses ridiculously and goes around charming people into doing what he wants. I want to see how far he can get without swinging a sword.

HALO - Blood Gulch. Two players, on separate TVs (networked, of course), in separate rooms. Sniper's duel. It's a beautiful thing.

[I Love Stupid Stuff]

Wow. I do a lot more stupid stuff then I thought. But then, my name sort of implies that I would, doesn't it?


Mercenaries

You know those wooden boxes that you see all over the place? I horde them. I get a chopper, find all of the boxes in a faction's base, and put them all in a big pile. Then, I proceed to attack anybody that I think is a threat to my boxes. That would be anybody within visual range, of course.


GTA III

I enter the cheat code that gives all of the citizens weapons, and then enter the code that makes them all fight. Everyone then has a randomly chosen weapon and will attack whoever they want. I then time myself to see how long I can survive. It can be done in GTA: Vice City, but the code only gives low-power weapons to the civilians, and the AI doesn't handle them as well.

I steal fire trucks and hose down people passing by.

I steal busses. I park said busses sideways across the street. I then leave.


The Sims

I set up reality TV shows. I make a full family of Sims, give them exaggerated personalities, and then lock them all in one house with the bare essentials for their sim lives. The last one still there (or the last one breathing) wins, and gets to leave.


Worms (Any)

I make teams based upon a single theme. My most recent theme: nuns. Included such names as "Army of Nun", "Nun Other", and "Nun Shall Pass".


SimCopter

I follow a single car around, holding it in the spotlight, shouting things from the bullhorn. "Evacuate the area immediately! Get moving, you stupid idiot! Does your mother know what you're doing?"

I pick up paramedics and police, and I drop them where I think they need to be.

When I don't have a job, I park the 'copter in the middle of the road, and I wait for a traffic jam to start. Then, I disperse the traffic jam.


Shogun: Total War

I make use of a tactic I call the "Orcish Horde". An entire army made up of yari ashigaru (or whatever it is they're called), that I use to conquer everything, simply throwing them against enemy forces in a giant wave of spears. Even if it isn't all that effective, it looks cool.

I make an army of kensai. Once more, it's not effective. It's just cool to have an army consisting of sixteen ultra-swordsmen.


Dark Forces: Jedi Knight

I use nothing but force powers and the lightsabre, whenever possible.


X-Com

I once tried using nothing but standard pistols. The first mission that I sent them out on, I didn't lose a single operative.

[Wil]

I don't know if this is "stupid" or not, but I realized that in first person shooters I always use: an automatic weapon first, shotgun if I don't have ammo for the automatic weapon, or a pistol or similar weapon. I tend to use the weapon that is the most versatile, and almost never break out the huge, weird, experimental, whatever weapon that is not bound to keys 6-10 by default. I also tend to not use grenades or explosives.

Except in System Shock 2...there I used damn near anything I could get my hands on. Stupid mutants...

[drnuncheon]

In Civ I, I once decided to buy the world - I bribed the enemy cities out from under them.

In City of Heroes, I have been collecting screenshots of my character standing on the heads of every superhero statue. (This is made slightly more difficult by the fact that the character in question can't fly or teleport...but I get lots of practice with precision jumps.)

J

[Olof Jönsson]

In WoW: seating my gnome in odd places. Once when I had to go make dinner and didn't want to log out (because logging out crashes my PC), I had her sit on the head of the gryphon just below the Gryphonmaster in Stormwind. At another time, I sat her down on a ceiling beam in that air elemental-infested inn in Stormwind. I have also been seated on the butcher's table in the basement of that swamp city from which you go to "Elf Isle", on the big cog in Tinkertown in Ironforge (the one on which the High Tinker stands), and neatly on top of a bridge pillar in Redridge (that last one not so odd).

Usually I just get laughs and giggles and the occasional dance in front of my gnome sometimes I get more elaborate responses, usually of the "Buh?" variety.

It helps that my gnome is a cute little female Rogue. :D

[Bobaloo]

Another one from Mercenaries:

I caused a major Traffic Jam once, at the 4-way intersection just to the left of the Allied Mash on the Northern Map. I jacked every car that came by (and it's a pretty busy intersection) and then parked them as to not let traffic through.

I caused major screen lag (on the PS2) before I let the traffic clear up. (Which I may have done using explosives. :) )

[Jiawen]

Morrowind - The whole game is "stupid shit to amuse yourself" if you ignore the main quest. It's a blast. I made an Imperial with 85 Personality (as a 1st-level character) who dresses ridiculously and goes around charming people into doing what he wants. I want to see how far he can get without swinging a sword.I forgot to mention how I was collecting complete sets of every type of armor in Morrowind. The "A Good Place to Stay" (http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/modcontrols/mod.asp?modid=269) mod has mannequins for every type of armor; I was pretty close to getting every kind when I finished the game last time. I should really start playing Morrowind again... *sigh*... Hmm, time to start a thread about it (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=3844611#post3844611).

[Charlequin]

Whenever a CRPG allows you to name the main character, and the main character is male, I name him after myself.

There's loads of great stories one could tell about CRPG character naming. My favorite, though, was watching one of my college suitemates on his second playthru of Final Fantasy Tactics. He decided to take advantage of the inexplicable 12-character character name space to call himself "Darth Vader." We all only found this moderately amusing until the scene with the family patriarch where we got to witness the dialogue "Darth Vader, I am your father...."

[Charlequin]

My favourites are renaming Red 13 to Nanaki, Cloud to Zack and Tifa to Marlene.

A friend of mine actually did the second one by mistake. First time playing through the game, named Cloud (after her boyfriend, for whatever reason). Made trying to figure out the plot even harder....

[Front Toward Everybody]

In Mercenaries, if you take out the main bridge by the Allied compound on the first map, the allied vehicled drive towards the span, heedless of the danger, and plunge down the canyon into the river a hundred yards below.

I had a pile of humvees coming up out of the water.

[Darkness]

Years ago, in Jagged Alliance, I used a hex editor to rename Scully to "Mulder." I also renamed Magic to "Punk," for no real reason other than that I could.


In Seven Kingdoms, I usually give my ruler a name that's violent, silly or both. Examples include:
Norman: Coup de Grace, Norman Bates
Japanese: Oni Nobunaga
Greek: Gyros
Maya: Slayer-of-Many
Viking: Vader Skywalker ('cause it almost sounds like a Viking name)


In Warcraft 3, I play against the computer when I'm bored, either the Campaign (even though I've beaten it a lot of times already) or a simple melee and set myself some additional challenge. Like playing the "Lord of Outland" mission (i.e., Illidan vs. the pit lord Magtheridon) on Hard without saving or playing a melee against 2 computers at once.

[Iacobus]

My 'Black Widow' Sims character.

Reel 'em in, marry 'em, take the cash, leave the sucker in a walled-in room until death, repeat.

Sometimes she'd be flirting with a guy while her husband starved to death right behind the wall.

[Jay]

Swing around Manhattan, popping childrens' balloons in Spider Man 2.

'nuff said, true believers.

[Jezrael]

Swing around Manhattan, popping childrens' balloons in Spider Man 2.

'nuff said, true believers.

Oh, yeah...that reminds me of something I like to do in that game. I find the tallest building I can that has some crooks trying to do a roof break-in. I throw all but one of the crooks off of the roof, to their doom. Then I grab the last one jump off of the building and do the flip over suplex/piledriver thingy all the way down to the street. One dead crook, one unharmed friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.

[GM Victory]

When I play a game that has followers like X-Men Legends or I direct squads of people like in Warcraft, I almost always say "Come my little morons," whenever I am leading or directing them somewhere.

[snafubar]

I accidentally found out about 'double dipping' for points in MOO2 a while back. If you conquer a planet, say via mind control. You then move your people onto said planet and move the existing population onto a planet that's already maxed out. You get the points for the conquered population, and then get more points for your own population living there. An unpleasant way to boost your score, but a viable one.

[Lisa Nadazdy]

Long ago, when I first played FF II (US), I renamed the main character "Batman" (he's a dark knight, okay? :D ), and the green haired girl "Robin". For some reason, it works.

[BlackSheep]

For some reason, it works.

...although it gets odd when Batman rejects his shadowy past and becomes a paladin.

[Lautrec]

Mercenaries: Sending humvees into orbit by planting 5-10 charges of C4 on the same spot in the road, then wait until someone drives by...

Pull trigger - observe huge fireball shooting straight up into the sky...and landing somewhere on the other side of Korea.



-L

[Monsieur Meuble]

The second way was by fire. This was nice because you could kill lots of people at once, and because the sims totally flip out over fires, yelling and running around, and actually coming in to the room to stare and point at it like idiots. I'd fill the walls of rooms with fireplaces, then order sims to go around the house lighting all of them, or just wait for them to do it on their own. Or, if I wanted to do it quick, I'd just light off some fireworks indoors.

Hu hu (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122). :D

[Afterburner]

I've been amusing myself in Deus Ex by skulking around in a crouch wherever I go...even when it's not necessary.

JC duck-walks up to an NPC and starts talking to him.
&lt;cue cutscene of JC standing up from crouch to conduct conversation&gt;
&lt;cue JC re-crouching after conversation is over&gt;

JC duck-walks around the market in Wan Chai, standing up only to talk to merchants before skulking off again.

Etc.

[Afterburner]

Also:

Standing directly behind NPCs when you talk to 'em is fun.

* AB clicks on an NPC
&lt;NPC&gt; *pivot*
&lt;NPC&gt; blah blah blah
&lt;NPC&gt; *pivot*
* AB clicks on the NPC again
&lt;NPC&gt; *pivot*
&lt;NPC&gt; blah blah blah
&lt;NPC&gt; *pivot*

Etc.

[La Maupin]

Whenever I play some 4x space strategy like MOO2 or Space Empires 4 I tend no name my ships/ship classes with something that begins with In-, like:

Inperceivable
Inconsistent
Indefinable
Inconsiderate
Incorporeal
Incandescent
Incontinent?

[La Maupin]

In Mobile Armored Division: Shogo multiplayer, there was a weapon that you could get...kind of a stuffed toy kitty dressed like Napoleon (I think) that said something when you squeezed it. When I would get bored with a level, I would find the kitty, grab and run around chasing people with it until someone killed me. If you hit people with it I think it stunned them or something...

There were also these bouncy energy ball type grenades. I used to fire them randomly in all directions.
Back during my Shogo days, in the mecha levels, I'd head straight for the Red Riot and fire it off in some random direction JUST to hear the screams of "RR FAG!"

[David J Prokopetz]

Incontinent?I'd go with "Indefatigable" - if only because nobody knows how to pronounce it. :D

(Heck, I'm not even sure if I know how to spell it...)

[Xenon]

playing morrowind with the expansion, you go to the city where you cannot levitate. so, i made a new spell, called it super mario. jump maxed at 100, for a very short duration. one sky-bounding jump later, and i see whats over the wall thats around the zone. its water. so i try to swim back... in the end had to recall. but it was fun, to find that an infinite moat sits between the walled sections of the city.

in GTA 3, i got the tank without using any cheats. the trick is simple- you go to the top of the parking deck between your hideout and the pay-n-spray. start shooting people, then start shooting cops. eventualy they send a tank or two. now, its vital to set up a car right outside the pay n spray before hand. run to it, spray, steal a tank, respray car, then get tank to garage and save. and its fun to drive that thing over people.

In WoW, when i got bored, i would wander to the newbie zone. do some fishing and some mining. then smith some copper stuff, and give em away to the first lowbie warrior i could find. at one point, i put ALL of my gear in the bank, and walked back to the starting zone. unarmed and naked, i carried only what i earned. I kept going, soloing elite instances through the barrens, including the wailing caverns. mining what i found, smithing as i would. its interesting just how much a lv 60 warrior can do with crap gear. and when i felt better afterward, i took up my nice gewar, and got back to mining and killin in the high-end zones.

[Bobaloo]

I solo at least half of the time in City of Heroes, but that doesn't stop me from roleplaying. I talk the the NPCs sometimes. I even have some macros set up as "standard replies."

For helpless victims you have to save on a mission map, who usually all give the same line once they're rescued get:

"Let me guess, they were going to change you."
or
"That's what I've been hearing."

Lastly for "defeat all" missions, there's often one or two badguys that are difficult to find. They get:

"COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!"

[Ineti]

GTA San Andreas never fails to amuse me. I'll go to the secret army base and steal a tank and ram into all the FBI Suburbans as they give chase, and see how far around the map I can get before the National Guard comes in and blows me up.

I've also picked random fights, killed prostitutes after doing them, gone Terminator in a police station, and blown up all sorts of stuff with the Apache.

I had CJ dressed up as a cop and trying to pull people over, but I got bored with than and then just rolled around the map with sirens blaring and lights flashing, and it's fun to watch the cars get out of my way, sometimes even careening off bridges to clear the way.

I seem to recall a lot of friendly fire in my games of X-Wing and TIE Fighter as well...

[Jay]

For some reason, this thread reminds me of this (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8100225328673515642&q=videogames+are&pl=true).

[Elizabeth Brooks]

I like to steal buses in GTA:SA, take them out on the freeway, and then try to time skidding to a stop so that the cars behind me don't have time to brake. If I do it right, I can get a 20-30 car pileup.

[Elemental]

At the moment in Soul Calibur 3, I'm trying to get through Seigfried's solo mode without using any attack except his headbutt.

I also cooked up Snake Gandhi and Chuck Norris in the custom character builder, but since everyone's done that, it probably doesn't count. :p

[Jay]

Since the actual Fight Club game sucks, I use San Andreas as my own personal Fight Club simulator. Which, truth be told, is what a lot of people end up using it for, but I'm going into it with that mindset.

[David J Prokopetz]

I also cooked up Snake Gandhi and Chuck Norris in the custom character builder, but since everyone's done that, it probably doesn't count. :pI did Santa Claus versus Kung Fu Jesus.

I'll see if I can come up with a screenshot.

[IMustBeBored]

The first time I got Super Jump in CoH, I spent about a half hour just jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

When playing Boody Roar against my friends, I'd try to defeat them without ever entering beast mode. I could most of the time. :D

Picking up random junk in Oblivion, then "throwing" it at NPCs. There's something kinda funny about chucking a sword into someone's face and not seeing them even blink. Also in Oblivion, manipulating a guy's corpse so that it looked like he was playing with himself. Juvenile, yet hilarious! :D

Dance-offs in Guild Wars. 'Nuff said.

Using emotes to make my henchman worship me in CoV.

[D. Archon]

In Soldier of Fortune, shoot everyone in the balls. I loved shooting people in the alls, and would do that as much as possible, especially after i got the sniper rifle. You got stats based on the number of groin shots.

In Postal 2, well, let's just say i ejoyed lighting dogs on fire. Alot.

[Killfalcon]

Mechwarrior games exist to let you play with the toys. Me and some friends used to fuck with MW3 all the time.

One time, we took the lightest mech we could, stripped it to the bare chassis, and installed a vmasc (a thing to make you go faster), a single jumpjet and the biggest, baddest engine that would fit. Maxed the game's speedometer at 255km/h. :D

An old favorite was the Atlas-with-as-many-guns-as-fit. The 28 machinegun variant ran out of ammo in less than a second, but killed whatever you were looking at at the time. The 8 PPC loadout needed you to turn off heat management, or it would melt down the second you pulled the trigger. :cool:


In Sim City, I always liked taking a working city, and typing "fund" (the cheat that gave you money, and occasionaly triggered earthquakes) untill I had a pile of rubble and a vast amount of cash. Then, I'd dilligently build a city in the ruins, based around the few remaining buildings (prioritising getting said cottages running water and power, of course).

In Galactic Civilisations, I tend to re-create the Imperium of Mankind, ruthlessly bombing shit out of alien races simply for being aliens. If I want tech, I'll threaten them for it, or take it from the corpses of their worlds.

[Tumbleweed]

In Super Return of the Jedi, there's a level on Jabba's sail barge where you can play as Princess Leia. In the metal bikini.

Princess Leia also had a spin move.

At that young and hormornal age of, like, twelve, I discovered that if you did the spin move, and paused the game at JUST the right time, you'd get a shot of Pixelated Princess Posterior as her loincloth hiked up.

Far too much trouble than what it was worth, but funny.

[Gwydion]

Frequently, when I'm playing a Civ-type game -- particularly Civ2 or SMAC/X -- I will set my nation/faction name to "The Cajuns" and proclaim myself "King Boudreaux." And then I will name all of my cities/bases after cities and towns in Louisiana.


Back in the days of Civ1, I was usually the "Hamsters" with the capitol at "Wheel"
Kevin

[thePill]

The first time I got Super Jump in CoH, I spent about a half hour just jumping from rooftop to rooftop.
Whenever I get Flight on my characters in CoX, I'll spend at least twenty minutes flying around. Also, weave between the streetlights or highway support beams in Skyway.

[Valandil]

An old, old classic was in Archon. I'd try to get the opposing color's power point, killing his last unit, without benefit of magic in any way shape, or form, when the color was at the extreme end against me.

This reminds me of when my friend and I played Archon on our old Commodore 64s...
For those who don't know, Archon is a game a lot like Chess, but your pieces fight old-skool-arcade-style for control of a square.

He had better reflexes than I, but he never got the hang of the Pheonix, and I was the master at it. So I ALWAYS forced matches between the Pheonix and the Shapeshifter on a neutral color. That always made for a hilarious battle.

The Pheonix's attack was a very tiny area-effect blast that only lasted a split-second, you were immobile during that attack, and then had a long recharge delay before you could attack again.
The Shapeshifter took on the same attributes of whoever it attacked.

So the battle consisted of us trying to get our guy on top of the other, flaring up, then running/dodging away like made.
He got so pissed.


Even better (worse) was Archon II. I tried to force battles between Wraiths.
These are like the Pheonix, only instead of just damaging the opponent, it added about 90% of their lost hit points to yours.

I swear one single combat took close to an hour to complete (to my victory). Our hands were numb.

[Ghola]

The first time I got Super Jump in CoH, I spent about a half hour just jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

I thought Faultline was perfect for this.



This reminds me of when my friend and I played Archon on our old Commodore 64s...
For those who don't know, Archon is a game a lot like Chess, but your pieces fight old-skool-arcade-style for control of a square.

He had better reflexes than I, but he never got the hang of the Pheonix, and I was the master at it. So I ALWAYS forced matches between the Pheonix and the Shapeshifter on a neutral color. That always made for a hilarious battle.

The Pheonix's attack was a very tiny area-effect blast that only lasted a split-second, you were immobile during that attack, and then had a long recharge delay before you could attack again.
The Shapeshifter took on the same attributes of whoever it attacked.

So the battle consisted of us trying to get our guy on top of the other, flaring up, then running/dodging away like made.
He got so pissed.

Oh man, those Phoenix vs. Phoenix fiascos. I loved doing that too - I also had a friend with much better reflexes (he used to slaughter me with the unicorns). Good times!

[Gabriel]

In Starfox (the original on SNES), I regularly kill off all my wingmen.

In Battle Arena Toshinden II, I use taunt at every opportunity, even though it only increases my opponent's ability to kick my ass. (And I still always win.)

I played Battle Arena Toshinden II on best three out of five to make each match last longer. I'd often intentionally handicap myself with two losses (so I'd have to win three in a row and my opponent would only have to win once). I'd also call before the fight just how I would kill them, or else it wouldn't count. (Ex: By blade uppercut. Ringout on that side over there. Tap to the foot. Overdrive in the back. Etc.)

For a while a popular variant to play Soul Calibur 2 as was to give each fighter infinite life and then try to ring the other fighter out.

I used to occasionally play Pac-Man and Laser Blast on the Atari 2600 blindfolded. With a little practice, I can still do it on Laser Blast, but I've lost the timing for Pac-Man.

Sometimes I'll play the fast draw/2 target version of Wild Gunman by facing away from the screen and shooting over my shoulder. Or I'll just blindfold myself.

[bubbles]

Picking up random junk in Oblivion, then "throwing" it at NPCs. There's something kinda funny about chucking a sword into someone's face and not seeing them even blink.
Getting an absurdly powerful fireball and flinging it at bookshelves, cabinets, desks, tables, anything with physics objects on and watching them fly everywhere. Less fun is attempting to tidy up, getting accused of stealing, then arrested.

Also, in SimCity 4, creating mountain ranges that look like boobies. Or that spell the word 'boobies'. :D

[Qusoor]

Ah yes. Simcity 2. I made a giant magalopolis and named it... New Ork City. We were served by the Elfcrusher bus lines, had the Eyegouge hospital, the KrotchKick stadium (and I made sure we had a water monster, too). It was cool. Not as cool as hunting down and destroying all the B&Bs, but cool.

Roller Coaster Tycoon: there was a conest for the Most Intense Coaster. It took me a long time, but I finally built one that beat the winner. I called it "Mighty Cthulhu". I think I saw a sim throw up after just looking at it.

[Cultist of Sooty]

I thoroughly enjoy driving very fast motorbikes as quickly as I can the wrong way up the freeway to see how long I can last.

I like to steal buses in GTA:SA, take them out on the freeway, and then try to time skidding to a stop so that the cars behind me don't have time to brake. If I do it right, I can get a 20-30 car pileup.
And when I don't care how long I'll last but want to cause an enormous pileup, I do it with a bus instead... :)

[Oblivious ignorant elf]

In single player games:

In Red Alert, i killed my own soldiers in all possible ways when they weren't critically important. I used defensive turrets of all kinds to kill them, i ordered dogs to chew them, i played GTA with an APC or a tank...
I also liked to drop paratroopers (5 weak infartry guys) in the middle of the enemy's base to see how long will they survive.

In Ultima Serpent Isle i played 'rebellion' in the city of Montor. Basically, i tried to survive with an unleveled party, evade guards and kill people Jack the ripper style. Sometimes it worked for quite a while.

In Sim City i raised and lowered taxes repeatedly to have people cheer and boo in a funny rhytm. I also buldozed all the churches.
(not entirely unrealistic?)

In Gunship 2000 i 'rebelled' against my own bases and tried to shoot everything to bits.

In Warcraft i made scenarios where peasants took arms against knights.

[Jay]

In Postal 2, well, let's just say i ejoyed lighting dogs on fire. Alot.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/jason.longden/dogwelder.jpg

[David J Prokopetz]

Found 'em:

Kung-Fu Jesus vs. Disco Hitler

http://www.penguinking.com/images/posted/kungfu.jpg

Christmas Showdown

http://www.penguinking.com/images/posted/santavjesus.jpg

I have way too much fun with the Soul Calibur 3 character creator. :D

[alexandria2000]

My last game of Civ I went all Exalted on it.

There wasn't a city on there that wasn't named for something in Creation.

[Hobgoblin]

Back during my Shogo days, in the mecha levels, I'd head straight for the Red Riot and fire it off in some random direction JUST to hear the screams of "RR FAG!"

Best. Multiplayer. Evar.

It's a shame Shogo wasn't very popular.

[Afterburner]

The first time I got Super Jump in CoH, I spent about a half hour just jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

When I had Super Jump, my favorite method of amusing myself was precision jumping: trying to land on any small, narrow surface, like fences, benches, street lights, etc.

[La Maupin]

Best. Multiplayer. Evar.

It's a shame Shogo wasn't very popular.
I'd also sit, attached spiderlike via tractor beam to the ceiling in some corner in the human areas and grenade-snipe anybody who walked by. ;)

In FPS games, I always figure if somebody isn't complaining about me, I'm not playing well enough ;)

[Ghola]

I have way too much fun with the Soul Calibur 3 character creator. :D


That's awesomeness in concentrated form.

[Peers]

CoH: Accept random team join requests. While I was at the top of a large building. Then Summon Ally the person who invited me... into empty space, and watch them fall. Only worked if they allowed the TP tho. Pity.

GalCiv2: See how long I can go without developping any weapons techs of any kind. If you go heavy-Diplomacy, you can go quite a while...

[Ikselam]

A buddy of mine named his Halo account "a vehicle." It was amusing during the multiplayer. "You have been killed by a vehicle."

I named one of my Unreal Tournament bots "an Evil Robot." Later on, I added "another Evil Robot" to the roster.


Smash Bros. catchphrases:
"I am HUUUUGE!"
(robot voice) "I am metal."
"Yaaaay Goldine."

[La Maupin]

I named one of my Unreal Tournament bots "an Evil Robot." Later on, I added "another Evil Robot" to the roster.


Smash Bros. catchphrases:
"I am HUUUUGE!"
(robot voice) "I am metal."
"Yaaaay Goldine."
In a more insulting vein, I occasionally referred to myself as "Lactose intolerance."

Nothing worse than dying because a glass of milk gave you the trots.

[D. Archon]

Heh,

In Counterstrike, i named myself A Dingo Ate My Baby. Once i named myself Tampax, and got all kinds of wierd comments.

In Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, i would build to make the dinosaurs that fired homing fireballs that travelled a huge distance (completely unbalanced unit, in a very unbalanced game), then make a huge pile of them. I'd find the other player's monarch, and ask if he'd like to give up now. They would always refuse, so i'd unleash my army of fireball throwing dinosaur guys and he'd die real fast. Or he would, except i would turn the speed all the way down so the fireballs would hit in slow motion.

In Operation Flashpoint, i would shoot russians in the leg repeatedly just to see how many bullets it would take to actually kill them. I really liked to do it with the silenced gun, because it took longer.

I regularly shoot guys in the face and crotch these days to turn these areas into a bloody ruin in FPS games. It's easier to do when they're dead, of course.

[IMustBeBored]

In Halo, I once named my character "a baby". So when I killed somebody, it would say "soandso was killed by a baby."

One time a guy named "What if God" was on the opposite team. When I killed him it said "What if God was killed by a baby." :D

[d23]

In Halo, I once named my character "a baby". So when I killed somebody, it would say "soandso was killed by a baby."

One time a guy named "What if God" was on the opposite team. When I killed him it said "What if God was killed by a baby." :D

I just snorted beer through my nose. :D

[Eisenhorn]

In GTA: Vice City, I would go pick up the golf outfit, steal a golf cart from the country club, and drive into the big shopping mall. Then I would proceed to cruise around the mall dealing driveby death in red plaid pants. Perfection.

[Craig Oxbrow]

I just snorted beer through my nose. :D
If I had a beer I'd join you.

[I Love Stupid Stuff]

In GTA III, I like to take an M16, and jump onto the back of a slow moving semi, and shoot at people from my moving platform. Of course, the police eventually start chasing, and then things get entertaining.

A similar trick works in Mercenaries. I take whatever weapons I want (usually two RPGs) and jump onto the roof of a Jaju, the white civilian cars. From there, I can take pot shots at whatever I please.

In Red Alert 2, I sometimes play skirmishes on maps with cities, and attempt to garrison every building.

In Shogun: Total War, I use a sometimes use a tactic that I call "The Horde". I play as Hojo, who can recruit and maintain Yari Samurai at a discount, and build armies consisting entirely of them. They frequently win their first several battles, even with an honor rating of 0.

[Jocelyn Robitaille]

This is gonna be a blast from the past, but I remember what I used to do while playing Lemmings.

Basically, I'd do fireworks competitions with a friend of mine. We would place the lemmings at various places of the game screen and them blow 'em all up. Whichever one of us who managed to blow them up in a fashion that was the most pleasant to the eye won.

Hours of fun!

[Praxias]

When I was much younger, I played a game that I think came with our computer called Life and Death 2. In this game, you are a neurosurgeon. As a twelve year old boy, I cheerfully subjected people to needles in the eye, people with pacemakers to MRIs, those with shellfish allergies to CAT scans and all the various and sundry horrors that one can come up with using unnecessary surgery and an operating room stocked with atropine, lidocane and bone drills. Unfortunately, unlike the first game, you couldn't operate on people who hadn't had any anesthesia. There was something deeply funny about being sent back to the classroom with the following lesson on the chalkboard:

KNIVES AND SCISSORS ARE SHARP. THEY CUT THINGS. ALWAYS USE ANESTHETIC BEFORE SURGURY.

Or something vaguely like that.


Praxias

[Achilles]

When I was much younger, I played a game that I think came with our computer called Life and Death 2. In this game, you are a neurosurgeon. As a twelve year old boy, I cheerfully subjected people to needles in the eye, people with pacemakers to MRIs, those with shellfish allergies to CAT scans and all the various and sundry horrors that one can come up with using unnecessary surgery and an operating room stocked with atropine, lidocane and bone drills. Unfortunately, unlike the first game, you couldn't operate on people who hadn't had any anesthesia. There was something deeply funny about being sent back to the classroom with the following lesson on the chalkboard:

KNIVES AND SCISSORS ARE SHARP. THEY CUT THINGS. ALWAYS USE ANESTHETIC BEFORE SURGURY.

Or something vaguely like that.


Praxias

I remember that game. It was awesome!

[Olof Jönsson]

This is gonna be a blast from the past, but I remember what I used to do while playing Lemmings.

Basically, I'd do fireworks competitions with a friend of mine. We would place the lemmings at various places of the game screen and them blow 'em all up. Whichever one of us who managed to blow them up in a fashion that was the most pleasant to the eye won.

Hours of fun!

...in that vein, me and my buddy played Lemmings on the Amiga, and used to play with Lemmings Demolition Inc, that is, we'd gather up the lemmings in the most strategically correct places to demolish as much of the walls and floors on the level as possible. Then we hit the self-destruct for all of them.
Pop, pop, popopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopop...

[Brandon Schmelz]

Not long after the CoH beta, I created a character named "Experience Debt". He wore a garish costume, but I don't remember much else about him.
Experience Debt hassled other superheroes and followed them around on missions.

[Greg 1]

I came this close in City of Heroes to playing a character who looked decent from the front, but looked from the behind like their bare ass was showing (I gave them a jacket that is longer in the front than in the back and pink tights). I chickened out, though.

[Greg 1]

Strangely, none of the citizens ever noticed that their cities were now called Hellhole, What A Dump, and other oh-so-mature names.

I once won a hotseat two-player game of Reach For The Stars in very short order, using my Holmeslike genius to determine which of the many systems was home to my unmet enemy. The second my astronomers revealed to me that there was a planet in a distant galaxy named "Stench", I made my plan for attack.

[MadDogMike]

When I was much younger, I played a game that I think came with our computer called Life and Death 2. In this game, you are a neurosurgeon. As a twelve year old boy, I cheerfully subjected people to needles in the eye, people with pacemakers to MRIs, those with shellfish allergies to CAT scans and all the various and sundry horrors that one can come up with using unnecessary surgery and an operating room stocked with atropine, lidocane and bone drills. Unfortunately, unlike the first game, you couldn't operate on people who hadn't had any anesthesia. There was something deeply funny about being sent back to the classroom with the following lesson on the chalkboard:

KNIVES AND SCISSORS ARE SHARP. THEY CUT THINGS. ALWAYS USE ANESTHETIC BEFORE SURGURY.

Or something vaguely like that.

LOL! I remember both of those, though for some reason could never get the second one to let me successfully complete surgery (never let me block bleeds). First one was great, especially when it was obvious you screwed up so doing something sadistic wouldn't change anything. After I accidently gloved up before clicking on the soap icon that represented washing (nurses even smarted off to me with "Great, soapy gloves"), took great pleasure in doodling an intricate design on the patient's chest with a scapel without anesthesia (Patient: "AHHHHHH!" Nurse: "Is that the chief of surgery coming in?"). I also turned off the anesthetic when I screwed up the second operation type (aortic aneurism) and since the surgery involved pulling the intestines out of the way, the patient woke up to his guts sitting on his chest :D . I imagine the results were also spectacular when I accidently clicked on the clamp holding the aorta shut after I had cut open the thing to insert a dacron graft and the game obediately removed the clamp. And then of course there was the fun I did with the keyboard commands for atropine/lydocaine; smacked 'em both repeatedly in rapid succession and got a truly entertaining heart beat for a few seconds before death occurred. Fortunately for the world my interest in biology did not lead to an interest in surgery...

[bubbles]

For some reason, this thread reminds me of this (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8100225328673515642&q=videogames+are&pl=true).
That is truly, truly brilliant.

[BlakeT]

While soloing as my Wizard in old EQ1 I'd burn through my mana bar kiting mobs, and then sit some place to med back up to full. I'd then read a book or something like that just to pass the time.

And I used to think that was fun!

[MyriadOfShades]

In my current Civ game, I am Big Khan of the (Mongol) Klingon empire. Our lands and people are known as the Super Monkey.

[Mytholder]

There was this really ancient fighting game on the BBC Micro. I can't even remember the name of it, but it had one odd quirk. If you repeated the same attack move too often, you started losing health. I guess it was a clumsy attempt at balance - you can't just kick your way to a win.

Anyway, I used to keep dodging until my opponent had used all his moves up to the limit, so any attacks he made cost him health. I'd win without every making an attack. Zen combat.

[Elemental]

In Street Fighter 2, whenever I was making a final attack on someone with hardly any health left, I'd keep pressing and unpressing Pause to get a 'dramatic slow motion' effect worthy of a kung fu film.

[Tumbleweed]

Oh! Another one!

First time I played Pokemon (Pokemon Blue- that make me old?) I named my first Pokemon (a Bulbasaur) "To Hell" so every time I threw him out, the game would say "Go! To Hell!"

Silly.

[Afterburner]

http://users.erols.com/aburner/gamepics/ff1-02.gif

http://users.erols.com/aburner/gamepics/ffv.gif

http://users.erols.com/aburner/gamepics/ffv02.gif

EDIT: Goddammit. Any word on when HTML will be fixx0red for this forum?

[IceShadow]

EDIT: Goddammit. Any word on when HTML will be fixx0red for this forum?

I've asked about it in TT quite a bit, as well as others, and we've never gotten official word. It's hard to imagine that an admin hasn't seen it by now, so I can only assume that HTML isn't going to be enabled for this forum. You can use the [img] tags, though. :)

[Jolinar]

When playing EQ2 or WoW I tend to talk to the screen. I sometimes demand that whatever I'm fighting "Submit to my awesomeness!" or other really idiotic phrases.

You too, huh? I had my entire supergroup rolling on CoH.

We'd had a near-wipe against Bastion and I had phase shift, so I was keeping Bastion focued on me by running back and forth through him while they were trying to rez the rest of the group.

Fifteen to twenty minutes of me going 'No no no... Don't look at him, look at me... Look at me.. Here I am... Come on.... Robert? What the hell are you doing? Stay back there before you pull aggro.."

In the sing-song voice you use for talking to little kids. :o

[Afterburner]

You can use the [img] tags, though. :)

Ah! Grewvi. Did not know that. Thanks.

[Dorchadas]

*snip*

For my one white mage FF1 game, I named the other characters PAIN, DEAD and OUCH.

There's one part in Deus Ex II where you come around the corner and two street bums attack you. After the first time when they killed me, I was determined to humiliate them, so I spent ten minutes practicing until I was able to jump from cover and hurl a garbage can with enough force that it would hit the first bum, kill him instantly, bounce and still be traveling fast enough to kill the second bum. :)

[Redforce]

In Oblivion, when I get bored of questing, I just create a large area effect Lightning spell and set the difficulty to lowest, then run around murdering everyone in Cyrodil, trashing shops by scattering goods everywhere, and bouncing unkillable quest NPCs off the walls.

[darktalon]

In Max Payne, my friend and I discovered that you apparently can't kill yourself in slow motion with the grenade launcher (this may have been a mod bug, but fun none-the-less). We'd dive into rooms in slow-mo, blowing up everyone and everything, including Max, who would walk away with 1 hp left. This was after we tired of shooting hobos with the sniper rifle and trying to get the bullet to go in their mouths, up their bums, and other sick diversions.

In Max Payne 2 there's a bit where you're sneaking up behind someone and have a sniper rifle. It wasn't long before the idea occurred to shoot the guy's arse.

[Sensei]

>> in a Full Thrust (miniatures) game ... I named all of my ships after Canadian Cities


I named Full Thrust ship designs after my farm's rather small dogs and other animals.

"We've just detected a Sheltie jumping out of hyperspace at 50,000 kilometers, sir."

"Can a Papillon hold that much weaponry?"

"What the hell kind of ship is a Pygmy Goat class?!"

And my favorite, a dreadnought class...

"Jesus! That Chihuahua kicked our ass!"

[bondetamp]

In WoW, when my Warlock alt is bored, he walks around Badlands buffing everyone with unending Breath. They may be mauled by mobs, but drown they won't.

I also try naming my alts after places in Azeroth. So far I've got SearinGeorge ('lock), Feelwood (Hunter) and SillyZeus (mage).

Not super hillarious, but I generally play at three in the morning, and it doesn't take much to amuse me. :)

[bubbles]

SearinGeorge

Please please please please please can I steal this for my next alt?

:):):):):):):):):)

[Owl]

Frequently, when I'm playing a Civ-type game -- particularly Civ2 or SMAC/X -- I will set my nation/faction name to "The Cajuns" and proclaim myself "King Boudreaux." And then I will name all of my cities/bases after cities and towns in Louisiana.


That is awesome. I say this as a displaced Louisianian. ALL HAIL KING BOUDREAUX!!!

[inane-fedaykin]

Socom 2, if you kill your allies after the game has registered the mission as completed you won't fail. I consider it a challange to wipe every allied npc off the face of the level in the 5 seconds I have between when I get to the end and when the mission ends.

[Stantz]

Just because this thread is now in VGO doesn't mean that stupid shit acknowledges any bounds.

In Twilight Imperium, we'd settle any dispute that we couldn't or didn't want to break out the Star Destroyers for using the voting mechanic.

Letnev: Now that we have determined the state of trade tarifs, do any of the planetary delegations have any new business?
Jordans: The delegates from Sol request the floor.
Letnev: The Speaker of the House recognizes the delegation of the PATHETIC Hoo-mans.
Jordans: As we all know the entire Xxcha government has vanished a Galactic-Standard cycle ago under mysterious circumstances.
Jol-Nar: Our research has identified the cause of the Xxcha's disappearance as the force known as "boo-tay caul."
Jordans: The point stands that something needs to be done about the remains of their empire. We cannot let it stand as an anarchy! I propose we officially dissolve the remains of their government, beginning with scuttling their navy.
L1Z1X: We are Borg. This concept has been evaluated as promising. We dispatch 8 votes for.
Letnev: Absolutely not! 12 votes against.
Jol-Nar: What of their trade contracts?
Jord: They, too, will be dissolved.
Letnev: Really, the only fair route would be to end all trade contracts, and start on fair footing.
Hacan: That would be unwise. 4 votes against.
L1Z1X: We are borg. We do take kindly to threats.
Jol-Nar: For fuck's sake! Will you stop saying "We are borg" already? It wasn't funny the first time, it's won't be funny the 700th time.
L1Z1X: (sliding the Jol-Nar trade contract back) We are borg. You cultural and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistence is futile.
Hacan: We propose that the L1Z1X be disallowed the right to quote any more Trek.
Letnev: Or Monty Python.
Jol-nar: 7 votes for.
Hacan: 4 votes for.
Jord: 5 votes for, and I have a rider to add to that bill. I wish to further propose that the L1Z1X be in charge of the traditional Beer Run at the end of this GalCycle.
Jol-nar: 7 votes for.
Hacan: 4 votes for.
Letnev: 12 votes for. Motion passed.
L1Z1X: I am so opening a can of Death Star on your asses.

[inane-fedaykin]

Man, I gotta start playing TI again.

[Stantz]

>> in a Full Thrust (miniatures) game ... I named all of my ships after Canadian Cities


I named Full Thrust ship designs after my farm's rather small dogs and other animals.

"We've just detected a Sheltie jumping out of hyperspace at 50,000 kilometers, sir."

"Can a Papillon hold that much weaponry?"

"What the hell kind of ship is a Pygmy Goat class?!"

And my favorite, a dreadnought class...

"Jesus! That Chihuahua kicked our ass!"
Ah, yes. That reminds me of the other stupid thing we did in Twilight Imperium. Name the ship types. It got really silly one game when the Hacan superweapon, the Happy-Fun-Ball, ran through my Mentak Long-Nine Cruisers, and was about to plow right into the Galleon class Destroyers. (Turns out, taunting it was a really bad idea.) Meanwhile, the rest of the players started pooling their resources to come up with a counter-weapon. Next turn, they had a battlestation just as powerful as the Happy-Fun-Ball, and the named it after the one thing that would strike terror into the hearts of an entire feline empire.

I like to think that Hacan historians still write about the battle between the Happy-Fun-Ball and the Vacuum Cleaner.

[Old Geezer]

In the newest release of the free trial of Star Wars Galaxies...

when you kill an enemy, the animation is straight out of Warner Brothers. They leap up into the air, kick up their feet, spead out their arms, and land flat on their back, arms outspread, feet up in the air just like Wile E. Coyote.:eek:

Which amused me so much that I smacked mooks until I was up to 10th level.

[bondetamp]

Please please please please please can I steal this for my next alt?

:):):):):):):):):)
Of course. :)

(unless you're playing on Quel'Thalas)

[Hodden]

If I get bored playing Pro Evolution Soccer, I have been known to try and get my entire team sent off.

And I had a stage where if I was playing a shooty game, and I needed to fart, I would try and synchronize my fart with gunfire.

[clamdestine]

Ocarina of Time and the Crooked Cartridge Trick.

Between jamming out with the Imperial March on the ocarina, to all the fun that the CCT provided, I think OoT was the game I played the most and the longest.

[AWOL Joe]

Ocarina of Time and the Crooked Cartridge Trick.

Between jamming out with the Imperial March on the ocarina, to all the fun that the CCT provided, I think OoT was the game I played the most and the longest.

What was the CCT, and what did it do to OoT?

[clamdestine]

What was the CCT, and what did it do to OoT?

The answer to the second question is "all sorts of crazy stuff, such as allowing people without the gold cartridge to do the Swordless Link Trick, and other fun things, including access to the Beta Quest, when combined with a Gameshark."

The first question is only answerable by a website called "The Odyssey of Hyrule," which should still exist.

[toastmastah_extravaganzah]

Here's another naming oddity: In Final Fantasy, I try to give characters silly names that won't get lame during play.

FFIX taken as example:

Zidane became Skaven
Vivi became BlakWiz (Short for Black Wizard)
Dagger became Flower
Adelbert Steiner became Adelbert Penis. The scary thing is, it sounded so fitting that I forgot about it...it was just the right name for the guy.
(I don't remember what I called the rest)

In FF7, I tried to use the exact same names that I had seen back when it was new and I sat and watched a friend play it. But I don't remember what I had callled them all, so Barrett became Mutha...which worked even better than Penis.

Shenmue: I have a "Ryu Hazuki is in shock and denial"-game. I am going for the bad ending in the hard way. Instead of investigating or applying for University, Ryu is talking smack about his forthcoming revenge and spending 500 yen a day on candy (to get raffle tickets) and arcade games. The kitty gets no attention, nor do the few leads that he has picked up.(I was the one who reviewed Shenmue here on RPG.net, so it makes sense that I should mention it. (http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_6024.html))

And lastly, Worms Armageddon. I've mastered the pyrrhic victory tactic, also known as "no worm standing". Basically, you open a multiplayer game...
...You put all the worms in one long line above each other.
...And then the worm in the bottom starts drilling.

Que all the worms drowning when he hits water. :p