Video Games Everyone Claims To Be Good At
If you think you're really good at a video game, you're probably not. You may wear your gaming skills as a badge of geeky honor, but you're probably only slightly better than your floppy-hotdog-thumbed friends or a handful of pimply teenagers online. Unless you're competing on a national level, keep that ego in check, and check out these games that just about everyone claims to have mastered.
Tetris (1984)
As the most popular puzzle video game of all time, everyone and their mothers have probably played Tetris at one point. But dropping the long piece to score some lines doesn't make you a champ. Rack up three Tetrises in a row as your pile of blocks scrapes the top of the screen and you might be approaching a competitive level...but if you use the block-suspending "easy spin" available on some platforms, you're pretty much just a baby.
Goldeneye 007 (1997)
Through the haze of nostalgia, the blocky polygons of Goldeneye may seem beautiful, and hearken back to a more innocent time of mercilessly gunning down your buddies in government compounds. Before "open world" gaming was a thing, the limitations of Goldeneye made the game pretty quick to master: pick up a gun, throw a bomb, run away, die, respawn. But once you've reached that skill plateau, there's no more going up. You will never be better than the biggest gun you find.
Mario Kart (1992)
It doesn't matter what version of Mario Kart you're playing: you will probably fall off the Rainbow Road. If you can make it through that course without going over the edge, you're probably some kind of heartless, calculating robot...but you're still not alone. If the need for speed isn't your thing, Mario Kart's more competitive mode might suit you. However, a champion is not defined by how many red shells they can find, but by how many they can avoid.
Pac-Man (1980)
Settle down, Billy Mitchell. Everyone can get through the first few screens of Pac-Man. And even if you are Mr. Mitchell, you've already lost on a more important, hairstyle-based level. Competitive Pac-play is the subject of both documentary and legend, so unless you're reaching that kill screen, you're just a yellow ball eating other balls in the world's worst haunted house.
Grand Theft Auto III (2003)
If you're really good at GTA III (or any of its sequels), you're probably a sociopath. If you measure your worth based on the number of computer people you can murder in ten seconds, please don't leave the house. Throw your car keys into a river, burn all of your shoes, delete your Facebook profile, and just stay inside. When discussing GTA, one can describe their thoroughness in accomplishing every horrible task, but please, don't announce that you're really great at stealing imaginary cars.
World Of Warcraft (2004)
Playing WoW is a little like being a nine-year-old playing Pokémon: if you could afford a Charizard, you don't really need to try anymore. Likewise, if you can drop $600 on an in-game Spectral Tiger or $200 on a Feldrake, you're not a great player, just a wealthy one. No one is going to see your El Pollo Grande and think you've got mad skills, just mad dough and a lot of loneliness.
Super Smash Bros. (1999)
Another popular game for professional players, Smash Bros. features an enormous roster of video game characters thrown together in a battle royale. And with a roster that diverse, some characters are going to be more powerful than others. Some moves are so accidentally powerful that they're banned from competition, but that won't stop you from being a button-mashing jerk at home. Why don't you choose someone other than Meta Knight for once?
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991)
The tragic truth of Street Fighter, many players' first beat-'em-up, is that the game just isn't that hard. In fact, it's so easy that it was revisited at least six more times in versions of increasing difficulty, all including the words "Street Fighter II" in their titles. Many regard the ridiculously-named Super Street FIghter II Turbo as the hardest in the series, so if you want to be good at something, be good at that.
Star Fox (1993)
While Star Fox and its various sequels aren't notoriously difficult, many feature one game-breaking move that makes it almost impossible to die: the barrel roll. Tap a button twice and you spin into a laser-deflecting immortal, if only for a second. While it's meant to be used sparingly as a countermove, self-proclaimed "great" players have their finger mashing on that barrel rolling trigger constantly. If you're going to cheap out like that, at least set the game to cockpit view, champ. See how far you make it before you barf.