Inconsistant skill at games?
 

I'm just wondering if anyone else does this. When I'm playing a game and get to a really hard stage, I'll get killed a few times, then I'll start doing progressively worse, then suddenly I'll conquer the level without taking any damage or hiitting like 95% accuracy or something crazy like that.

It's funny because I'll have 2-3 evenly matched games on a football game or something with friends, then the next game I'll beat them like 80-7, then they'll do the same to me a game later. They get mad at me because they think I'm just letting them win but I really am that inconsistant playing games.

Anyways does anyone else do this?

well, not quite as extreme as your example, but I do remember one game:

Unreal Tournament (the original)... The game was pretty easy to complete (and lot's of fun too), except for the last level (in the spaceship with the ring at one end).
Anyway, I tried for what seemed like a month to complete the level and kept getting my *ss kicked like there was no tomorrow...
I'd start out with a 10-1 lead, and lose 15-10....

So after that month I'd had it with that game, and I put it away. About 3 months later I decided to try again... Guess what: I beat it on my second try. I guess the three month waiting made the opponent lazy :)

I have same type of thing happen to me. Friends and I are playing Smash Brothers and I'll lose all the time ( I hardly ever win) and then one round i just so happen to completley dominate, i can survive with 200% damage and still knocking people out the level. leave the match with like 10 KOs. Its odd, but it does come in waves for me. Just my waves are reallllllly spread out. Most of the time Ness is getting his arse handed to him.

I don't suppose you have auto-handicap on? ;)

Occasionally I'll have a moment of meltdown or brilliance, but by and large I am mediocre at the FPS, solid at the RTS, cheap but effective at the fighter.

If you're evenly matched in relative skill, it's gonna come down to mental focus, determination, and counter-tactics. Winners become overconfident and lose; losers become determined and win. Seen it all the time, in myself and in others.

Yeah, I have rounds where sometimes I suck at BF, DC, UT2K4. It's usually the first 10 minutes of the first match where I'm trying to "get my bearings" on playing an FPS again (I just don't have enough time to properly dedicate to FPS).

After those first 10 minutes though, I get exponentially better, until the point I start pwning. Then I tend to level off, and start sucking again when I get sick of playing. Again, getting "sick of playing" is a side effect of not having enough time to play FPS regularly.

Similar thing but slightly different. Last night I went back to playing SSX3 after not touching it for several months and somehow managed to smash all my record scores / times from when I last played it.

I've had similar experiences with many other games in the past.

I've been to the last level of Einhander for the PS1 once. Aside from that, I was never able to make it past the fourth stage.
One of my fondest arcade memories was taking on challenger after challenger at King of Fighters '98 (or maybe '97) on a single quarter. There was a small crowd around the machine by the time I was done. I lost after a while, it was bound to happen, I'm not that good at KOF.

With me my score varies extremely from round to round, but it's whether or not the breaks go my way. Every game I play I usually end up doing the dirty work. In BF1942 I would capture all the flags (yes, with some teams I literally did capture all the flags, and in some cases hold the crappy teams off solo.) In SOCOM 2 I'll be the back-up to the camper, I'll be guarding the objective, I'll be suiciding for my teammates to get into position.

Sometimes I'd be first, sometimes I'd be in the middle, sometimes I'd be last. I never really cared that much about the score, all I know is more times than not I end up on the winning team :)

Shit man, if you're doing all that, then your score should definitely be up there. Especially if you're capturing flags, that's 2 points a go.

hehe, no no no. We tried that a couple of times, but it just felt back and forth no real skill.

my experience with this is mostly from FPS's. I guess I'll get into a killing frenzy and try to blast through a level only to get my butt handed to me 50% of the time but the other 50 I'll annihilate everything with no damage. May be it's lucky shots or I see them before they "see" me. but it's easy to say that it's across the board for me.

My skill varies quite a bit in FPSs but the variation is usually relative to how well I know the level. I can usually dominate a server if I know the map well enough (I kinda of go into a weird FPS trance where I stop thinking and just own), but sometimes I just get on a roll and suck for a map or two.

Applies to CS, DOD, BF:V, Red Orchestra and Frag Ops.

i do that stuff all the time. alot of times if i get to a hard part in a game and i just keep doing horrible at it for the first 20 or so tries i give up and try again in a few hours and get through it just fine.

Whenever I play fighting games, I usually has a pretty consistent "good day" or "bad day" for the whole day. It's wierd; one day I'm killing everone with Sophitia, the next day I can't get a single win in.

Mine has to do with how much energy I want to use to play the game. If I concentrate while playing a game I typically do very well, but I'm usually too lazy to continue concentrating so my gameplay falls off.

Usually what happens to me is, I'll get my ass kicked a few times, learn from my mistakes, and not make them the next time.

Funny that this was brought up. I was just discussing this with my best friend and my fiancee over a game of Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. We are all good at several genres of video games, but our talent is very inconsistent... it's like sports, almost. You'll have a player in a slump (see this spring's Derek Jeter) who can't seem to win despite pulling out all the tricks and combos they know. Suddenly, it all clicks together during one round, one combo, a pause to load (on the PS2, that is), etc. After that, they come out swinging and every button press is smooth as silk. One becomes "clutch" like a Michael Jordan (pre-Wizards) fadeaway jumper, and all opponents fall before them.

Weird. Just weird. No wonder there are people making hundreds of thousands of dollars in major video game tourneys; this really is like a sport with no athletics!

I fall into "the zone" every so often. I'll be playing like normal, then all the sudden I stop thinking about what buttons to press and just kick all sorts of ass. If I'm playing a game with scores, I'll get something 2 or 3 times above what I usually do (pinball a good example)

That fits me perfectly.