Bad sense of direction - do you suck at video games?

[Jeeebus]

I think I can fairly assume that I'd be teabagging the OP in little to no time in most video games.

 

[Ruptga]

To the contrary, I credit my awesome sense of direction to all those hours spent playing 3d games as a child.

 

[LtPage1]

Fail.

 

[TridenT]

Depends. I'd do a lot better if my damn car had a compass in it. It's kinda impossible to tell if I am going north, south, east or west when almost every street I am on has a name and no numbers at all after going from a street that goes north to west to east to west again all randomly. (Curved streets ftl) (No NE or SE or anything, all just names like, "Jones st") This only happens in Portland on an occasional day when I try to experiment with exit ramps in places I have no clue about. I can find my way back though. It does take some time though so I don't try to do this when I am running a tad late.

 

[dbk]

I am a visual/kinetic learner, so all it takes is one time for me to drive to a certain destination to remember it. Every time I move to a new area or even vacation somewhere, I will be able to navigate anywhere within that area within a couple of days. I will even remember it years later. Must be that Apache Indian in me

I'm pretty much the same. If I get there once I'll remember it.

 

[dbk]

North South East West is useful when there is clear sun in the sky or you have a compass, or you know which way the streets/roads lead. Or, if you're in Manhattan, you can't get lost.

If you're in an area where you don't know whether the road you are on goes in which direction, then landmarks can be more useful.

But the answer is that you should be able to find your way using a map and any type of directions.

Only time I ever mention direction is when I'm pointing out a route/highway like 495E, 29 South, etc... I lean more on landmarks and street names.

 

[Matthiasa]

Depends on foot I can back to anywhere else I've ever been on foot no problem.
Driving not so much.

 

[Colt45]

I'm fine with location in person, I'm fine in 2D dungeons and stuff.

3D games fuck me up though.

 

[MarkXIX]

I am a visual/kinetic learner, so all it takes is one time for me to drive to a certain destination to remember it. Every time I move to a new area or even vacation somewhere, I will be able to navigate anywhere within that area within a couple of days. I will even remember it years later. Must be that Apache Indian in me

I have the same ability. Several years ago I went to visit my uncle that I hadn't visited in well over 10 years and I wasn't driving the last time I visited.

Over 10 years later I could navigate straight to his house over 2.5 hours away from Seattle.

This comes in very handy as a Soldier as well. I can navigate terrain and remember rock formations, tree arrangements, etc., along the trail and get where I'm going without issue.

 

[jaqie]

she would say: "take a left at the wendy's"
me: so head South?
her: I don't know!

She sounds *JUST* like me there.

I navigate by landmark... until I learn the roads and landmarks I cannot navigate without a printout of google maps no matter how simple it is. The same with games. I take a while to memorize the landmarks and lay of the land (even more lately as I am dealing with the beginning stages of dementia) but once I remember, I remember years even decades later. I recently went back to my first MMORPG, Asheron's Call, for just a few days, and I remembered how to get everywhere perfectly by heart... I still get lost in Borderlands KNOXX content because I've only been playing that a few weeks.

 

[ChaoZ]

I'm fine in games, but I absolutely suck at directions in the real world. I gave up trying to remember street names; I just find my way around by recognizing places.

 

[Leros]

Here's a question then: My fiance' is from NJ and everything she knows is by a Landmark. Here in Colorado, we say North, South, East, West.
ie
she would say: "take a left at the wendy's"
me: so head South?
her: I don't know!

She gets lost using my directions, I get lost using hers.

Who else goes by this? (Landmark vs. Heading)

Drives me batshit...

My girlfriend does something similar that drives me crazy. She doesn't like exit numbers, she likes using the words on the sign. I'll say "take exit 111" and she's say "take the Main Street exit". I like knowing the number so I know where it is. If I tell her the number she'll probably drive past it. Can be frustrating when she navigates.

 

[Nox51]

Forget driving or computer games worst I've had was launching boat at like 5 am in complete darkness, shortly after low tide.

The boat ramp is situated a short distance up a river before you hit the ocean and it does a slight S curve with tidal flats on one side and boats anchored on the other side of the channel. Also to you have to go around an island just past the mouth.

Complete darkness couldn't see a thing outside. Now this wouldn't be so bad since the channel is usally marked by green and red buoys on starbord/port. Except some of them weren't working. In the S bend. And the gps decided it hated the satelittes and lost them. And there were no other vessels using the channel at the same time either to tag along or get a reference off.

Eventually we got to the part where the boats were anchored and I used those as reference and the buoays of the outer channel. Before that? Seat of the pants navigation based on water depth.... just retarded.

On the issue of driving I've seen dad driving and mother in the passanger seat with map to provide directions. Dad asked at an intersection if it's time to turn left. Mother says turn left and points right. Dad "WTF?!" keeps going straight and pulls over on the left and just stares at her.

 

[Jeff7]

Hexen II was the worst for my direction sense in a video game - I'd get lost in there constantly, and end up repeatedly going in circles.

And driving in cities is bad too. My idea of a proper city design is a consistent grid. But, reality never matches with that; there are often odd turns, roads suddenly change names, road names are often unposted, or else the road name is on a tiny sign that's only visible as you're passing the road you might want, one-way roads get in the way of where you are vs where you want to go.....it doesn't work out well for me.
If I don't know exactly where I need to go, I'm going to end up taking quite a few wrong turns. What should be a 20 minute drive can take 40-50 minutes. (And yes, I will ask for directions at times, though this doesn't always help much. I'm generally more concerned with ensuring that I don't run into anyone, or go off the road, than looking all over the place for landmarks or road names.)

Google Street View has helped out considerably with this though, for when I need to drive across town.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

My mom and I (the unmasculine son) have great sense of direction. My father and brothers are terrible. Stop stereotyping. :'(

EDIT: And despite great real-life location memory, I get lost in first person shooters quite frequently. But I blame that on growing up with Marathon, which was basically playable entirely through map mode.