Editor's note: Here's an interesting story about one gamer's struggle with very specific types of gameplay in very specific genres. Can developers ever make his gaming life better for him? -Shoe

I find myself wondering lately if I am fit to review or comment on certain types of games at all. I'm an atypical gamer, mentally unfit for certain genres. I'm not sure if my depression or ADHD are involved, but I am naturally inefficient mentally in many situations that a great deal of gamers seem to excel at. This leads to entire genres being an ordeal to try to play for me.

I cannot read an enemy's moves in a fighting game quickly enough to counter with anything but educated guesswork. I cannot train myself to repeat a sequence of button presses and joystick movements to create an impressive combo.

I cannot pick a plan of attack and stick to it rigidly. Fighting games are locked off to me -- a very interesting concept that I am incapable of participating in. My brain is simply not quick enough.

The real-time-strategy genre is no better. I can't split my attention all the ways that are needed. I am expected to keep track of mining for material, my defensive force, base building, and my offensive and scouting forces -- it's a complete information overload.

I am also native to consoles and unable to wrap my head around shortcut keys, keyboard macros, clicking efficiency, and general build-order priorities. It's maddening.

Then we have the character-based action genre. Combine all my problems with fighting games, then add on required awareness of multiple attacking enemies in a 360-degree radius. Then throw in hard-as-hell bosses with rigid patterns requiring strategy to defeat. Also consider the high level of masochism that is inherent in the genre's fan base. This usually means even the easy levels are too difficult for me to learn the game on.

Learning curves in most games of the twitch variety are learning cliffs for me. If I was a controller-breaking man I would have a very expensive habit with these games.

Some people tell me to keep trying. The problem is I have kept trying. I will buy a game in one of these genres at least once a year out of curiosity and persistence, and I always end up swearing and upset. I will watch videos of successful players and understand concepts but always falter at sheer execution.

Ninja Gaiden, Starcraft, and Street Fighter 4 mock me with their clever game mechanics and impressively skilled players. “You'll never experience these games as they are intended,” I imagine the designers telling me in their passive-aggressive fashion. “We don't want your kind, slow boy.”

Others would just tell me I'm bad at games. Bullshit, I would tell them. I rock first-person shooters like a goddamn hurricane. I went from sucking at FPS games and barely beating Halo on easy to beating it annually on Legendary and playing every FPS on the block with no problems on at least medium. I'm also good enough at multiplayer shooters to hang with skilled PC players while using a damn 360 controller in Team Fortress 2 (mouse and keyboard controls make my console-bred head hurt.)

I'm not a pro-level player, but my situational awareness and improvisational problem-solving more than make up for reaction-time deficiency and lower button dexterity in the average FPS.

If a game offers ways to play it that don't involve being a near-psychic button gymnastics god, I'm fine at it -- like every other gamer.

The difference between a hard game I can beat with patience (Final Fantasy Tactics for example) and a hard game I can't ever beat (Ninja Gaiden) is all in how much the developers want to push the difficulty of executing something after you have figured out how to do it. The more taxing a game is on the reptile parts of my brain that jump when something is in the corner of my eye or that respond to a stimulus with a rote response, the more impossible it is for me to play. I get maddened and frustrated by trial and error as it is. Once the skills of memorization, reaction, and button dexterity are pushed as far as these games go, it goes from frustrating to fundamentally impossible.

I personally want to play these genres. The complex strategy and clever game design involved call out to the deepest parts of my appreciation for games. I don't feel like a whole gamer unless I can experience the whole of games.

Unfortunately, wanting to play them and actually being decent at them are two completely different things. The time I would need to become even halfway proficient at a game like Starcraft is impossible for me to spend and actually doing so would not be fun in the least until I got there. It would be like trying to learn a foreign language without ever using the letter S.

Game makers don't seem to be obligated to change up games in those genres to make them more playable for people like me outside of the occasional family-friendly gem like Super Smash Bros. I pine for some kind of game design paradigm shift where cleverness and problem solving are prioritized in all games enough to make up for my lack of "mad skillz."

Every time I run into a challenge in a game that punishes me in this fashion I feel conflicted. I wonder if I should hold the game makers responsible for my bad experiences or if the "We didn't make this game for you" excuse truly applies? Is locking the game out for me really required to make it fun for those more suited to its skill set?

Are game makers going to bridge the gap for me one day, or is the fact that I even care a waste of my time?