Methods for sharpening and making reaction time faster?

[Icecap Veiwin]

So it was yesterday, at night. My brother told me to catch his little sword stick thingy in my hands. I rarely ever did. I thought to myself "shouldn't I be able to do this..?" I reminisced at how terrible I was at video games when I was younger, and that I'm only starting to get good.

As a result of that, my reaction time is not as sharp as it should be. Not good for shmups and the like.

So, I've resorted to asking the kings of reaction time -- how do I sharpen my senses and skills?

[BulletMagnet]

I suspect that some of the insane Japanese world-record players were trained by ninjas.

But seriously, as far as shmups are concerned, at least, all you've gotta do to improve "the basics" is practice, be patient, and enjoy the ride.

[landshark]

So it was yesterday, at night. My brother told me to catch his little sword stick thingy in my hands.\

Don't say that around the wrong people

[EddyMRA]

So it was yesterday, at night. My brother told me to catch his little sword stick thingy in my hands.\

Don't say that around the wrong people

ROFL! Classic!

[Specineff]

No amount of training, no synthetic stimulant, no amount of time spent with a game will ever beat a good night's rest. Trust me. Get your Z's.

[Diabollokus]

Ice cap what sort of reaction times? do you mean relfex's or just for shmups? I'd do a lot of martial arts drills for reaction times many can be done with 2 people and they work very well, I'm much sharper in any sport i play because of it, not sure if it works on shmups though. If thats the kind of stuff your after from a physical point of view let me know.

[it290]

A couple tabs of LSD usually does the trick. Muhaha.

[iatneH]

I don't think reaction time is the whole story.

You might be able to see that there's a huge cloud of bullets coming toward you, but you also need to know WHAT to do about it.

You might train yourself to fly off to the side and avoid the whole thing, or maybe you might train yourself to charge headfirst straight into it to exploit the little gap that becomes closed off by the time it reaches your current location.
You could teach yourself to instinctively get as far away as possible, or you could train yourself to be able to move away as LITTLE as possible without getting hit, and if you have it down to reflex, you can do it without even looking at the bullets in question, you'll just dodge them by muscle memory while you're already processing the next wave.

[it290]

Another big point for me would be confidence. If I'm playing a manic shmup, especially ones with sometimes confusing and/or dazzling bullet patterns like the touhou series, I will get nailed almost every time if I start thinking that the pattern is overwhelming. On the other hand, if I stay cool and tell myself 'no problem - I can handle this, I know what to do, it's all in the timing' etc. then my chances for survival are much higher.

[SAM]

I really thinking that shmups can be made an Olympic Game event. You need real skill to be good at shmups.

Just wonder which game should be choisen to play during the match.

[Diabollokus]

I read somewhere that a medical test was done it was discovered if you have trouble beating a game the best thing to do is go to sleep and play it in the morning!

We should do a survey of our own what time of the day are you most productive in gaming.

I have a feeling olympic shmupping wouldn't get the big crowds unless it was somehow combined with womans volley ball, dam them and their volley ball thongs.