I've had my 360 for a while now, and I'm trying to get it set up for being online, but my biggest concern is that I am terrible. I know this for a number of reasons:

1)I can't get into the Halo trilogy. I've been told this is the equivilent of a guitarist hating Townsend and Gilmore.

2)When online, I am refered to as 'nOOb', 'The nOOb', 'W*nker', and in team based games, feel much like the fat boy with bad knees picked last in gym class.

3)I have only completed 3 games: Deus Ex, Medal of Honor:Allied Assault, and Portal (and portal doesn't count)

4)A small 8 year old family member regularly beats me at any FPS.

5)The worst thing is, I am so bad, and yet I own a 360, PS3, PSP and enjoy PC gaming.

So basically my question is, how do I get better? Is it just a matter or practice, or will I always be a waste of cyber-space?

how much time have you put in so far?

A lot..to be fair, mainly on sports games, but iv'e been gaming at reasonable intensity since about 98, on and off. Current gaming is about....8 hours a week

Try playing a bit more. And don't get scared by the n00b haters. Try private matches or a great way is gamer night. The only people who critisize you, only joke.

I'm fine with being told I'm not very good, the concern I have is that by playing online I am being a pain in the ass for everyone. If you have a nOOb on your team in COD4 for example, wouldn't that be annoying?

Not if he can be my Meat Shield! :P

Do you play FIFA 2008?

Yeah a lot of Fifa, I can manage that! Prefer PES

you can join me. i know i suck & proud of it.
winning all the time sucks anyway & it has side effects, plus everyone does that, so go against the norm, stand tall & be a n00b.

its all about trying again and again, when i started out in UT3, i ****ing sucked hard, i would get one or two kills, then playing hours, upon hours, as well as being absolutely pissed off, i also began to actually come top of games and so on, and now, when i set up small lan parties with my mates, im always 1st or 2nd in the rankings, so yeh, try try and try again.

or it could be because sports games are more your forte, i cant play sports games for shit, i always lose when i play them, even mario strikers.... :S

you can join me. i know i suck & proud of it.
winning all the time sucks anyway & it has side effects, plus everyone does that, so go against the norm, stand tall & be a n00b.

You're decent at R6V2. CoD4 just isn't your kangaroo.

Cool, I'll go ahead with my online plans (there goes £60), get myself kitted out, and then this nOOb is gunna cause chaos ;)

Just keep at it, sooner or later something will just "click". Just ignore the A-holes and enjoy yourself.

When I started playing Guitar hero it took me a full year to move from medium to hard, but one day while screwing around I figured some simple little tricks that got the extra mile. Don't be afraid to try different stratagies and playing styles untill you find one the suits you.

Join in on a gamer night - at least then your team mates wont bitch at you as much.

Plus, dont listen to anyone else while you're playing - and i mean no one. Plug in your headset, turn the sound down and take them off. Even if you are a good player, there are dicks on XBL who will still give you a hard time. You could just have low self gamer esteem.

I dont mind being a bit of a n00b sometimes. I am lucky enough to have a few friends who are better than me and I'm a bit of a meat shield. my Kill:Death ratio is something like 0.6 but my win:loss ratio is about 1.5 lol. The bullet absorber is the most essential part of a game. Smack talk is pretty common though, when it gets to genuinley hateful/nasty language just mute them then file a complaint. Its the only way forward

Cool, cheers guy :)

I suck at basically any console FPS...but I'm getting better. It's just a matter of how much time you put into it...and playing against friends of around the same skill level adds a whole new dimension to getting better. When you have the possibility of the person right next to you blowing your face in spawn after spawn, you're highly motivated to figure out how to blow theirs in first.

I know how you feel. I got Live a couple of months ago, and I was afraid I'd be crap but I'm doing all right now. There's a learning curve with each game, so nearly everyone's a noob at some point. My K/D ratio went to hell when I started playing CoD 4 online, but it's up to 0.85 now.