Brittany "Rampancy"
Sunday, November 30th 2008

21 Comments »
Editorial, Rant

What’s up, BROSEPH?

Because I’m tired of all the games that I have, and my friends haven’t picked up anything good enough for me to leech off of them, I’m in the market to make a New Video Game Purchase. That’s right, a New Video Game Purchase. Not a borrow or a rent, but an exchange of money for goods.

Where do I start? Well, I’ve had my eye on Samba de Amigo for a good while. I never did get to pick up the Dreamcast version, and I’m a sucker for music/rhythm games. You can’t go wrong with monkeys in sombreros, especially those who dance to songs that were previously in Dance Dance Revolution (El Ritmo Tropical, anyone?).

BUT – the mere fact that I am interested in the game, have prior knowledge of what it offers, and am planning on buying it based on the fact that I enjoy the genre, I still am not going to purchase it. You know why?

Because on Metacritic, its reviews have been amalgamated into a 67. That must mean it sucks, blows, and other variants of the same saying. It must be such a shitty game that it has no worth whatsoever. In fact, why doesn’t Nintendo fill about a million trash bags with every manufactured copy and chuck them out into the ocean, Dexter-style? Dancing monkeys are so gay, anyway. Who the hell would want to play this game? I haven’t even really tried the game out for myself at all. Why would I even need to? It’s obvious from reading these reviews that it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

So, I’m going to go with LittleBigPlanet. It got universal acclaim, and a score of 95. Obviously, I will enjoy it more even though I’ll need to go out and purchase a PS3 with my nonexistent extra cash, the reason I’m devoid of the system in the first place. Everyone likes LBP. I should too. Haha, yeah. Sackboys are probably the cutest mascots I’ve EVER SEEN!

Alright. Before you decide to shun me for the rest of my stay here at NG, hear this: the above was dripping with complete, unabashed sarcasm. However, the instance that I described is terrifyingly real. Yes, there are people out there who base every buying decision within gaming solely on reviews that others have written. Rather than using reviews and secondhand opinions to get a feel for what they’re getting into, these morons believe that someone else’s thoughts about a certain title must be commandments.

If Game Informer absolutely loved My Horse and Me, then you better believe that these sheep are going to file out and infiltrate their nearest store to pick up a copy of that “innovative and fantastic” game. Whatever happened to forming your own opinion? How the hell are you going to know if YOU like a game based only on what others said?

It’s a depressing sign of the times when we look to higherups to determine where our money should be spent. Renting games is affordable, and doing actual research on a title you’re interested in doesn’t take too much time. Reviewers, at least the more prominent ones, are getting paid for their opinion just like movie critics. They’re not getting paid to put out a baselines score for a title to turn off potential buyers.

Reviews are OPINIONS. True, they are littered with factual information, but at the end of the day they are the opinions of the individual. It’s up to you to decide whether or not to play a game based on what you heard, or what you worked out yourself.

Case in point: I have thoroughly enjoyed Call of Duty: World at War, despite what some elitist assholes have grilled it for. It does nothing new, waaahh. Let’s all complain about how every video game should reinvent the fucking genre again. I felt that it did what it set out to do fantastically, and I was pleased with my purchase. However, if I had stuck to reviews to make my decision, I’d probably still be stuck with Gears 2’s broken multiplayer right now or playing my umpteenth match of Team Slayer.

There are a myriad of games that have been released just in this year alone that will be overlooked and forgotten simply because they didn’t break the mold, have millions of dollars spent on their ad campaigns, or didn’t pay enough, ER, didn’t spend enough time on the game for it to get a good review.  These people who can’t make up their own minds for themselves are causing this issue.

Did you ever really stop to think about what this is like? Oh, Breathing 2: Lung Capacity just came out. The graphics suck, and it’s unoriginal. I probably will stop breathing now since everyone else says it’s disappointing. Far-fetched a bit? But it’s the same premise. Stop being elitist pricks. Give games a chance, even if it seems the whole world is against them. Who knows? Thinking for yourself might actually be a worthwhile exercise. Then again, don’t think too hard. We wouldn’t want anyone to hurt themselves.