Great topic.
Honestly, I hate how big reviews for games have become. I believe that it does directly affect sales and peoples perceptions of a game. I remember back in the late 90’s to early 00’s when I never looked up reviews for games. I mean I read reviews because I used to buy a shit ton of gaming magazines before I had the internet, but I didn’t actively seek out reviews to determine whether or not I bought a particular game, and to be honest, back then the reviews didn’t really bother me because I too young to even understand about all the technical aspects, and my wanting of the game pretty much came from seeing Screenshots, Boxart and playing the demo disc that would come with the Official Playstation Magazine.
Shit gets heated nowadays. I’ve had many heated discussions with Brook and Talon about ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ games. I do read a lot of reviews now these days and sometimes they do determine whether or not I go out and buy it, but even now, if a game looks good to me then I will pick it up, despite what negative criticism it gets. Dead Island is a prime example of that. It got raped in the reviews, but it looked like fun from what I had seen, which made me want to pick it up. Unfortunately, the technical issues just couldn’t be overlooked so I stopped playing it whilst they worked on a patch, and I will go back to it soon.
We live in the internet age now where Gamers are more aware about what they are purchasing and the Gaming Press definitely does influence that. I try to play as many games as I possibly can due to being part of GameManx and actually having the means these days to buy my own games pretty much whenever I want instead of having to wait for Christmas or my Birthday to receive them as gifts.
Unfortunately I believe we have lost the days where a person walks into a game store and buys something that looks appealing to them. Like I said, gamers are too aware these days, and a game can either live or die based on it’s metacritic score. The consequence of that is a lot of gaming gems will be lost.
Youtube.com/scatigno9
