Editor’s note: Andrew doesn’t know what to do when it comes to figuring out whether or not he’ll like a game before he plunks down his hard-earned cash. He’s not the only one out there that struggles with this decision. Share your stories in the comments. – Aaron
I recently finished a semester-long project in which I attempted to determine what factors influenced a person’s decision to go see a movie during its opening weekend. As I worked on this project, I began to think about how the topic related to games. Over the years, I have used various different methods to choose games, and I thought it might be interesting to discuss some of them.
When I first began to play video games, I would select titles based completely on their box art. As you can imagine, this method was about as effective as walking into a game store blindfolded, and then hoping to walk out with a winner. Sure, I played some gems, but I also played some horrible, horrible games.
Honestly, I also don’t know how I picked up some titles as there were some games I had with terrible box art
To make matters worse, I didn’t have the money to buy many games. This meant I was often stuck having to play my bad purchases more than anyone I ever wanted to.
Eventually I grew wiser and decided to pick my birthday and Christmas presents a little more carefully. I decided to ask my friends in elementary school what they were playing. I would go over to their houses after school and hang out with them at the arcades, too. I first discovered PC gaming when my friend handed me a floppy disc of Wolfenstein 3D.
It was also around this time that I made one of my most questionable gaming decisions ever. My parents had a rule that I could only own one console. All my friends had the Genesis, so I thought the decision was clear: I asked for a Genesis over a Super Nintendo .Little did I know that I would miss many amazing franchises, especially those in the role-playing genre.
When I began middle school, I discovered EGM. I had limited exposure to Nintendo Power before this, but I never had much interest in it. I still remember picking up Issue 54, with Mortal Kombat 2 on the cover. MK 2 was not only one of my favorite arcade games, it was one of the few fighters in which I’ve excelled.
After that first encounter with EGM, I fell in love with gaming magazines; they solely guided my purchasing decisions during most of the ’90s. I often associate this period with when my gaming tastes really started to open up. I went from only playing franchises, licensed games, and fighters, to playing role-playing games, strategy titles, and popular action titles, as well.
My family got our first computer in 1994, but it wasn’t until we got broadband that I started to use the Internet seriously as a gaming aid. Over the years, I went through many sites as my main source of reviews — I’ve probably tried to rely on all the main sites at one point or another.
Internet reviews were great for a time, but I noticed a big change: I didn’t always enjoy the games as much as the person writing the review. Perhaps games had started to grow more complex, and were being designed to appeal to a smaller niche, but a glowing review no longer guaranteed I’d like it.
Reviews had also become ridiculously long. While I don’t recall specifics, I do remember some reviews that were 6-7 pages long and covered every minute feature of game. Reviews had gotten tedious; I just wanted a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
Picking games had became a chore.
Now, sites like Game Rankings and Metacritic aggregate review scores — everything you need is all on one page.While this has simplified things some, I still find the whole process of of trying to determine whether or not I’ll like a game to be overly complex and tedious.
Why?
I now have access to more games than ever thanks to GameFly. I’ve also got more and more friends who are gamers. With unlimited access to games, friends with different tastes, and multiple reviews pulling me in different directions, my method for choosing games has evolved into some weird system I don’t even understand.
I can’t be the only one, right?