I rarely sell my games. Console games I can part with more easily. My lack of attachment is loosely related to sitting further away from the screen, and not spending my free time modding them, talking about them or slowly licking them like the remnants of tiramisu.
PC games, though, I hold onto. Even the bad ones; perhaps its a vaguely collectivist desire to stand for all wanna-be culture gamers who think that a library of games is the same as a library of books, DVDs, or stuffed chaffinch.



I have been very poor recently, the combination of massive food bills caused by comfort eating during exam period, as well as game purchases to alleviate my boredom, and so have turned to my stacks for quick Ebay relief. I really do own some stinkers. Mercenaries 2, some shitty Tomb Raiders (the middle ones, as I believe they are known) as well as a few flight simulators, FPSes and JRPGs that I bought with that enthusiasm, that bounce that is only found in a gamer lolloping home with a new game, only to play for a few hours before that horrific sinking feeling kicks in, the one that feels like a turd that you should have ejected before taking a long haul flight creeps up your duodendum.

And it wasn't because of ignorance. I considered myself a balanced consumer. I don't tend to rush out and make purchases willy-nilly, based on nothing more than how much I fancy the main character or how many guns inexplicably sprout out of the final boss' forehead. I read around. Though many people hate Metacritic for its dilution of product into easy reviews, I find the professional reviews very useful. I try and know something about what I am paying my wages/bank loan for. But sometimes, sometimes there is a product that you can't resist. You have read about it for months, the excitement is palpable in your mouth, fifteen seperate publications are screaming its praises, saying how great it will be. You buy it, and it sucks. It totally sucks. And then a month later, as the review/publication dates catch up, the publications tell you how crap it is, with no mention of their earlier praise, or perhaps only a faint, huffy admission of being disappointed. Well, the money is spent, now. But that isn't the real problem. The problem is being promised so much, and having all that being nothing more than fairy gold.



Of course, much of this blame falls at the door of the developers. Promising features that are never implemented, playing up mechanics that are repetitive or boring on play. The above screenshot illustrates a recent example, Too Human. The gaming press lauded it as the reinvention of the RPG on the 360, a deep and original franchise. I was enthusiastic, even though it sounded like a fucking ridiculous premise. And the reviews came, everyone was disappointed, all the things promised didn't work as planned, but that didn't stop lots of people buying it first, on the recommendation of the press.

It's stupid to call people sheep; with such a massive daily influx of purchasable leisure products, some form of organisation is necessary to stop us making ridiculous decisions. Listening to gaming mags isn't pointless, or cliched, in itself; these guys tend to know what they are talking about. But I feel like, sometimes, a few months before a game is released, their visits to game developers to demo the game must go one of two ways;

1) The game developers live in some corporate Castle Greyskull, gigantic dread-guards ready to eviscerate anyone who speaks ill of 'The Product'.
2) They are all tired, worked to the bone, nearly crying and shitting themselves with hope and love for their bastard, retarded 'darling', that is displayed, braying like a goat, to the increasingly awkward reporters.

Come on, guys. Every so often, you will point out flaws in the development, but mostly there is only praise for unreleased games. We do not live in a world where you have to be nice to everyone. Don't be dicks, obviously, but point out shortcomings, show flaws, and celebrate pros to create a balanced whole. You can't be so short-sighted that a incredibly positive preview a month before release can turn into a damning review, the tone of which is usually, entirely undeservedly, "we could have told you so."

Of course a damning preview can be damaging to a game that has a few flaws but is essentially going to work well. But this is not what I am advocating. I am advocating balanced previews, that do not worry about hurting people's feelings or pre-empting failure, to present mature viewpoints that don't just consist of "we are very excited." We can see how pretty it is. We are excited too. But disappointment is rife within the industry, and it is something we need to accept, and not assume (and tell everyone) that every new game is going to be great. It probably isn't. Very few are. Start acting like it. Of course, the media operates a certain way. But, hey, this a blog, I can pretend my view will change the world, can't I? Can't I?