He drives down the dark back alley desperate for his fix. He sees her and pulls over- boy does she look fantastic- dolled up to the nines, but what he's failed to realise is that inside she's rotten to the core. She's a bad one. To be honest though, he doesn't care- she looks fantastic and he's already imagining removing her packaging and spending hours with her. He winds the window down "How much?" he asks "forty pounds" comments the graphics whore, and the guy eagerly opens his passenger door and lets her into his life...
I don't know who coined the phrase "graphics whore," but I'm pretty sure that I've been using the term for a while- so if no-one else will, i'll claim it. I use the term to describe gamers out there who usually know very little about gaming aside from what their friends tell them and base most of their gaming purchasing on how a game looks- be it on TV, or posters, or even on the back of the box.
My fiance's cousin's boyfriend is a graphics whore. He knows nothing about gaming, his eyes glaze over when I try to chat to him about Mario, Sonic or even modern stuff like Bioshock- yet as soon as he saw the sun effects on Resident Evil 5, he enthusiastically declared that "That game looks great- I'm going to buy it! What's it called again Residence Even Five?" He owns an xbox 360, and all his games are big names that he knows very little about; Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War 2, FIFA 09, Kane and Lynch. There are also a few games that he owns that are a bag of crap like Beijing Olympics 2008- another game he bought because it "looks great."
I took my Wii round to his house once and you could almost taste his disinterest- "doesn't look as good as the xbox" he was more or less saying. Whilst my fiance and I were playing with her cousin on Mario Kart and having a great time, he was giving this exaggerated look at the Wii-mote like it was some futuristic tool that confused him beyond words. He was crap at Mario Kart, he wasn't impressed with the way it 'looked' and he insisted that we all play his 'new love' which was Beijing Olympics 2008 on '360....
Talk about a party killer- we all went from having a great time to hammering buttons like idiots trying to win some terribly unexciting races. I almost got RSI through it.
The thing is I know a lot of other people like him. We call them 'scallys' or 'chavs' over here in the UK, but I'm sure you have the American equivalent. People without jobs who dress like idiots, steal and usually own a Staffordshire Bull terrier. Do they appreciate Grand Theft Auto for what it truly is? nah, they just buy it because their friend has told them that you nick cool cars in it and murder prostitutes- because thats REALLY amusing isn't it..? They think that Mario is the local takeaway.
I suppose my problem is that I see gaming as something that only people with an appreciation for them should enjoy. As a kid i would only get two or three games bought for me each year, and I would play them to death- unlocking every secret and making progression no matter what the game looked like, or how crap the game was. I should just accept that idiots buy games too- and that basing a purchase on the way a game is visually is their choice to make. I could point out a zillion NES and SNES titles that would be a lot cheaper and lead to a lot more enjoyment than the 'graphics whore's' next purchase- but he wouldn't be interested and that annoys me.
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Aesthetically (and aurally) it's the absolute tits, as a game though it's not so good. The combat mechanics are horribly shallow, there are dreadful platforming sections and quite frankly I've been unable to follow the story and characters in any way at all (I think it assumes some sort of knowledge of the cartoon, not that the plot is all that important anyway).
Despite this though I am really enjoying it and it's based almost entirely on the visual flair and presentation. So I'm not sure that being horribly shallow is always necessarily a a bad thing. I know this is a pretty piss poor game - it's a 3/10 in my book - but I still find myself being drawn to it.
That's not really your problem though, it's the repeat offenders, the people that genuinely cannot distinguish what is good and bad and rely mostly on graphics and marketing to inform them of all gaming purchases and I have to agree with you. I recall a conversation where a 'friend' of mine was convinced that Driv3r was as good as whatever GTA was vogue at the time. the same person was ecstatic that they managed to pick up some Fantastic Four game for £25 as well (I really try to avoid speaking to this individual about games).
Is there a solution? I doubt it, most people are very shallow when it comes to games (heck, movies, music and books as well if they are capable of reading) basing their decisions on what is cool and what has been marketed well. Very often that includes the good games, but not enough to convince me that these people actually understand what really makes that game good. We could try to educate, people are however stubborn bastards that don't like being told that they are an idiot as you've found out.
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tl;dr
I'll admit though that I am a bit of a graphics whore haha. It won't factor into my purchase at all but I will drool if I see something I like. Jet Grind Radio was a very messy game for me to play ;)