My father has a saying, and he spent a nice amount of time chiseling it into my mindset. It's actually a Jewish saying, and goes something like "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things.". Now while this may sound just silly when read without context, you do have to give it a thought or two. Then it makes perfect sense.

My budget for games is rather limited. I can't go out and buy every bloody game I fancy. I find that aspect good, because I actually play the games I buy then, and enjoy them all the more. Psychological effect of me being just too insistent on playing something I spent 70$ on (I live in Europe, we pay more here)? Maybe, but I still have fun with those games.

Now when I choose a game, it obviously needs to pass through some steps. You have those no-brainers (all games from Blizzard, most games from ex-Westwood, etc), but other ones require some form of validation. So you read the previews, you watch the trailers. You scour Youtube and find some bootleg phone camera shots of gameplay videos taken on god-knows-what occasion. You read the hands-on reports from people you think share the same unique view on games. You discuss the game with friends, enemies, and random homeless people. You then await the game to come out and, if everything goes fine, you await it quite anxiously. The game comes out, and you read crappy reviews of it giving it really bad grades. You feel disappointed, yet not entirely convinced. You seem to think there is more to the game (because you usually like movies which flop at the box office). You want to try it yourself before deciding on the final step.

So you fire up your Playstation 3, or your Wii, and download absolutely nothing. Why? Because some smart people don't want you to play their game and like it, but rely on other people's opinion of it. The 360 you own has a lot of demos, so you don't hate it that much. You hate it more because it crapped out on you a few months back, and you still didn't send it back to repair (the second bloody time).

This outburst of depressive consequential writing in "you" form was sponsored by Lair. The game which I thought would be nice. It has gotten awful scores and makes me fear that it may actually be Barbie Horse Adventure's evil twin sister. The thing is, I'm still not convinced. I'd like to play it, but I'd like to start with a demo. Maybe I'd like it. Who knows. We may never know.