Guess what, you’re getting two whole guest articles this weekend. Today’s offering comes from JamboGT.
I love the internet, I love gaming sites, I love finding out about games that are coming out and I love you all. Well maybe scratch that last one…
I do have one problem though, the element of surprise.
When there is a game in which I have a lot of interest in I can spend a lot of time scouring the web looking for any news I can find about that game. This is something I do enjoy, every tid-bit of news I can acquire is devoured, examined and more than likely discussed with people on Twitter, friends on my course or randomers in forums. The internet and sites such as The Sixth Axis provide us with so much knowledge, information and discussion that we can sometimes feel that we know the game before it even hits the shelves.
In many situations this is a great thing, it lets us know at a basic level if we should purchase the game or not. It gives us an idea what to expect, helps us not to get too carried away in our own expectations. It gives us the news we crave.
This for me has been the biggest single change in gaming.
Back in the day, we had no news about games other than the magazines you may have bought every month. This is where I learnt special moves, cheats, the best times to beat around Ghost Valley and occasionally what games were coming up and why I should be interested. Other than that, games would be bought for three reasons: it was a sequel to a game you liked, word of mouth from friends or the box and blurb on the back made it look pretty cool!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish to return to those bleak days. Back then, and up to most of the way through the PS2’s life, I was generally oblivious to how a game would play, how a battle system would work, what would multi-player be like. This meant that each game became a mini journey of discovery; details I didn’t know existed until I happened upon them. Sometimes I miss that. This is something that I don’t think we will ever get back with mainstream games.
I realise that there is a simple solution to this, don’t be the guy that spends hours a day looking for the news! I don’t think I can do that though; gaming for me now is more than a hobby, it is where my study – and hopefully my work – lies. I would hate to be without the news, details, opinions and enthusiasm that I get daily.
Sometimes, though, wouldn’t it be nice to be surprised again?
Roynaldo
I try and steer clear of the stuff you scour the internet for. Instead I just like gaming websites to discuss games, read blogs, the odd review incase i was wondering wether it buy it or not and most importantly setting up gaming sessions with you fine people.
I wonder who I would be playing most of my games with if I didnt have the internet and TSA community. Most of my real friends dont play games a great deal or dont even play at all.
Jaffa-the-Cake
I do miss the feeling of going into a Blockbuster and knowing nothing about what your about to buy. The most enjoyable game experience for me was when I bought a game not knowing anything about it and then being able to discover it at my own pace, with no spoilers or reviews to bias my gameplay. I guess the internet has turned that on it’s had now which is sad. You can’t escape it anymore.
ghost5
I got bought the sabateur last Christmas and I had bonuses of what to expect. I didn’t even know what type of game it was. Apart from the really slow start to the game it was brilliant putting the disk in and learning everything as I went along.
Origami Killer
i remember on the ps2 it was birthday and i had prince of persia the sands of time, i had never heard of it or seen it advertised anywhere and i thought it would be awful but as soon as i started playing it i was shocked, when the cloths and banners actually moved when u went under them and the water blew me away, thats the suprise i love, also thats what uncharted did to me, i bought it on release for sum reason and again was blew away and suprised at how good it was.
i love the suprise of a game being great when you havnt heard or read anything about it. :D
The Traveler
I never read any details of Armoured Core: For answer…. when I played it I was like wow
Jumping Monks
New IP’s are the only games that tend to give surprises. I think that’s possibly one of the reasons I love a lot of them. Dead Space for instance, there are several elements in it which made it incredibly appealing. Yet for Dead Space 2, we know roughly what to expect, and the developers tend to announce any new additions to the game. Thus eliminating any element of surprise.
Of course, this is all my opinion.
JaffaMan24
Yeah, I like being able to avoid the lemons, but also dislike the spoilers I find. With Uncharted 2 I was hoovering up as much info as I could find. Sadly this spoilt some of the key sequences to me – the train ride, the helicopter explody building bit, the rooftop chase. All completely awesome but I knew they were coming. Pretty much the only suprise left was the crumbly bridge at the end.
I won’t be making the same mistakes with UC3 and will be forcing myself into a media blackout rather than watching every video I can get my mits on.
GT5 on the other hand is a bit different. There’s no story or set pieces to spoil. So i’m still hoovering the internets for every last bit of info until I finally get my hands on it!
ghost5
Buying a magazine every month and spending hours reading it / taking it round mates / taking it to school brings back many happy memories. I remember my friend buying a magazine which showed all of the combinations of toads game in super mario bros 3. We got loads of extra lives from that. Also going through the cheats section – there’s not many games these days that have hidden cheats :(
moshi
If im spending good money on a game I want to know everything about the damn game (even guide books and online help) and the rest go on my rental list for a win win situation, you can take a punt at any game and then send it back if its pants.
aerobes
I agree wholeheartedly and this is a great piece, Jambo.
I hope I’m not alone but there has been too many times where anticipation has killed the game for me. Killed dead, I obviously went looking for information and received a bombardment.
High profile games suffer terribly but to maintain interest, sites and publications always have to follow the top titles.
I’ve loved games ever since my father brought home an Amstrad 464CPC+ and we moved forward from that wonderful starting point.
It’s easy to say, just avoid the news, avoid the websites … it’s not easy to avoid to avoid what you love. And besides that, there’s all other kinds of interesting news other than what you, yourself might be interested in.
After all that, I still agree and I feel a little something has been lost but I don’t want change either. It’s a good and interesting subject.
I will say say that I almost feel out with videogaming last year and two games reaffirmed my faith. The only thing these two have in common is the fact that they weren’t publicised heavily. Which were they? Darksiders and The Saboteur.
bigdon23
I think the best way would be for developers to keepr some exciting suprises for when we play the game and not release everything about the game for extra sales.
the only surprises nowadays is will you be able to play online if you didnt buy a game new
cant wait to save up and play the red dead nightmare pack though, been avoiding news on it because i want to be suprised when i do get to play it
bunimomike
Great article, Jambo.
I miss those times too. I blame TSA far less than most other gaming sites for this but some of the miniature that I see reported is laughable. Thankfully, TSA do their level best to post articles about stuff that at least feels newsworthy. The dregs that other folks are scouring for is incredible. We’ve got ourselves into a never-ending quest to monitor twitter, check out recently filed patents, URL registrations, etc. In a way I think it’s a bit pathetic but it seems that some people are hanging on every word available when it comes to their favourite titles.
I think we’d be horrified if we looked back to see how many articles could be reported on any given title (of decent enough size and calibre) before we could actually say there was a presentable amount of information for the masses (instead of just a URL or a rumour of a rumour, etc). Once again, TSA try to limit this as much as possible but equally don’t want to miss out on the speculation that the rest of the media loves to whip up.