High expectations and videogames don't fit

Hey guys,

I wanted to discuss something with you I was thinking about lately. I've played a lot of XBOX, XBOX360 and PS3 games in the past months and realized that somehow I seem to have unrealistic high expectations of videogames.

I always read a lot of reviews about a game before I try it out and mostly only play games with a rating of 8 of 10 points minimum. But even games which were praised everywhere mostly don't convince me completely. Take GTA for example. GTA4 is certainly a good game but while playing through it I found a lot of things that disturbed me....a story that doesn't thrill you as much as you hoped, characters that are often over-stereotyped, cutscenes which get boring with time, missions you have to replay from the beginning (which often means driving to the destination again and again instead of starting in front of the destination building), etc.

GTA is a milestone, but in my opinion this game would deserve 85 - 90% at most, because there are many small details that blur the whole experience.

At the same time most games which are averagely rated "good" (80-85%) don't convince me, at all. It seems that only games with at least 9 of 10 points can appeal to me and be fun for more than just a few hours.

What is your opinion about this?

I completely agree. I don't go by reviews and try to avoid reading anything about any game that I'm looking forward to before it comes out. It always works out in the end: if it turns out to be a bad game there's no loss, and if it's great then it's all uphill from there. Review scores are completely unreliable, even in consensus. I'll check out the game first with a clean slate (or as clean as can be), and then after I'm done I'll see what they had to say.

In this industry nothing is for certain, and I've found that disappointment outweighs the extraordinary.

so all those letters and lines you just posted are the nice and civilized way of saying

GTA IV DID NOT DESERVE A TEN

well i agree ,i was extra extra super extremely hyped for gta i mean i read every preview watched every interview searched for every clip of euporia engine in action and expected a world where every single buliding is accesable with gears of war like fighting in an open city , total freedom to do anything steal banks rob liqour stores

and what did i get , a city where almost half the buliding are accesable and when your in the buliding you cant go to any of the apartments exept for your own , a stupid cover system and a main charecter that wont move sideway , nothing that you can do with your hard earend money exept buying very limited and not very cool clothes and weapons so you can do the stupid misson better to get more mmoney to get more weapons its a very stupid cycle , nd why in the f

its because this gen is full of multiplatform games which dont need any challenging quality...

they sell their games on both consoles so companies dont even try to surpass their competitors...

its because this gen is full of multiplatform games which dont need any challenging quality...

they sell their games on both consoles so companies dont even try to surpass their competitors...

TheLegendKnight

youve gotta be kidding me dude

yes most of the games are multiplatform but that doesnt mmake the competion any better or worse cause thier gonna be competing against all other games that are already out and the ones to come

my point is that thier will always be competion like Saints row 2 against GTA iv , see both of them are multi but saints is really raising up the bar and competeing to be better than gta

so thats not really the problem

the problem is that the video game industry makers somehow forgot Why the players only play to have fun ,and they thought that what gamers really want was hi def graphics and real timme physics and so and so

all that crap is extra all the gamer wants is to have fun and doing something cool and awesome and thats why saints row 2 is gonna be awesomme cause they put a bunch of stuff in there like streaking in public , car surfing , insurance fraud etc

so thats why my money is on games Like BRUTAL LEGEND and SR2 , Gears 2

so my point is , dont Simulate Reality but make more Awesome and kick ass

so all those letters and lines you just posted are the nice and civilized way of saying

GTA IV DID NOT DESERVE A TEN

well i agree ,i was extra extra super extremely hyped for gta i mean i read every preview watched every interview searched for every clip of euporia engine in action and expected a world where every single buliding is accesable with gears of war like fighting in an open city , total freedom to do anything steal banks rob liqour stores

and what did i get , a city where almost half the buliding are accesable and when your in the buliding you cant go to any of the apartments exept for your own , a stupid cover system and a main charecter that wont move sideway , nothing that you can do with your hard earend money exept buying very limited and not very cool clothes and weapons so you can do the stupid misson better to get more mmoney to get more weapons its a very stupid cycle , nd why in the fMercer52

Well you should never have high expectations for anything. Nothing is ever as good as you imagine it. That is why I try to be cautiously optimistic. That way I won't be too let down when reality sets in.

As for reviews the important thing to remember is that they are just an opinion. And like any opinion you may or may not agree with it. The best thing is to use reviews as a general overview and play demos whenever possible.

Well you should never have high expectations for anything. Nothing is ever as good as you imagine it. That is why I try to be cautiously optimistic. That way I won't be too let down when reality sets in.

capthavic

Yeah, of course they are opinions, but if a game gets more than 90% from every magazine you can find you tend to think "OK - this has to be a good game that is a lot of fun".

I also agree with the comments about "videogames should be about good ideas and not hi-res graphics" - if you play some of the old games which stood out for their ideas and concept, you'll find what's missing in today's videogame-world. There's too much "conserving the same old thing again".

[QUOTE="TheLegendKnight"]

its because this gen is full of multiplatform games which dont need any challenging quality...

they sell their games on both consoles so companies dont even try to surpass their competitors...

Mercer52

youve gotta be kidding me dude

yes most of the games are multiplatform but that doesnt mmake the competion any better or worse cause thier gonna be competing against all other games that are already out and the ones to come

my point is that thier will always be competion like Saints row 2 against GTA iv , see both of them are multi but saints is really raising up the bar and competeing to be better than gta

so thats not really the problem

the problem is that the video game industry makers somehow forgot Why the players only play to have fun ,and they thought that what gamers really want was hi def graphics and real timme physics and so and so

all that crap is extra all the gamer wants is to have fun and doing something cool and awesome and thats why saints row 2 is gonna be awesomme cause they put a bunch of stuff in there like streaking in public , car surfing , insurance fraud etc

so thats why my money is on games Like BRUTAL LEGEND and SR2 , Gears 2

so my point is , dont Simulate Reality but make more Awesome and kick ass

think about MGS4 and you'll understand it more

exclusive games should work more to attract other console's consumer base too, so that makes things more heated

your rivalry example is something like breathing.

I'm sure developers do try very hard to make great games.

And I'm sure that marketing departments try very hard to hype them.

Sometimes the marketing guys are more successful than they deserve to be. Halo3 and GTA4 are cases in point.

But the marketing guys are just doing their jobs. And if we fall for it, well, not really our faults - how are we to know what's justifiably hyped and what's overhyped? The people who desreve criticism are the games journalists who go along with it: they must have been around long enough to have seen this hapen time and again, but they still fall for it and sucker us into the whole circus.