Why do we spend (how many billions of dollars a year?) a lot of money on consoles and games each year?

I don't know about you, but I use it for "escapism." Can't get in the truck and go to a foreign country and take over the government. I can't blast off in my spaceship (mainly, because I don't have one) and kick the Covenant's ass.

But with the consoles and the various types of games out there, I can. How do you play your new (or used) games? Do you slap the game in a console and run as fast as you can through the game? Or do you "stroll" through the game and look at what there is to look at? The developers put all that stuff in there for some reason.

I have never figured out why people pay sixty $$$ for a game, rip through it, and two days later they are trading it in.

I bought Patapon on the release date, Wednesday, February 27th. I got home and like all good, little Gamespot subscribers, I went to see what all I could see about this game. I bought it because of some reviews from outside of GS. So I needed to see what GS had to offer as far as Patapon was concerned.

The first thing I saw was that there were several GS Player Reviews. Already??? And I think I saw two walk-through posted Did you all enjoy the game or have you traded it in already? This is supposed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a ten-twelve hour game. But, on the release date there were several player reviews. How could you enjoy it? Or any other game that you just go as fast as you can and don't take time to stop and smell the proverbial roses.

Hey, I don't have any problem with how you play your game(s) or what you do with your money, but if I am going to chunk out sixty bucks worth of jingle (Turning point; Fall of Liberty, as an example) I am going to look around and see what I can see after the action has settled down a bit.

Of course you may run through the game and get it done as fast as you can, on the first play through, but do you have a second, third or even more play through? Or once it's done, are you done?

I cannot tell you how many times I have played Halo, Strangers Wrath, Resident Evil 4, etc... But, if a game is good I am going back through it. There are always a lot things that were missed during the first play (or second and more.)

Play the game, but next time, try to enjoy it.

Just my thoughts...

Dale

ack754