..How do you know what games that you would like? I can go into some place like Gamestop and see a TON og games ranging anywhere from Fighting, to Racing, to Cooking food, to Building Things. Only problem is that a lot of these games range anywhere from $40 to $70 and I really dont want to buy something on an experimental basis, and only end up being bored with in just a few hours. How do you pick the best games for yourself?
x-play, pure and simple. If you don't have g4 atleast read the reviews online. You could also try gamefly, which operates like netflix. I try to pay attention to things like the Spike Video game awards. Chances are if it wins in a genre you like then you're probably safe buying it. Of course that's how I got suckered into Little Big Planet, which I maintain, ain't all that fun. On the flipside that's also how I got into Professor Layton, a kind of awesome game that I NEVER would have picked off the shelf by myself.
GameFly is pretty good. and Game Stop has a policy for used games that you buy. If you don't like it, you can return or exchange within 7 days. That helped me to decide which genres I like. From there, I just followed the big titles. Also, I've been able to sell some popular titles I didn't like on Craigslist for $40.... which isn't too bad seeing as how I paid $60 for them.
www.metacritic.com The only site you need. It ranks games based on aggregated review scores from all over the web, with links to the various reviews.
I wouldn't rely on the opinions of the Xplay cast.... they're too snobbish to take anything but a triple A title seriously.
X-play is more of an advertisement than a review show. (At least it used to be... haven't watched it in a couple of years). They sure seem to always butter up to any hyped game, even if it ends up being deemed as a disappointment by the general public once it's been out a while. Given the amount of shows on G4 that openly admit to be sponsored by game companies, I seriously doubt that the reviews are objective. Also, they never seem to rate games badly: "This game fucking blows, here is a list of 20 reasons it sucks! 3 out of 5." You also won't find any "hidden gems" on xplay... only the shit you already knew about because it's insanely marketed. That's not to say that big budget games are all bad. There are definitely great indie games and great games made by giants like EA. It's just that you are only gonna see the stuff from the big guys on xplay. I agree with Robotech Master, metacritic is a pretty good source. In the end though, your best bet is a friend who has judgement you can trust. If that fails, you can probably find some random blogger who has pretty similar opinions on games as you, then you can look to him/her for advice. Try to find someone coming from a similar angle as you are... for example, I don't put any stock in X-play because their target demographic is somebody who is bored as shit and is just looking for a game to eat up free time. That was me in high school / college. However, now, between my real job, my tiny side business, and my fiance, I don't have enough time to really play out the games I have now. Since I don't play as much, I generally don't "use up" games and get bored of good games very often. Therefore, to win a valuable slice of my attention, a game has to be fucking amazing for me to be interested. 4 out of 5 isn't worth the time.
