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But what is the rest of the coverage besides recycled PR anyway? Personally I just try and get a sense of a game I'm interested in and then stop looking at coverage on it. I just want to see the basic idea of the game and what mechanics it uses, as soon as I'm interested then I cut off coverage because I don't want anything spoiled, not even the introduction. In other media I also avoid trailers because of how much they will spoil the actual movie for example. The way a game starts is meant to draw you in and intrigue you, and if you hear a lot about it beforehand, it doesn't have the same impact when you actually play the game.

There have been situations with games such as Super Smash Bros Brawl where they drip feed you with information, every day you see a new character, or a new move, or a new item you will be using in the game. By the time the game comes out I'm sick of it already and I don't even want to see it anymore. Or sometimes development time will drag on and paying attention to a game's coverage is like torturing yourself, such as with Dragon Quest IX or Duke Nukem Forever. In that case, coverage will often turn me off of a game, and if I already know I want to play it, what's the point? I've got better things to do.

Nowadays I just listen to a few podcasts where people don't talk so formally about their experiences and they often talk game theory which is much more interesting to me compared to regurgitated PR. I would recommend A Life Well Wasted, The Brainy Gamer, Gamasutra Podcast, In-Game Chat, Irrational Behavior, Mobcast, and Retronauts. If you also like those, you might like Geekbox, RebelFM, 1up Oddcast, Weekend Confirmed, Player One Podcast, Joystiq Podcast, Gamers with Jobs, Drunken Gamers Radio, IGN GameScoop and CAGCast. Hey, it makes work and commutes go by fast.

Bioshock.

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/

Sorry, forgot the post links to quite a few FAs. I was referring to this one

Funny, you take on a whole different persona when ranting. . . much more agreeable when you're not.

Careful, you might get confused with a retarded, rabid, trolling fanboy. You know, the kind that are going to make me stop reading /. comments entirely?

Guess I really should back off on the responses.

On a side note, if you are unfamiliar with them, you might be interested in Gamers with Jobs. More adult conversation on such topics, and I believe most over there fully agree with you. Plus, it's moderated. No flames. Keeps the retarded monkeys out.

There's a thread with over 400 comments here :

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/31956?from=0&co mments_per_page=30

Dedicated only to poll people who have had a faulty 360, who have seen the 3 rings.

Some of them are actually on their second or third system.

It's the sort of thing that stops me from buying a 360. Since I'm in Mexico, the repair process would be especially annoying.

Say what you want about the PS3, but it seems like a much more solid piece of hardware. (Insert "Yeah it doesn't fail because no one ever turns it on") joke or something.

In case anybody wants to RTFA: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/31807

I'm with you one hundred percent, but, IMHO of course, I don't think the "creators vision" is the culprit here. My best guess would be, that it's the institutionalized idea what a game has to look and / or feel like; a.k.a. "too many cooks ..."

There is nothing wrong with a game sporting the "creators vision," it just depends on the number of [simultaneous] creators if it works for the gamers.

Regarding "When I start a game ...", take a look at "Puritan Work-Ethic, How I Loathe Thee" (http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/24946) on the same website, it definitely spoke my mind.

my 2 cents

Good interview with the guy from Eve Online and the card game, about 45 mins in.

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/26414

Unfortunately...I hate boss fights. Hate hate hate. They are the lamest, most overdone cliché in the video game world.

Give me exploration.

Give me puzzles.

Give me suspense, fear, foreboding, thought-provoking scenarios, convoluted plots, mysteries.

Don't give me some humongous robot killing machine and tell me I have to hack at it repeatedly with a small pointy thing. Grr.

Check out this thread for a good summary of what fans think make this show great:

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/16688

I think that no game, nor any character, has managed to so deeply touch me as the character of Deionarra in Planescape: Torment.

I was therefore pleased, recently, to read an article on the site Gamer's With Jobs expounding on the virtues of the same character and game.

The episode "Longing," particularly, discussed in that article, and ultimately the character herself are kept just far enough from total exposition to be maintained as a tragic mystery whose explanation will be kept eternally just out of reach.

There's nothing quite so tragic as the loss of memory. You need only ask someone who has had a very dear loved one succumb to Alzheimer's disease to know this is the truth. And though it may seem a strange connection to draw, Planescape: Torment evoked for me the very real tragic quality of memory loss better than anything else I have experienced. And so yes, I do believe that games can speak to profound realities in our every day life.

On the other, you'd think that someone stationed in Baghdad might be looking for different news from home than this or this.

On the other, you'd think that someone stationed in Baghdad might be looking for different news from home than this or this.

I think, if you look carefully enough, that a number of the articles posted at Slashdot Games aren't from the 'usual' sites, and there's plenty of interesting, alternate views out there.

How about Gamers With Jobs, GamerDad, Insert Credit, DIY Games, Terra Nova, Skotos, Curmudgeon Gamer, and GamesIndustry.biz? That's just off the top of my head.

And, of course the normal response applies - if there are alternate views and intelligent comment that aren't being covered here, then write it up, and send us the link - we'd love to include it.

It 's odd that when posted as an actual link in /. it goes awry.