How Not To Buy Crap Games This Season

The Guardian Gamesblog has a short guide on avoiding bad games and helping the games industry. From the article: "Say no to film and TV tie-ins - These are generally belted out in nine months by newcomers treated little better than sweatshop workers. If you're fed the line, 'the director was fully involved in the making of this game', beware. This means, roughly, 'The director sent his lawyers to the studio with a 300-page guide, warning that if it were breached, the team would be shot.'"

Comments

Film and Movie Tie-ins

[csbrooks]

Even though Spiderman 2 and The Incredible Hulk were both really awesome games? This sounds like crummy advice.

Here's what I do: never buy a game until you're read some good reviews. NOT previews, which are always suspiciously glowing. After getting burned buying a few $50 games the first day they came out, I stick hard and fast to this rule.

Even then sometimes I wait a year or so until they're $20 at Wal-mart.

Re:Film and Movie Tie-ins

[bradbeattie]

'Course, you could always wait a year until after the release date. By then the marketing department is done flooding the market with biased previews and reviews, the price has dropped from ~$60 to ~$30 and the biggest patches the game will receive have been released. With that in mind, is there any reason to buy a game on its release date?

Re:Film and Movie Tie-ins

[joystickgenie]

Rent it first is only a good idea half of the time. Living purely by this rule means you will never get independent or games that have little advertising budgets.

More often then not places that you can rent games from will not have a lot of the games that you want to try out. For example, Katamari Damacy was not available to be rented until the industry was already screaming rave reviews. Or a different example, Guitar Hero, the game is getting nothing but great reviews but no one carries it for rental.

Generally renters won't get the title in unless it already has a following. They don't want to get burned by a bad title either.

If you live by this rule there are going to be a lot of great games that you miss.

Re:Film and Movie Tie-ins

[KDR_11k]

It often helps to seek out the review with the lowest rating and look at the complaints, perhaps contrast it with on with a very high rating.

Look at a game like The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker, which even Shigeru Miyamoto now calls "boring" and basically unfinished. But it has a score of 94.9% on GameRankings, because the press bought the hype that they themselves helped create.

Miyamoto said it "wasn't all that it could have been", boring is something completely different. It could have used more dungeons and done away with the stupid triforce hunt but other than that it was a very good game. Certainly more fun to me than Ocarina of Time which Miyamoto didn't apologize for.

How to avoid bad games?

[LehiNephi]

Wait for the review at least.

Seriously, I've found that waiting on both hardware and software purchases saves loads of money. Wait a few months until after the game has been out. Then go ahead and buy it if it turns out to be good/popular.

I see no validity in the implication that just because it's released right before Christmas, you must buy it for Christmas. There are plenty of other games that have been out for a while and proven their value. Don't be a lemming.

Counter examples

[2008]

Say no to film and TV tie-ins:
Tie Fighter, Chronicles of Riddick

Avoid gangster adventures:
GTA (OK, maybe they meant to exclude that themselves)

The second world war is over:
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - maybe not an incredible game but it's great value.

Try an original title:
Many of these suck too...

Download an independent game:
Most people seem to think Darwinia isn't much fun to play. Certainly there are plenty of awful flash games.

terrible games based on cartoons:
Astro Boy (GBA). It's by Treasure!

Re:Here goes the learnding

[iainl]

You be Merkin, yes?

Here in the UK, it's Crap Games, not Crappy Games. Two countries, seperated once again by a common language.

A Bit Sexist Are We?

[Xarius]

Now, I understand what they are saying here, but why the inclusion specifically of the black young man holding a shotgun? I suppose if the same game featured a young white inner-city youth roaming the mean streets, or a latino kid, the game would be ok to pick up and enjoy?

I like the way that you use selective political-correctness to try and accuse them of being racist, yet you completely disregard the fact that they also said man.

I suppose if the same game featured a woman, the game would be ok to pick up and enjoy?

The specific inclusion of a specific gender into their "bad games" definition is a bit much, IMO.

(Please note the use of sarcasm here, just to point out the article was no more racist than it was sexist)

Re:Here goes the learnding

[general_re]

It's early, but I've had my coffee and I'm feeling pedantic enough for /. ;)

Anyway, this is from the Guardian (UK), and while it's not exactly the Queen's English, "crap" as an adjective seems to be a reasonably common Britishism. "Shit" works the same way on the other side of the pond - you'd know exactly what I meant if I told you that I have a shit car. ;)

Yes, there are exceptions. So?

[iainl]

This article isn't about saying ALL military FPS games, licensed stuff or whatever are rubbish. It's a call to buy something a bit different for a change, and save us from the monotony of being faced with a Christmas lineup in 5 years that just reads:

Tony Hawk's Extreme Wheelchair, Brothers Of Duty: It'll Be Over By Christmas 2100, GTA: Homicide Village, Every Sport 2011, Big Film 3 or Ricer Racer: Street Edition.

Buy something a bit different, and see what happens. It might suck after all, but at least it won't be what you bought last year but with slightly shinier graphics, some new maps and a roster update.

My advice: Buy last years games this year!

[techstar25]

Not only are they tried and true, tested and reviewed, but they can be had for $15 used at EBgames. Great games never get old.

movie games

[truffle]

Knights of the Old Republic
Chronicles of Riddick

Two great movie license games.

Savvy gamers will buy games based on quality of the game, unsavvy gamers won't be reading slashdot anyway so they'll keep buying movie license games.