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amoremono1

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Why Im done reading game reviews

I think Im through reading game reviews.  They lead to way too many expectations of a game, and I never fully enjoy the game as a result.  The final straw: Red Dead Redemption.  I read a few reviews of the game before buying it (Game Informer, IGN, etc.), and was stoked.  This sounded like the western game that Call of Juarez was not; open, alive, and with all the spaghetti flair of old movies I watched with my dad.   The game was great; in fact it was the first GTA-style game by Rockstar I played from start to finish.  The problem, though, as it always is when I read reviews before playing a game, is that it all felt too familiar.  Why?  Because some people had already told me what to expect!!  Every major plot branch had been mentioned in the reviews, and even though no direct spoiler were given, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect at the end.  Playing the game was like going through a checklist of everything the reviews said it would be.  Duels?  Check.  Headed South?  Check?  Back up north?  check.  Ending that "defies storytelling convention"?  check.  If I wouldve just played the game with no prompting from the reviews, I might just have been blown away by the breadth and scope of the game.  Instead, it fit neatly in my expectations, while managing to disappoint ever so slightly as I new it was all coming.  
 
When I think about it, most of my favorite games were games I just picked up without researching first.  Well, I knew that they were considered good by the number scores reviewers had given them, I just never read the reviews themselves.  Jak II, RE4, Shadow of the Colossus, FFX, Portal, Bioshock, the story part of MW1; these are among my favorite games, and I think part of that is I didnt really know what to expect from each one (well, with FFX I expected a FF story, but that was it).  I did know they were hyped, and that quite a few people loved them, but nothing more.  Each one therefore had moments I truly did not expect, and that adds a ton of thrill to any good game.  If I was well-prepped on the feel and gameplay of the games, they might not stand out so much.....So now I wonder; what would Dead Space, FFXIII, MW2, Demons Souls, Red Dead or GOW 3 have been like coming into them completely blind?  Certainly more jaw-dropping, to say the least.
 
I never really read reviews for games before a couple of years ago, and looking back, I enjoyed what I played more because some dude hadnt told me what to expect in the game beforehand.  Really, how can a game be fresh and exciting if youve already been told what the experience is going to be like?

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