How my backlog of games became a backlog of games
By vietthreat 2 Comments
With a slow week in major video game releases recently, I went back to my ever growing backlog of games that I have accumulated throughout the years and had forgotten, other than time constraints, why I had never been able to finish those games. After about half an hour with some of my old games I began to realize why these games have been collecting dust and it led me to a couple of key reasons on why I have so many backlog games.
Many of the games in my backlog were not big releases but were good games that I wanted to give a shot because either it looked interesting initially or the word of mouth about the game was positive. The reason many of them were just good was because their concepts and game play features were not overly used as they may be now. Those games used a familiar formula but executed it in a way that was not bad but was not mind blowing either. After so many games that release with the same formula have come out, you begin to feel as if the game are dated compared to the currents games on the market. With me after I feel tired of a certain formula in a game, it takes me a while before I can go back and enjoy that formula of again (look at Call of Duty games and the shooter genre as an example).
Graphics are not the only thing that make games amazing but they are a significant part of a games presentation. Many people can always play Mario and say that games don't need amazing graphics but just need to have great game play but in today's industry, we've been exposed to the potential of visuals in games. We have standards that must be met for a game to look presentable. If I am to play a game months or years after its release and then see a game like Crysis 2, when I go back to the games before Crysis 2 it's hard to play that game because you constantly just dissect the games visuals for being not as good as Crysis 2's graphics were. Of course there are always exceptions especially when it comes to games that have a certain artistic style to them that are timeless but when I try to play games that have old graphics I can't help but not be able to play it.
I enjoy games that aren’t great but aren't terrible. The most recent game that I can remember being mediocre but I enjoyed playing was Alpha Protocol. When the game came out and critics ripped it for being average, I was disappointed. But even after reading all the reviews and hearing peoples thoughts about the game I still decided to give it a try and ended up enjoying the game. Sometimes there are games that get amazing reviews but I end up not liking them. Killzone 2 was a game that many shooter fans enjoyed and being a shooter fan myself I believed that I would enjoy it to. Critics praised it and that led me to purchasing Killzone 2 but after playing a couple of hours of the game, I did not enjoy the game.
Video games are all about personal opinions but we look to other people for indications on which games are good and which are bad. A lot of the time, my back catalogue of games are ones that were praised in their time but I was not able to play it for whatever reason and through that I learned that just because someone says that the game is good, doesn't mean it is but without direction from reviewers and other people, I would never know that. I usually end up purchasing these games when they go on sale and the price is discounted greatly. I will end up buying them because I see reviews and the price and when I end up playing it, I realize that I do not like it and then end up staying in my backlog and collect dust.
These are the biggest culprits to how my backlog of games comes to be but I'm curious, does everyone agree with me? do you have other reasons for your backlog of games? or does a magic fairy keep putting games in your backlog without your knowledge? Let me know.
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