I need to let you all know something important.

YOU KNOW NOTHING!

I've work in retail for a good few years now, both in the specialist games side and the big greedy and the evil multi-national cooperation owned supermarket side. One thing is constant about the people whom come into my store and buy games. They only buy whats on tv or what they bought already.

They are shambling pointless messes that put little to no thought into what they pick and choose not to listen to reason.

It tends to be also that if they choose to come into a supermarket listening to nothing they are there for the sake of having a fight but that's a slightly different issue so ill leave that for now.

The games press always seem to sit and ponder "hmmm, this game is great and different and cool but isnt selling as well, why is this?" and then suggest it's the budget of the games promotional push or its because its too different or new. guess what games press people.

YOU ALSO KNOW NOTHING!!

OK so your not knowledge-less just blind. People don't buy shadows of the damned because they never heard of it not because its a "different" game. Look at the cover, its a guy in a jacket with a gun. it looks far from being different. People are not put off from buying a game because if its new game play if they have not even bought the game. how could they be?

But this isn't about the press. It's about you shop going numptys.

As i said before people in shops know nothing. they cant be reasoned with and they wont ever buy whats actually good. the industry has always been like this and will continue to be for as long as people buy the sun and the mail. Call of duty will be sold to the 8 year old who's parents are incapable of understanding the games rating system, and skivs will come in every October to buy fifa again just as they did the 20 years before.

wow. I'm depressed now. Time for a drink i think..... then off to work!

- next time -

A list! wooo

OK so the title is misleading, I'm not here to actually talk about what i think is the greatest game of all time, or about my top 100 list.

Instead I wanted to take a moment to think about the strange need we gamers have to order things. Or to see others order things.

See I have played games for a very long time, I know what games I want to play and love most. the reasons I chose them were and are my own. Not influenced by others, or some top ten lists. I suspect it's almost entirely the same for every one of you. You like the game you like and that's the way it is.

But unlike you i dont really feel the need to see others write down lists of the greatist games of all time. Theres this odd thing that happens when a magazine or website compiles a top 100 games list. Its the same type of thing that happens when a review is posted for a game. Everyone comes out to complain.

why is that game at number 1, this game is better! the people who compile this list are terrible at thier jobs, blah blah blah.

Sure there's an understandable point to wanting to see something you choose to side with praised, on some subconscious level your being praised for your good choices. By comparison if your not seeing the person or persons agree with you then YOUR the one being insulted. How dare someone think what you like is not great.

This defies logic obviously, more often then not it's you holding something up to too little dissecting scrutiny, websites and magazines are worked on by professionals after all, paid to totally deconstruct a product to see its faults and finery.

They judge because they have to or else they don't eat.

The need to defend comes into play with fanboyisum too. The blind need to knock down things that look even slightly like what you have/like/play. Your choice will always be the better choice, no matter what people say. This blind faith is always something I've found frustrating because it's normally that, blind. It's not that you are wrong to like the game you play, its more that your too stubborn to try anything else. Call of duty is the best you know so how could you ever know that other games out there are as good or better. why should you care and so you keep playing it. I feel not anger about this, more pity. Pity because people are missing out on experiences that are totally amazing based on basic blind judgements and because amazing experiences are not getting experienced.

Creativity is stifled and even punished and the industry hobbles on along the same path its been on for 10 years. The truly worst side to blind faith, love or hate is that which causes people to attack those who do review games and films. They are often faced with some of the most horrendous abuse for doing their jobs.

Often of totally illogical reasons. For example a game was given a score of 7 out of 10. In my eyes that games got quite a good score. Those reading the review have other ideas though, they seem to view 7 as meaning the item reviewed is bad. This causes the same aggressive reaction as normal, hate toward the reviewer for doing his or her job.

This is foolish because 1. 5 is average so why hate on someone giving better then average scores? and 2. most of those who spew such hate are unlikely to have completed or even played the game in question at all.

They just dislike that someone has put their choice to want said game in question.

I think it's about time we all started trying to better ourselves as a community. Stopped taking what others say so to heart. A personal opinion is solely just that, personal. Not a slight against us or our choices, just a refection of someone Else's.

Now back to fallout new Vegas.

like , best game eva!

- next time -

Cant stop myself

I'd like to point out that I didn't say for you. I'm sure that a lot of people have a healthy relationship with games and even feel they have enhanced their lives.

To an extent I feel the same but theres also a large part of me that does not.

So as we established I'm to become 30 in a months time, this gives me a good chance to reflect and there's one striking thing that games have brought , a very conflicted life.

I've been playing games, console games to be more precise since I was 4 years old. Unlike some who's earliest memories might be of their mothers or food or even a smell or sight in the wide world mines of me sitting on a brownish carpet looking almost directly up at a crappy old 22 inch tv playing centipede on the atari 2600. This picture is the single strongest formative image in my head, it has helped define me.

Games and gaming are what I am and what makes me who I am but they are also shackles that in the grand scheme of my own existence have prevented my greater development and growth.

So ok how do I mean? On reflection i suppose the signs have always been there. My next earliest memory is of myself playing super Mario brothers and getting so upset with my in ability to complete harder levels in the game that I would break into tears. This frustration and self loathing would lead me to get so angry with myself I would hit or scratch myself... and continue playing. This sort of behavior is not entirely healthy as we all know, but this was untill quite a late point of my personal development. maybe even as late as 7 or 8 years old.

I bring this up because I still see the frustration that would have spawned that behaviour then In me when I play now. This time though it does not swell up due to playing solo but instead it develops during online play.

Most notably super street fighter 4 creates a conflicting set of emotional responses. Nothing as extreme as crying or hurting myself but no less as harmful i believe. This game, along with some racers and fps's, makes me feel totally inadequate.

The frustration comes from a slowly developing recurring thought "I know exactly what to do, how it works & how to make it happen, so why cant I ever do it!". Failure, coupled with expectation amplified by people with worse attitudes playing better then me.

I believe to an extent this is our fault. Not mine but all of us as a community. There is this strange community that has developed online across all games that states you have to be yay good at a game or your nothing and if you are nothing then we must all make sure to tell you. This also seems fed but achievements and gamerscores. We are more open now then ever before to judgements of our peers and that pressure can be crushing. To those of us that know how to be good and want to be able to play with others the disappointment of loss is enhanced and crushing.

I myself can become exceedingly depressed after a few fights online, only to become more desperate to do well sitting up late into the night playing on and becoming more and more down, almost hating myself and my own existence.Never feeling good enough. This is also not aided by the idea "oh it's just a game, it doesn't matter!" this leads only to a further depressive development. If its just a game and it doesn't matter then I must be really pathetic because i cant even do something as simple as this" confidence shattered faith in the ability to do important real life things is also shattered too.

This is extra sad because street fighter is something I've always played and loved. Oddly enough i was a looser growing up too, Didn't have friends and played all day alone in my room (hence the lack of experience and skill playing against others, although i did own street fighter alpha 2 on the saturn, so had the best possible edition of any street fighter).

The other issue I've had is with health, I feel no desire to do anything outside. Not anything like football or sports activity's. I cant swim, don't really interact well with others in a large group or sports environment and have developed a small dislike for the general populous. I'm poor from a poor street and a poorly educated area of town. have no money and few chances. The majority of people around me are the same, the difference is i was lucky to be born smart with an oddly above average IQ.

I see the way many people live their lives and how they turn out and I have no real desire to do the same. People say about the dole life. Have kids, get house, don't work, watch Easterners every night. That sort of life really depressed me and so the people whom live it also repel me. I have no interest in that life as a consequence Ive not gone out and met lots of people in my local environment, not developed relationships and not lived a normal healthy existence. Ive become more insular. Stuck to indoor activities and played games for 12 hour sittings. I have become a blob, a sentient mass and i realise now lazy both in body and mind.

Lastly I would like to also point out I'm poor but that it's not prevented myself from spending every available penny on games. hell I've even spent some unavailable ones on them. I now realise that I've become obsessed with obtaining them, I have 100s across many platforms, some I've not even began to play. Sometimes I buy games never to play them because i suddenly need money and sell them on for less then i paid for them.

I'm smarter then this but I still do it. I suspect I've developed an extreme habit or addiction. I've always bought games so its like a reflex action. I cant prevent myself from spending money on them and I'm sure its had effects on relationship. I'm not the boyfriend or partner I could be if I were able to focus on saving money, taking care of myself and looking after those I have loved.

I don't hold games up and blame them for the bad things in my life. They are and have brought lots of blessings to my life and continue to be inspirational and fun. Yet they are also something that helps to amplify the bad aspects to myself, they are a double edges sword and this is something I need to admit to myself if i am to improve my life. I want to be healthy, happy and a good person without completely removing games from my life but I'm not sure quite how possible that is.

- next time -

A topic that's wholly less negative.

really i do like games and all that, honest guv.