State of Play: Expectations
This week’s column is dealing with a topic that everyone is currently being exposed to thanks to our position as being in the middle of holiday release season. The sheer amount of hype being pushed by PR representatives, by avid fans of the games, or just the word of mouth passed from one gamer to another is enough to flush any thought of anything but upcoming releases out of my mind. This week, of November 7th, is one particularly laden with the lavish praise for new releases as it carries both Modern Warfare 3 and Skyrim to the eager hands of gamers. These two titles are probably familiar to you as they have been floating on the collective consciousness of gamers for a long time now, though perhaps Skyrim more than MW3.
Expectations for new games can either be a blessing or a curse when the community actually begins to play the games and talk about them. Ive seen many a game be praised and said to have gone above and beyond what people thought the game would be like; while on the flip side there have been games that while touted to be “game of the year for all years” turn out to be less than exciting or evening failing to present a redeemable quality. Usually when a new game comes down the line with a mix of both compliment and criticism alike gamers are more likely to have a well balanced or more realistic idea of what the game will be whereas if a game receives nothing but 15 out of 10 star reviews the game has nowhere to go but down.