If you’ve been following this blog, you know my life has been a bit of a rollercoaster for the better part of 2 years now. I’ve found myself smack in the middle of the games industry writing for a popular website, participating in podcasts, and taking trips around the country. I’ve found myself responsible for generating an “appropriate” opinion of games to share with the community. I felt pressure to get the reviews right, and also felt the pressure from publishers to get them out quickly. We always had a policy at EvAv that you should at least complete the game, or put significant time into it, before writing a review.
And with a fall littered with so many good games I found myself with stacks of unopened games, and long hours at night playing games I didn’t even care for just to keep publisher relationships good. A few days ago I crashed though. I didn’t even want to pick up an Xbox controller, or look at my PSP. I took an entire day off and didn’t even touch a game. I began to put things into perspective. There was some encouraging posts on the MVP Xbox forum from some fellow MVPs who were feeling the same thing. And there was encouraging words from a member of the Xbox team. Hopefully he wont’ mind if I reprint it:
You don’t have to prove anythign to anyone. If something is stressing you out - don’t do it. If you don’t want to play Harry Potter because you hate it - don’t! Don’t waste hours, and force yourself to stress to get a review done of a game you hate - it’s not worth it!
And he was right. It wasn’t worth it. Then I noticed that Gabe from Penny-Arcade just had a similar experience with Assassin’s Creed.
I think the biggest complaint I saw was that the missions become repetitive and boring. I actually didn’t understand this complaint at all until just the other day. I had gotten an early copy of the game just like everyone else in the media but I was just playing it for fun. I’d cracked into it over the weekend and when I got into the office on Monday I started seeing these negative reviews. When I saw the low scores I was actually really upset and I wanted to talk about the game here on the site. I wanted to tell everyone that these guys were full of shit. However, since so many of the complaints were based on the ending I wanted to beat it first so I was sure I wasn’t missing anything. I attacked the game again but this time with the goal of beating it as fast as I could. I was determined to get a post up on Tuesday and I was pushing through the game as fast as I could. I went from finding every high perch in a district to only getting the ones I needed to advance the story. I stopped saving every citizen and avoided any unnecessary confrontations. The informer missions that I had really enjoyed before, I now avoided because I knew they took too long to complete. I did the bare minimum of missions to progress the story and anything that “hindered” my progress was frustrating. Monday night after skipping over another combat (something I used to really enjoy) I stopped myself. What the fuck was I doing? I wasn’t playing the game because I wanted to I was playing it because I had a deadline and I needed to beat it. I stopped immediately and decided I’d write about the game whenever I got around to beating it. I spent another day and a half with it and during that time I hunted for hidden flags and explored the cities again. I came in this morning and finally did beat it but I did it at my own pace and I enjoyed every part of it.
That sums up beautifully what was happening to me, but not just with one game, with many. The fact is, I play games to have fun. I play games because I enjoy them. If I review a game, it should be because I want to, not because I have to. Sure I’ll play a bad game, there’s rarely a game I play that I don’t find some redeeming quality in. But I’m not going to force myself through it anymore.
It was very refreshing to pick up Mario Galaxy and just play and enjoy it, knowing I wouldn’t have to review it if I didn’t want to. I even played some Scene It! with the wife, something I had reviewed already but still enjoyed. Last but not least was some online gaming with my buddy in Guitar Hero and NHL08. It was a damn good night of a gaming.
Yeah, I can only imagine the pressure you must feel Daily. Having only written one review, I know how pressing is can be to have it done “just right” and how much time you have to invest to get the review out timely. Glad to see you’re ready to start enjoying games again :)