Open Your Mind

Part of my New Year’s resolutions include:-

• Taking better care of my appearance (spending money on clothes when you don’t go out does seem like false economy though but it does tie into my next resolution)
• Saying yes to more social events (within reason)
• Spending more time with the kids (again, within reason)
• Giving up booze for the month of January.

So far it’s not going too bad – zero booze has passed my lips, I’ve had my haircut (I did look like I was wearing a crash helmet made of my own hair on some recent Christmas snaps). I also went for a walk / snowball fight with my daughter, she threw a snowball in my face – I threw one at her head and managed to knock her woolly hat off (should get a prize for that).  So far – so good.

In video game land for 2010 I want to achieve a few things:

• Finish more games
• And the one I thought of today – be more open minded in terms of what type of games I play.

I’m not doing to be bad with finishing games – I’ve just finished GTA IV and managed to complete eleven games in 2009 (just in case I’ve not mentioned this else where).

But what about being open minded and trying new games and when I say new games I mean games from genres you usually avoid or dismiss out of hand

Let’s be honest. As we get older we tend to stick with what we like and avoid trying new things. Maybe it’s just part of the aging process – you like what you know and you know what you like. Or maybe it’s because we’ve tried lots of games and have settled down into our favorite genres like a nice comfy pair of slippers, nothing wrong with that. But is there a danger of missing out by not trying something new or different?

My own gaming friends seem to stick to certain games from certain genres; anything outside of that and they won’t touch it with a barge poll. I’m guessing this is much like most other people. Some will play RPGs but not fighting games, others will play sports games but wouldn’t touch an MMO if their life depended on it.

This came into focus this week with the release of the highly rated Bayonetta – I was at the cinema (seeing Avatar for the 2nd time) when an awesome trailer for the game [Bayonetta] (set to the music of Le Roux – Going in for the Kill) and mentioned to Rich (a.k.a. supanova) that this game “looks amazing”, his reply was along the lines of “I’m not interested” which wasn’t totally unexpected as he doesn’t like fighting games. But maybe if he gave it a go he would enjoy it? Or maybe Rich knows what he likes and doesn’t see the point in throwing down £35 on a game that he won’t get much pleasure out.

Bayonetta seems to have split our little community of gamers  - I would like to say down the middle but that would be garbage, essentially only myself and Wilksy  are getting the game – from everyone else it’s been a collective “OUT” (as in “I’m out / not getting it). Not even a “I might get this when it comes down to a tenner.”

I suppose it’s a game with very limited appeal for some (miserable) people but surely a good game is a good game and this looks like something special. I mean it gets a ten out of ten from Edge and a perfect score in Famitsū .

Are we sometimes too dismissive of games based on our past experience with the genre? Or do we make snap judgments based on how we pigeon hole certain games? I think so – which is a great shame.

Personally, I feel I’m reasonably open-minded when it comes to different game genres and styles.

But I too dismiss certain games out of hand as being ‘not my cup of tea’. For example a game like Flower on the PSN – this has gotten generally favorable reviews and a lot of people have raved about (especially some of the Gamers with Jobs community) but to me the game doesn’t fit into any defined genre, it doesn’t have a story and it’s called “Flower” so it can’t be any good. I guess with limited time and money it’s a case of not wanting to take a chance on a game that won’t be that great.

But I want to change this, so in 2010 I will try and sample a wider variety of games or more accurately I’ll try and be more open -minded before I write a game off.

Maybe I’ll find some great games that I would have not have been missed out on, alternatively it might go the other way and I’ll decide that I need narrow my focus and stick to what I like (hoping this is not the case).

As I mentioned I think I have broad tastes when it comes to most things including games. Looking at my own purchases I do buy heavily into the FPS and Action Adventure categories. Although I becoming slightly jaded with the FPS at the moment (but that’s another story).

I have plenty of genres covered in my collection have plenty of music, RPG and racing games. The one genre I don’t really care about is strategy games so maybe I should take my own advice and try one of these as well. I don’t really like thinking outside of the box (or more accurately prefer to be told what to do in games at any rate) hence the reason I don’t go for these games. Also, strategy games tend to play better on the PC (mine 1st generation Intel iMac is not really a gaming machine). All excuses aside, I’ll go and have a look into strategy games and give one a try.

As Kuato said to Quaid “open your mind” – expand you’re gaming outlook – try something different. You might enjoy it.

In the meantime I’m totally excited about getting Bayonetta tomorrow – I might take it round to Rich’s house and see if I can change his mind.

What do you think then? Tempted by to try something different? Are you already an open-minded gamer? Or do you think it’s best to stick with what you know? Let me know.