A Perfect 7: Celebrating the Average Game

New England Gamer takes a moment to talk that most overlooked branch of video games. The not terrible, the not wonderful, the just plain average. Many titles with a lot to offer are often ignored thanks in no small part to a score falling just slightly below what the current generation deems to be acceptable.

[dizzleK]

i find that the games i usually end up enjoying most are the "average" ones.

[exsturminator01]

that average games tend to get overlooked. In fact, most gamers consider a 7 or lower to be a failing grade. When so much time and money goes into buying a new game and investing the effort to play it, people can be pretty choosy about their purchases. That said, I think it's important for a gamer, when deciding on whether to buy a new game or not, to look for a reviewer who shares their interests and tastes in games. For example, Heavy Rain got good to great reviews. I, however, really didn't enjoy it. It took me some digging, but I eventually found some reviewers who didn't like it either, and for the same reasons I didn't like it. Now, I go to them to see what their opinion is on a game, to see if it contains any elements I don't like the way Heavy Rain did. Average games would do a lot better if gamers did more research and found a reviewer they could trust and relate to, and checked that reviewer when a game they were interested in had average or lower scores in general.

[Lykon]

that's interesting, I hated Heavy Rain, could barely be bothered to play it through once....but am loving 3d dot game heroes which got average scores, I wonder how many games I've missed out on due to review scores.

[stewie32887]

It's funny, I thought Heavy Rain was more deserving of an average score than many of the titles that actually do. As you mentioned Lykon, 3D Dot Game Heroes, while not perfect, was easily more engaging as a whole then Heavy Rain and yet reviewers for the most part were laying thick praise on the latter of the two.

Another one I'm playing right now that I'm liking despite "bad" scores is Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. It's not perfect, but its combat is interesting and its story is joyously aimed toward a more mature audience.