This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
I’m pretty sure we all have at least one story of finding a hidden gem. We’re marauding through a store just browsing at games, when suddenly something catches our eye. We catch glimpse of a game that we’ve heard either little or nothing about, but your itchin’ for a new game and your willing to take a gamble.
Sometimes the story might end with a nightmare. Like the time I picked up Blasto on a whim without ever having heard anything about it beforehand. I remember the gamestop employee asking me if I had played it before and I told him no.
His stare grew more worried as he asked me if I had heard anything about the game. I lied and said yes just because I was positive it had to be the least crappy game there that I hadn’t owned already. (Hell it had Phil Hartman’s voiceover in it, how could I lose?!)
He very reluctantly checked me out, I played the game and quickly found out why the clerk was acting like I was doing a great injustice by rewarding such a game with my hard earned money. Anyways the point of this article is taking that gamble and finding something rewarding. I recall picking up a Playstation game that was marked down to twelve bucks at Target. I saw it had several discs and figured the amount of content alone would justify paying the meager fee.
The game was Star Ocean 2: The Second Story, and I surprisingly had alot of fun with it and spent many days of my youth playing it. Another game I had heard nothing at all about and picked up on a whim was Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. I ended up having a blast with that game and still play it on occasion to this day.
I don’t think there’s much if any chance for a gamer to have experiences like this anymore. This happened back when most of my gaming info came from either the occasional magazine I’d pick up, or from friends of mine. Nowadays info about games is so easy to come by and is written about so quickly that we find out details about games sometimes years before its released.
Don’t get me wrong now, I think that can be a great thing sometimes, but playing a great game and discovering it as you play it for the first time can be very rewarding, even moreso when you just pick it up on a whim and take a chance with it. Especially for younger gamers who may have saved up quite awhile to be able to pick up a new game.
Anyways I’d love to hear any stories you guys might have like this in the comments! =)
