Eating things.

We had our ONE THOUSANDTH page view over night, good work everyone and I hope you've enjoyed it all so far.

We've been running for just over a month now and I've been considering what would make it worthwhile to go back and play some of these old games. I mean, there are a LOT of games out there, hundreds of new ones come out each year, on different platforms and for different audiences.


There have to be a few things we look out for when looking at games and what are our reasons for going back. They'll be different to what gets rated when a new game comes out; there isn't the weight of expectation but they have to be worth going back to.

That being said, without throwing myself into the controversial debate on rating games, I don't believe in giving games a score out of something and having that be a deciding factor on whether you'd play it. I like Kotaku's system of NO, YES and WAIT for a game, and then they describe why.

Numbers make it easy but they're too easily misconstrued. For me and for here I'll be looking at games according to 3 variables, and depending on the three I'd expect you to choose whether it's worth your time to go back, or just look for a synopsis or playthrough somewhere else and live the game vicariously through others.

Now I shall explain and whip up a review as well!

Enjoyment:

• "Enjoyment," you say!? "How can you say enjoyment, that's so subjective!" Well a game has to be enjoyable doesn't it? This will be a tough one to rate and describe, because there's a lot of different types of enjoyment and some people find different things enjoyable . 
• I promise I'll be as objective as I can, and try to see the good in everything. I must say I'm pretty open minded about games and am happy to recommend something I don't like to someone who would like it, but I think the promise of fun is important in a game and I'll touch on this in my reviews.
• If a game's not fun you probably shouldn't go back and play it. We're all doing this for our enjoyment right, I understand hobby and competitive gaming and the drive for that, but it has to be fun.

Accessibility:

• Accessibility is how easily you can get a game to the title screen. It's relevant because if you can't play the game then there's not much point in me telling you to go play it. 
• I'd like to tell you that going to the shop and buying a game is the only way to play but we will consider ease of downloading, purchasing online, from eBay, emulating and cracking as options when considering accessibility. 
• Please buy a game you like if you ever come across it - most old school games should be anywhere from $1 to $20 tops, so do like my housemate does - download first and purchase when you can. There's nothing quite like owning an old school game that you can share with friends!

Time:

• "Time" is pretty broad a heading but this comes down to how much time do you have to invest to get the reward. For me, knowing (approximately) how much of my time I'll have to invest in a game to get  what I want from it is important. 
• When does the skill curve cap out, how long until I'm a part of the world, how long does the game take to beat, does it have a good multiplayer are all important questions for a game to address.
• Different games will answer this differently, and whilst this will be a (mostly) flat answer depending on the game but it will honestly affect how much you want to play it and it's important for someone to know before choosing to play it.

I want to keep this post separate to the first proper Retreview, but let me know your thoughts on this. I know it doesn't cover all the gaming bases but I'd like to let people find out for themselves what a game is about. If I can let you know what's worth it and what's not and why, the experience will be richer for you having gone out and found it, played it and enjoyed it.

So this is my EAT scale. The retreviews won't be long, the point isn't to evaluate a game on everything it does right or wrong, it's to tell you whether this game is still just as fun for you to play now as anything else, if it's worth it fo ryou to go back and if you'll be able to to.

Should you EAT it? That's what we'll tell you.