Today's Surprise

The thing I think I love most about games is that they are always surprising me. Not just in the sense that technology is catching up to imagination more and more every day, the actual games often surprise me. You can read reviews, listen to your friends, and even follow the development of the game and still have no idea of what you will experience while playing it. Games that look phenomenal turn out to be uninspired and games that look absolutely idiotic entertain you more than you could have dreamt.

Either way, it's always an adventure.

Thank goodness for GameFly! I am willing to put so many games in my GameQ that I wouldn't look at twice in a store. I mean, why not? There's only so many A-list titles out there. Sometimes you don't even want to play a "great game" (using the term like "great books"), the really good ones make you think a lot. They're also ridiculously addictive, and some days you just don't have time to get sucked in.

On the other hand, sometimes you pick up a casual game and do get REALLY sucked in. I'm experiencing this right now (well, I'm typing this during load screens, obviously you can't type with a Wiimote in your hand). I will now make a rather embarassing confession - cooking and food-related games seem to have become my favorite casual games of all. My phone is filled with them and months ago, on a whim, I put Order Up! in my GameQ because I heard it was the best one for the Wii. Still, when it got here I made so much fun of myself and considered sending it back right away. After all, cooking games are great on a subway, but do I really want to dedicate my precious home gaming time to one?

As it turns out, yes. I really do. For the first five minutes the game was on I was cringing at the over-infantile graphics and feeling, and then I did the tutorial and realized this game is HARD. To do okay is pretty easy, but who wants to do okay? I don't care if something is absolutely stupid, I would like to excel at it.

I'm going to start a new post with my review, as my musings have made this one so long already. I think the real point, though, is that you shouldn't shun a game just because it looks dumb. If you can try it out without unloading a bunch of cash you may as well give it a spin. Who knows? You just may be surprised.

(I must remind myself to read this every time I fall into that trap.)