By Alex “SupaSlick” Shaw
Recently, I was in a Circuit City with a buddy. He’s much more of a casual gamer who only plays Madden and maybe one or two other titles. He owns a Wii, but the only reason he even has a Wii is because he got it as a gift. Anyway, passing by a games rack, he stops, picks up Transformers, and looks and me. He loved the movie, we both did, but he knows I know more about this stuff. My immediate response was “Put … That… Back” He looked and responded with “But, it’s Transformers!” … and so began my idea for this rant.

If you’re reading this, there’s an excellent chance you’re either a hardcore gamer, or at very least you have a hardcore mentality, i.e., you know much more about the gaming industry than the average consumer. Upon my soapbox here at Sarcastic Gamer, I feel it is my duty to organize the hardcore gamers to educate our casual, and otherwise completely CLUELESS friends, co-workers, family members, etc., on what is worth their hard earned cash.

It’s people like my uninformed friend who only perpetuate terrible games! Maybe if more people did a little research, or at least, consulted one of us, the hardcore crew, sacred gaming time would be mercilessly spared from the cornucopia of crap that’s constantly created!

Now, I don’t expect this to happen overnight. Think of this rant with a sort of “pay it forward” approach. If you even get one parent or friend to look at your favorite gaming review site before they spend $60 on Vampire Rain for example, we’ve taken one step closer to our goal; The creation, marketing, and selling of better games. I’d bet the average mom doesn’t even KNOW game review sites exist! If she new, that mom could then tell her group of girlfriends, and so on. It’s movements like this that can evolve into a tidal wave of change! We just need to make the first step!

So where do you begin? It’s simple – scope out the people you know who are either casual gamers, or have kids who play games. The child’s age is unimportant since no youngster should be brainwashed into thinking crap is good. Inform these people of your wealth of gaming knowledge, and that you’d be more than happy to assist them, before their next purchase. In the case of a parent, it’s a win – win – win situation. They’ll be happy they’re spending money on something their kids will actually play more than 30minutes, the kid will enjoy a good game, and you’ll be happy you diverted them from picking up a copy of Tenchu Z because “the box looked cool.”

Unfortunately, this is only the first part of this theoretical gaming revolution. The second step is much harder. I’m referring to steering casual gamers away from franchise titles, or more specifically games based on movies and TV. This will be an uphill fight, especially if the aforementioned movie or show is extremely popular. We of the hardcore crew know that for the most part, all movie games are garbage. Teaching this to your casual gaming friends should be easy, however, how do you convince a mom not to buy Pirates of the Caribbean when her kid is screaming for the game? I know one parent who bought her little boy just about every movie game that came out on the Gamecube. Looking at the stack of wasted gaming money made me want to cry as I know he never played any of them for more than a week. My best suggestion would be to tell said parent that if their kid REALLY wanted say, Shrek The Third … rent it first. If the kid really likes it, well then, there’s nothing you can do.

In any case, I take this opportunity to call on all hardcore gamers! DO YOUR PART! Take a stand! Say “DROP that copy of Pimp My Ride!” If we all work together, we could make this gaming world a better place. At least until Spiderman 4 the videogame comes out.

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