Amazon.com is great. It allows people who’ve used a product to rate and review it so I can make a more informed decision. This system is especially useful when buying video games (yes, I broke down yesterday and bought a PS2). But, I’ve noticed an annoying trend. Games that no one outside of the company creating the game and a small number of beta testers haven’t played yet have ratings. Adventurous psychic souls have rated games that aren’t coming out for sometimes months in advance. For example, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter sounds like a great game. You can’t rate the concept of a game before playing a game. If you look a the concept for one of the most popular video games of all time: a yellow circle eats small dots, gets chased by ghosts, and for short periods of time gets to chase those ghosts after eating a slightly larger dot. There, that sounds pretty crappy, doesn’t it? The same with classics like Super Mario Brothers, etc. People, people, people, you’re screwing up a great system. Amazon, please don’t allow people to rate items before they come out, or at least wipe the slate clean once the item is released. It artificially skews the rating for premonitions to count the same as real-world experience.
Ok, I’m done… and by the way, Jak and Daxter is amazing. The world is huge, and loads of fun to explore.