Exactly. I consider it basically payola these days. Every big-name review is gushing, falling over itself to expound on the innumerable virtues of every AAA release, and then once normal folks have played for a few weeks, the real story comes out. My partner played the demo and was shocked to be playing the same game as the one that was reviewed. Unless I’m so excited to play a game that I don’t care if it’s mediocre, I wait to buy until actual the real user reviews trickle out post-release.
I’m largely extrinsically motivated. I always have high hopes of 100%-ing games, but I find once all the quests are done, my enthusiasm for going out and wandering and finding the last things drops off precipitously. Even if I’m not following the storyline and have wandered off to explore, I still feel the need for some ultimate promise of more story to come.
Funny because it’s really quite the opposite in most places. You’re legally required not to serve intoxicated patrons. If you overserve people and they go off and kill someone, you could be liable in my state. I think that’s pretty bullshit but it surprises me that folks would argue to the exact opposite. Of course, why should that surprise me?
My partner and I had fun playing Cat Quest 2 and Spiritfarer as coop games, in addition to It Takes Two which you mentioned. CQ2 is a cute action RPG and Spiritfarer is very chill, lots of sim/management tasks but with really beautiful characters, art, and story. Definitely very unlike Cuphead or Portal 2 but sometimes it’s nice to switch things up a bit.