Second, this week’s Aberrant Gamer column goes back to my dating sim niche. Playing Harvest Moon more than a bit lately, I noticed that I could easily predict what bachelors and bachelorettes would be available. Harvest Moon in particular tends to recycle characters, subtly and knowingly, even when they have variations on their appearances and names (this sounds like it’d be a terrible thing, but it’s actually kinda fun). But beyond the series itself, I noticed that there’s a broader archetypal pattern to the gals and guys “available” to you in dating sims, just as there are in hardcore hentai games, so I decided to have a little stab at analyzing What Your Dating Sim Choice Says About You.

All the stuff I’ve been doing lately means I am not, like many people I know, in the LittleBigPlanet beta. I can wait at least until retail for that one — since I’m rarely big on multiplayer anything, and prefer structure, and find that “making things in a video game” holds my attention for all about ten minutes, I’m suspicious that I’ll fall into the “it’s cool, but not my kinda thing” camp.

I’m also sort of leery of groupthink in general. It leads people to enthuse that Braid is super deep just because everyone else has said so, without discovering that fact for themselves — or worse, it leads them to shut up if they disagree. I had a dinner conversation lately with some fairly special industry folk who, after a moment of hesitation, all shyly admitted they didn’t “get” Braid and didn’t see what all the fuss was about — and also said they’d been afraid to admit this because they were afraid it made them “stupid” in the face of the group sentiment. These were all absolutely brilliant people, too.

And I think the same kind of groupthink might be leading to a little bit of over-hype for LBP — I’ve seen it a couple of times at events and stuff, and not that it isn’t legitimately exciting, but I confess to feeling peer-pressured to be “really awed and excited” about it when I’m merely “interested.” So yes, I do plan on having a go at LBP myself for sure — wouldn’t miss it — but as to whether it’s the Second Coming or not, I’ll actually wait until I play it at length to decide.

Anyhow, playing a retro RPG and writing about aberrant gaming was a nice refresher for me after a heavy week of survival horror and Silent Hill: Homecoming. I’m gratified, like I’ve said, to read long threads on forums and stuff to see there’s quite a chunk of players really enjoying the game, but it was still just a little bit lonely last week being one of the only reviewers to really like it (1UP and UGO reviewed it fairly well, but those are the only ones I know of).