Dear Future Gamer,

Games for the latest games machines are very much more expensive than the titles that were around 15 years ago, and this is not just due to inflation, but because of the massive development costs that go into writing the obscene amount of code that goes into games nowadays. When you consider that BIG games used to be games that required a 128k Speccy AND needed to multiload...

So when you are splashing out 35-60 quid on a new game you want to make sure you are going to like it so you read magazine reviews or go on past experience of a particular genre/company. So people who read magazine reviews will only go for the highest marked ones as they will see this as maximising their value.

Well, almost. In reality, marketing also comes into play, big time. For me, Tomb Raider was an average game that really did nothing for me, but it spawned two almost identical sequels with another two planned. Not that cloning a good game is necessarily bad, it's just that when people go down this path they narrow their view to other games, something that I'm guilty of when it comes to Quake and its ilk.

So my point? I think that it is the lack of originality in the games industry today that keeps people sticking safely to their favourites, unwilling to take a risk on a genre they haven't tried or a game that has scored below 95 per cent. This is likely to be the situation for a while yet, but eventually people will be fed up with endless clones and the variation in gameplay we got from Spectrum titles may become the norm on our new toys, not the exception. We only have ourselves to blame if we end up with endless Tomb Raider clones. You will tire of them eventually...

James Hollidge

FG: It's something we're very aware of. Though you didn't go for Tomb Raider much, we loved it - opinions do differ - but generally we're not swayed by marketing hype - and no, we weren't swayed by any TR marketing hype. We're here, we hope, to provide you, the readers, with a service when it comes to reviewing games: pointing out the good from the bad. Or even taking time out to highlight the bad when it's likely people are going to be swayed by the overwhelming marketing hype. Michael Owen's World League Soccer for example - big name, big marketing spend, big pap. It still sold though.