Nowadays, the absolute vast majority of games that I play are shit tbh.
This is why I pirate games first to try them out. I wanna be very clear that if I think a game is good I buy it, no questions asked.
However, since most games don’t have demos or trials, I don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted money so I look to piracy so that I can try them out before making a purchase.
AITAH?
That still can’t inform you properly on how a game ‘feels’ to play. I’m very tempted by Alan Wake 2, but having bounced off many other similar games because of how they control has me pining for a demo. I’ll not be dropping 50 quid without being able to try it first
A good quick look or early game LP with commentary will fill that in. The Giant Bomb format has one person asking another a series of questions, and game feel usually comes up. ACG reviews so many games that it’s more than likely he covered it in a video. If you find a couple of YouTube channels where the reviewers or LPers have similar tastes as you, it ends up being as good a method as any to make an informed purchase. Demos can also sometimes be misleading, depending on the game. There’s no perfect answer here, but there isn’t for any other purchase either.