I bought my gamecube late in the game, about 5 months before the 360 was released. The transition between teenager living at home and adult had taken up much time and money, and I had gotten out of the videogame world for a few years. Finally things started to settle down, and I saw an ad for used gamecubes at EBgames for 60 bucks, and a big bin of used games for 10 bucks a pop. I obviously jumped on it.

 By this time I knew nothing about what was going on in the videogame world, I had been living under a rock as far as the realm went. I didn't know what was good and what was bad. I didn't have the review scores of every release in the past year memorized from continual debates about what's worth playing and what sucks, and why this system is blah blah ect. So my game choices were completely random, or that is to say based on the same things that appealed to me when I was a kid. I looked at the box art, the screenshots on the back and decided what looked cool. I picked up a game called "lost kingdoms", a Lord Of the Rings hack and slash generic liscensed action game, and "the sims". The kind of choices that I would probably consider choices for a very ill informed casual gamer.

 I enjoyed all three immensely. I have no idea what kind of scores those games got, but I'm guessing pretty mediocre ones. Actually looking it up lost kingdoms got a 71% average score on gamerankings. I didn't know or care, it was fun. An average RPG, a liscensed hack and slash, and a poor PC port of an old game. And I loved them, played my gamecube every day after work. Never even thought about whether or not they were good games.

Now I'm back in the saddle, got my current gen system and I'm checking the sites everyday, keeping up with reviews, and the gamerankings. These days I don't even rent a game that gets less than an 80% average ranking. I know ballpark figure what kind of scores a game is going to get months before it's ever released. And I really think I'm missing out. Since I've had my wii I haven't even thought about playing alot of games because they didn't perform up to par with the reviewers. I thoroughly research all of my gamecube games that I think about purchasing, and forget about it if it didn't get good scores when it came out. 7.5? That's not worth my 12 bucks! No sir!

 Forget that. When I was younger I didn't need research and reviewers to inform me what I should and should not play. That's what box art and screenshots were for! I didn't need a number to know whether or not a game was fun or not. I didn't need a website to tell me all the reasons a game was flawed and probably alot less fun than this other game with a higher metascore. I'm going back to that. I'm playing soul calibur legends, reviews be damned! Where's my red steel, and ninjabread man? COD4 bored me, give me some generic FPS from 2 years ago I never played! There's a good chance I'll enjoy it more.

 Reviews are just ammo for console wars. And I will use them as such :) but I'm playing whatever the hell I want.

What people don't understand is that a true AAA title only come out every so often. If you want to play games alot, then you're going to have to find games you like that arn't always going to score high. People bash the playstation 3 for not having tons of AAA games all the time, which is a shame, as most consoles take years to get AAA games. It takes alot of time and money to develop these games, so they're not just going to pop out left & right. Both the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii actually had very strong first years in terms of games. You're not going to get a library like the PS2 or Gameboy Advance over night. Not even the DS and PSP--the two platforms with the most games--have that.

I bought Superman 64.

So yes, I read review scores religiously.

tough break montana. But just because I stepped on a nail in the grass doesn't mean I will forever walk with a metal detector in front of me! I WILL LIVE THE DANGER!

I agree. I think reading reviews and blogs and researching all kinds of info takes the fun out of gaming. For me, I kinda just look at reviews that get 8.5 or higher to see if its worth my time. However, doing the research takes time too.

However, I think that when you're a kid, you didn't really care about money so you can just look at the box and pick what looks cool.

Money has a way of making things better or worse. That is, if its cheap enough - it becomes "good". If it is expensive (ie. new games) - it has to be "worth it".

The last part of your post there... You made the best decision of your gaming life. I used to think EGM was cool and gave the best reviews. I let them dictate the games I bought for my system. However I discovered that I liked alot of games they gave poor reviews and didn't care for some that they gave good reviews. It was about the time that Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2 came out side by side with Champions of Norrath that I lost all faith in the magazine. I read their reviews for both games and couldn't understand why they would complain about something in one game and not the other. (To many fetch quests for instance) I decided from that point on Reviews be damned I'm going to buy/ play what looks interesting to me. Not let other people tell me what to buy. Also though and this is most important you have to remember you and the guy doing the reviews may have totally different tastes in games. So really Reviews aren't worth reading unless your trying to get an idea of what a game is like and there are no other sources.

Well for my personal experiance about 2-3 years ago I didn'T even have the internet and didn't read reviews in magazines and such so I picked up w/e seemed good as you.

Today it feels almost like... Paranoia... I read reviews everytime a game comes out and when it gets a lower score I'm almost like affraid to buy it (can't rant DS games =/) and well I've got no other system...

Lost Kingdoms was a freakin' fun game...

tl;dr, but I confess I loved Devil May Cry 2, but then all my friends told me it sucked and I couldn't like it anymore.

I use reviews mainly to identify good games I might've otherwise overlooked and to watch out for the games I might've been interested in that are truly awful (buggy, stupidly frustrating, etc.)