@Spoilers.

I’ve been a gamer for quite a while now. The Super Nintendo was my first home console and I can still remember the anticipation I felt when a new game was about to be released on it.

Back then games catalogues were immensely smaller and the only real way to find out if a new game was good or bad before was to buy gaming magazines that’d give you a score, detail the positive and the negative points, show you some snapshots of the game and leave you to make your own decision.

Oh how times have changed.

Here in 2011, the Super Nintendo is but a distant memory. Now we live in the age of the PS3, the 360 and of course the Wii. Games have obviously come along quite a bit since 16MB on a cartridge was impressive, and as the games themselves have evolved, so too has the way we find out about them.

Of course magazines still exist, and provide a fairly decent way of previewing the massive array of games that are hitting shelves near you soon. However, they’re facing massive competition from the juggernaut that is the internet.

Websites like IGN, Gamespot, Screwattack and CVG offer a plethora of information for every game and every console imaginable. Not only that but they can update constantly, something magazines don’t have the ability to do. If Sony releases new details of a new Uncharted game, a magazine will have to wait until its next publication date to tell people. The internet has no such trouble; seconds after the new details emerge it’s on there for all to see.

Although I like this fact, I can’t help but miss the old days where you’d wait for the latest issue of a magazine and be hit by all that juicy gaming news at once!

Back then all you’d have were screenshots found in the magazines, if you were really lucky you’d see a TV commercial for one! Now though, thanks to the internet and places like YouTube, games companies feel the need to constantly reveal new material months before the release date, sometimes when there isn’t even a release date!

Take BioWare for example, developer of the amazing Mass Effect series. When Mass Effect 2 was coming out, they released trailer after trailer after trailer. Video game websites featured tonnes of footage from the game, screenshots, videos, the lot. I really don’t like this. Some information is fine, but a lot of games reveal far too much.

I mean, it’s Mass Effect, I’m going to buy it BioWare, my money is as good as yours, now stop ruining the game already! This is the reason why I have only seen the teaser trailer to Mass Effect 3. I’ve been avoiding everything else because I don’t want anything ruined for me! I just want to put the game into the console and be relatively clueless about what is about to greet me. Just like the old days.

How do I go about avoiding news like this? Well I stay off games websites during big releases. Inevitably I will catch the odd spoiler on them that I didn’t want to know… Sonic is a secret character on Smash Bros Brawl! Not much of a secret now is it!?

You just have to accept that you’re never going to avoid all spoilers; you just have to evade them as best you can.

However, as technology keeps on progressing it becomes more and more difficult to avoid the pesky spoil sports. Have a Twitter account? Follow any video game reviewers or commentators? You probably know exactly what I’m going to say…

When a new game comes out, these reviewers do their upmost to get the game, play through it, write a review, make a video if needs be, and throw it on the internet. Twitter’s a great way for these people to inform their followers of new content on their individual sites. I’ve got no qualms with this at all; in fact I think it’s great.

However, the unfortunate thing about Twitter in this instance is that it’s a bit of a hub for conversation. One reviewer may decide to just talk about how good an ending it was in a game, releasing all the finite details to the final fight or whatever it might be. So many do it. I get so annoyed by this…

Take Joe Vargas (Angry Joe), who’s one of the biggest culprits for this. I follow him because I like the videos he makes and I value his opinion on games, his tweets are pretty amusing at times too, as is his moustache. Anyway, last month Batman: Arkham City was released and many purchased and played it straight away. I did not, instead opting to wait until Christmas. It is a Q4 title after all.

So imagine my annoyance when Joe decides to just let all his followers know the ins-and-outs of the Riddler boss-battle. It’s infuriating! I’ve been skipping past his tweets since Batman came out, I might as well unfollow him really. To be fair to Joe though, he isn’t the only one doing it, far from it.

It’s like spoilers have become a good thing in the gaming culture. It’s like people want it to be spoiled for them! Give us more trailers! Give us more in-game footage! Show off an entire level! NO! I want to experience the game for myself; I don’t want to know Ezio’s new items in Assassin’s Creed Revelations! I don’t want to know Sheperd’s team-mates in Mass Effect 3! I don’t want to watch the developer of Modern Warfare 3 play through a whole level! I want to play the level for myself! Video games are meant to be played! They’re not movies, contrary to Hideo Kojima’s beliefs.

Unless you buy a game upon release at mid-night, run home, turn off your phone and beast the game overnight, you will not be able to play spoiler free. I miss those Super Nintendo days, where the only way to find out how to do a level you’re stuck on was to ask around desperately at school; and reading about a new Zelda title in a magazine was the highlight of your week, nay month!

There’s no real way to change it unfortunately. It’s just one of the rough parts of the internet; and as we all know, you have to take the rough with the smooth. YouTube with the trolls. Twitter with the Bielibers. Facebook with your friends.

Now if you don’t mind I’m off to hide in my bedroom cupboard. Only four more weeks until Christmas and Batman: Arkham City! See you then!