The Pointlessness of Current Videogame Journalism 312
Anonymous Coward writes "TG Daily has its weekly videogaming column up, and this week the author is attacking what he terms The Pointlessness of Current Videogame Journalism. From the article: '...the formulaic, child-minded writing-for-the-lowest-common-marketing-denominator style that encapsulates 99% of the mainstream videogame press is a load of crap ... Rather than being critics who add to the industry as film and music journalists arguably did back in the heady days of the 50's - 70's... videogame journalists are mere extensions of the marketing machine, pushing even the most mediocre of games into a good light with the public in previews and then trashing them for sport to see how many good puns can be dredged out of the 500 words which the author really doesn't want to have to write.'"
No doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Almost got it right (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Almost got it right (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can verify a small part of what someone tells you, do it.
Are they open to questions and discussion. Are they willing to get specific. Or do they speak in generalities and their flaws behind fake anger, mockery and showmanship.
Are they asserting more than seems reasonable, or do they clearly delimit what is known and unknown.
A web of communication between people is actually a pretty good way to look at the truth if a low enough percentage of them have ulterior motives and a high enough percentage of them are in a position and are willing to check some facts.
The Community knows better (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/ [stockmarketgarden.com]
Re:The Community knows better (Score:2, Insightful)
The same rule generally follows for internet discussions. People post messages on BBS' for shits and giggles, not because they think they are going to become rich doing so. But if you come to an RPG fa
Re:The Community knows better (Score:5, Insightful)
Some games have a buzz that's so fantastic that you can believe the reviews, and some just smell fishy by the them. Obviously the only way to tell for sure is to either buy the game or like I do: try it out at a friends house. With the two options being shelling over fifty bucks for a game (assuming my hardware will run it and I don't have to buy a new knuder valve) or a six pack and a night of gaming with a friend... I'll take beer and friends every time.
Re:The Community knows better (Score:2)
I agree with your post, but don't forget about demos, which also, at times, gave me great insight of what a game was like (for example, the BF2 demo made me buy the game, after skipping on the first part, BF1942)
Re:The Community knows better (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Community knows better (Score:2)
Re:The Community knows better (Score:2)
Re:The Community knows better (Score:2)
Re:The Community knows better (Score:2)
Oh the sweet irony (Score:5, Funny)
Business is business (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Business is business (Score:3, Insightful)
You're a journalist I take it?
Sorry, dude. I don't even consider badly written Slashdot comments acceptable. There's no way I'm going for bad journalism for which I have to pay. It better be fairly well written, and it better be honest, or I'm not spending a dime on it, and I'm not buying anyth
Re:Business is business (Score:3, Insightful)
If I started seeing a lot of the same video game ads when I was looking for actual content, I'd stop going to that site. If I saw the same ad on all the sites in place of content, I'd boycott the product.
Considering. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Considering. (Score:2, Funny)
Video game "journalism" as bad as Moto"journalism" (Score:5, Insightful)
And the situation is exactly the same with game review magazines.
Don't expect it to change; it's not going to. Until the flow of money is massively re-arranged to come far more from the readers than the manufacturers, the magazines will continue to be shameless advertising and little more.
Re:Video game "journalism" as bad as Moto"journali (Score:2)
I'm not sure how or why you're comparing PC Games with Motorcycles.
You can get a full experience of (most) PC Games with several days of dedicated play.
How can you expect a comparable review of a motorcycle?
Off the top of my head, the best reviews I can recall are where Caranddriver takes a car and makes it a dai
Re:Video game "journalism" as bad as Moto"journali (Score:2)
FWIW most biker rags tend to review only the aspects of bikes that can be figured out in a couple hours of riding, and then only because that's what their readership is interested in. Unlike cars, bikes tend to be a luxury purchase r
Re:Video game "journalism" as bad as Moto"journali (Score:2)
Not all mags were total mouthpieces, I think the best gaming rags (when they first started out) were GamePro and Electronic gaming monthly, I used to get stuff like Nintendo power for a while mostly for info on new games/codes and stuff. In the earlier EGM and Gamepro days they'd trash games pretty handily and hand out shit scores.
Video game reviews give me heebie jeebies (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Video game reviews give me heebie jeebies (Score:2)
Re:Video game reviews give me heebie jeebies (Score:2)
(hint: "literally" does not mean the same as "seriously")
Is this new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Emphasis added for stoners
So, is this new? Look at any niche market journal like for stereo equipment, cars, or anything, and tell me how much negative press there is in them.
I'm a recovering audiophile, and I remember when I would read the magazines of the trade, everything they "reviewed" was excellent or at least very good compared to their multi-tens of thousands "reference" system for the money.
Re:Is this new? (Score:3, Funny)
So it's curable then? That's good to know. May your recovery be a complete one.
Re:Is this new? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's 100% curable. The treatment involves enjoy the music, as opposed to the sound.
Re:Is this new? (Score:2)
Can you think of any 'magazines of the trade' that actually had a blind testing policy?
Re:Is this new? (Score:2)
Car magazines tried it for a while, but it got too expensive and risky to drive brand new cars while blind.
Doesn't that partially have to do with the audio industries extreme fear of (double) blind tests?
I've actually seen double blind tests before for amplifiers with statistics, significant differences, confidence intervals, and everything. I've seen a number of double blind codec and media tests, especially for lossy f
Halo 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I could elaborate more on what was wrong with Halo2 but it's been awhile since it came out. I can't be the only one to think the single player was poo though.
Re:Halo 2 (Score:2, Insightful)
in cases of movie adaptations/comic adaptations, etc, as long as the game plays OK the reviewers will give it a great score based on the fact that they like batman or whatever.
Re:Halo 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the first wave of reviews - the most important in terms of ensuring people believe the hype - are from publications/websites that received preferential treatment in the form of early code. In addition, the publishers embargo all reviews until a certain date, forcing all outlets to generally release their reviews at the same time unless they want to appear to be "beaten to the scoop". This also prevents would-be-critics (or at least unimaginative ones) from seeing
At Gamers Europe, we received some of the first batch of code. This came as something of a shock, as it was generally only the conglomerate-owned big guns (IGN, Gamespot etc.) who had this privilege. However, thanks to our links with Microsoft Ireland, we were included too - so we sent our man Piaras to review the game, and he and I made sure that we too were ready to go live by the embargo date. So that night, along with all the other sites posting their 9+/10 reviews, we released our review - a large volume of copy, tinged with disappointment that whilst the game was a decent FPS, it didn't scrape the heights of its predecessor. This was topped with a score of 8.0/10 - we only reviewed the single player campaign as the European Live servers weren't yet up; I'm still perplexed as to how other sites were able to test the game online...
Anyway, the fanboys went absolutely batshit (the writer received at least one death threat), Microsoft were not best pleased (but to their credit, have continued to send us code - the relationship we have remains essentially unchanged), and by the end of the day we found ourselves as the only review of Halo 2 online that offered any criticism.
So in short: there was no pay off that we observed - there was a launch party a few days after the reviews went live that journos were invited to, but this is pretty standard with big titles, and doesn't amount to a substantial bribe - nevertheless, given the difference between our views and that of every other publication, our man in attendance found it quite an uncomfortable experience.
What there was, was a co-ordinated schedule for reviewing the game, effectively set by the publisher. All the big, important reviews were concentrated into a single blast of hype a few days before the launch date, with no opinion seeping out beforehand. Looking at the first day sales figures, and your own conceptions of how the game was critically received, you can draw your own conclusions as to the effect that had on the gamebuying public.
[Apologies for the slight incoherence of this post - I'm currently feeling a little out of practice!]
Re:Halo 2 (Score:2)
I read that as 'big titties'. I gotta lay off the porn.
Re:Halo 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about grade inflation... that pretty much much proves TFA's point.
Re:Halo 2 (Score:3, Insightful)
What happened to giving an honest score?
Somewhere along the way, folks bought into the bullshit that many parents thought was important, and lead to a whole generation believing that "there are no losers". Remember that scene in "Meet the Fockers" when the guy's father is proudly showing off his son's 10th place ribbons?
Reviwers and game magazines seem reluctant to give anything lower than "really good" as a score, as if a score of average or lower would somehow hurt the game's feelings.
An average ga
Re:Halo 2 (Score:2)
However, the review was and is Piaras' opinion, and when you ask someone to write a review for you, you defer to their judgement
Re: subjective rating systems (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps you're not familiar with the American culture that forces ratings to be skewed toward the upper extremes. In the US, students are given letter grades that correspond to percentages. If your average score is 90%, you get an A (or A-, depending on the scale). 80% is a B, 70% is a C (* some use 65%), and anything less than that is considered a failure. Partial credit is often given for incorrect answers, so it is rath
Re:Halo 2 (Score:2)
I'm going back to university in a week, where I have to do twelve essays a term.
Shit.
Re:Halo 2 (Score:3, Informative)
I think that's being kind. #1 didn't have silly boss battles with infinite henchmen, didn't have absurd inequities such as with the alien sniper rifle, where the mighty Master Chief with his fancy new armor dies instantly with *every* hit, and yet grunts can absorb two or even three body shots. And oh yeah, Halo had an actual ending.
Re:Halo 2 (Score:2)
I'm currently trapped in a little tunnel in the throne room (or whatever it is on the Covenant home world) with a bunch of brutes and grunts waiting for me outside. I killed the first bunch with nothing but some plasma grenades, a needler, a brute plasma rifle, a cov carbine (with only a little ammo) and a plasma pistol
has it always been this way? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:has it always been this way? (Score:2)
Let me know what you think of the demo of Black and White 2. And the Sims 2 demo. And the Movies Demo.
Youll have to code them first, because they dont exist. Ditto the Half life 2 demo.
There is a worrying trend amongst big developers and publishers to not 'bother' with a demo these days. And I've heard it explained to me from the companies themselves, they think that if they spend enough on marketing, people will buy the game anyway, why sully the issue by letting them try before they buy?
In some way
Re:has it always been this way? (Score:4, Funny)
You're so right. Luckily I'm a fucking red hot coder and have put together a Half-Life 2 demo for you here:
http://www.ati.com/halflife2/index.html [ati.com]
Don't mention it.
Re:has it always been this way? (Score:2)
PQ, Gamespy et al. (Score:3, Interesting)
I did a lot of mods myself. Some I would have liked to have finished, but the ones I did finish all collect dust now. (and
No, it's not always this way (Score:2)
The problem with "Internet Journalism" is that for the most part, you don't need any of those qualifications. You can pretty much just pick up a keyboard and write and article. I'm surprised at the loads of junk you find on the "big" game review sites to tell you the truth - you'd think they would want people that can write well.
Re:No, it's not always this way (Score:2)
then you have... (Score:2)
I think the latter is much worse, as a lot of the time mainstream news coverage of video games is simply exploitive fear-mongering (take *any* coverage of Grand Theft Auto, for example).
I like GameFaqs and P-A (Score:4, Informative)
Also, I love the game info posted at Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com]. Gabe and Tycho have similar tastes in games as I do, so when they love a game it's a pretty safe bet that I'll like it too.
Re:I like GameFaqs and P-A (Score:3, Informative)
Real Gamers have known this for years (Score:5, Interesting)
You will almost never see a game like N [harveycartel.org], or Uplink [uplink.co.uk] reviewed, because they aren't backed by the big cartels like EA, whose latest player name update to FIFA will doubtlessly turn out to be a "worthy addition to this legendary series".
Something had to be said... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Something had to be said... (Score:2)
Doom, when compared to Wolf3D, is considered better because of improved Mod support and graphics. The game was better because you could actually strafe - but it still had problems of an elementry grade FPS (with strafe-running and such).
Quake, when compared to Doom, is considered better because of impro
Re:Something had to be said... (Score:2)
*cough* *splutter* Troll, surely?
I mean there are a lot of Doom3/iD fanboys who thought it was the second coming, but it was all you could do to get Todd Hollenshead to stop proclaiming it as the first coming.
For instance, from Todd's blog on the release of Doom 3:
Re:Something had to be said... (Score:2, Interesting)
This got better; some 16
Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
True of most journalism try blogs (Score:5, Informative)
Trade Publications : worst of the worst would be given away if the publishers were allowed to by their advertisers. Most of the articles are either written by employees of the advertisers, the rest is the lowest cost possible filler.
Review magazines: Especially true of car magazines but holds well for just about everything else. Toyota at one point asked what it would have to do be car of the year and was told buy out the issue. Its a little less blatant these days but no different. For game magazines ask yourself how every fisrt person shooter knockoff can have 4 to 5 stars or an 80% plus rating. Or how someone can select the most influential games of all time have them be 70% consolers and have half life as the rep for FPS games. Consumer reports is the exception but because they focus on so much their quality and conclusions arent as good as they could be
General readership magazines: Review space is pretty much advertising. The Stuff in stuff didn't just wind up there. The toys in t3 arent just picked at random.
Newspapers: Maybe, maybe not
If you wan't good reviews find a blog with coments, and look for it to have trashed stinkers you know about. This is good for anything. I really wish I had done that before I bought a DSM-320 network media player, it pays for hard drives and just look at all the people that own space heaters oops Intel processors.
Way overrated, not informative - and here's why. (Score:2)
Naturally, a long-standing slashdot-bug that I had forgotten about, changed my mod to "underrated". I can't change the mod back to what I wanted, so I'm going to cancel it with a post.
Here's why I say the post is overrated:
Trade publications are *not* trash. Maybe trade publications in marketing-driven industries such
Re:True of most journalism try blogs (Score:2)
Re:True of most journalism try blogs (Score:2)
I dont' know about you but... (Score:2)
Journalists are in for a rightous trashing. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't mind when things DON'T get reviewed. There are understandable limitations of time, space and money.
I DO mind when things are reviewed and it just reads like the press release from the company, and the reality is vastly different.
That's when I stop reading.
If you've nothing good to say, then say that you've got nothing good to say. Don't just blather on with the press release in one hand and the tatters of your integrity oozing through the fingers of the other hand.
And if you play something and it SUCKED, I expect to hear about why you thought it sucked and what could be done so it didn't suck so hard.
Sorry but lazy journalism is just PR work and payola.
Video Game Media Watch (Score:5, Informative)
In addition to pointing out all the bad journalism out there, these sites help identify blogs and magazines that strive to offer better writing and reviews. Visit those sites and click on a few ads. Marketing-driven articles continue to appear because game publishers pay the bills. That only changes if game mags and sites can develop business models where they are accountable primarily to you - their readers - rather than game companies.
Metacritic (Score:4, Informative)
Poorly written, poorly edited (Score:5, Insightful)
the formulaic, child-minded writing-for-the-lowest-common-marketing-denominat
Encapsulates? That word does not mean what you think it means.
Starting in the most critical area of the videogame press's remit and where I have the most self-doubt about my own writings in the past
Is this English?
McKenna, I'm sure that you had point in there somewhere. From what I was able to decipher from your article, I'm pretty sure I agree with you, more or less. But I guarantee that you'd benefit from a couple of years of formal education in composition, and your work would certainly benefit from a couple of studious edits, preferably from someone else.
And for Pete's sake, lay off the parentheses, ellipses, generalizations, overuse of subordinate clauses, overuse of multiple descriptive adjectives per clause, and the like. Thankfully, you didn't use "quite" or "a tad" as qualifiers. You did, however, use "rather" several times; those three qualifiers are among the strongest indicators of amateur writing.
I'd sooner read well-written marketing copy than poorly-written criticism.
Hey braniac, time to see the wizard (Score:2)
2. To express in a brief summary; epitomize: headlines that encapsulate the news. [reference.com] Fits just fine!
If you read beyond a 3rd-grade level
Re:Hey braniac, time to see the wizard (Score:2)
If you want to criticise my criticism, at least have the ability to do so. Mere unsupported assertion isn't going to cut it, particularly when you haven't got clue #1 as to what you're talking about.
Re:Hey braniac, time to see the wizard (Score:2)
Re:Poorly written, poorly edited (Score:2)
To the author... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been telling my friends this kind of thing for a while... My opinion of the video game industry at large is already very negative, and my opinion of their bitches - yes, I said bitches, because that's what your usual video game journalist seems to be; an unwitting, unwilling bitch of a the magazine's marketing department and the 'big studios', fellating video games and companies he or she may not even like - in the press is even worse. This article sums the case up nicely. Video game magazines suck.
To restate some of the points made in the article, the average 'professional game reviewer and journalist', whose job it is to insult our taste and intelligence with their awful articles and reviews, is very juvenile and apparently unskilled in the field of journalism in general. This may or may not be an accurate portrayal of their skill as journalists - they may in fact be instructed to convey themselves as though their balls have yet to drop - but it doesn't make me think higher of them, considering that they appear to be lowering themselves to the level of mere children in order to please the marketing department. I can barely stomach most video game journalism, because it sounds like I'm listening to a pretentious, hyperactive twelve year old rave on about a new game his parents bought for him and then compliment his own 'skill' as a gamer, even though he hasn't played the game past the first level yet, and probably can't. I know the magazines are trying to relate to teens and pre-teens, because that's where the money's really at... but give me a break. This isn't 'PSM 4Kidz!'. This is supposed to be a witty, intelligent, professionally written publication, not some snot nosed brat's 5th grade English project about what video games he got for Christmas.
The reviews really get to me in particular. The previews, too, because they're so vapid and superficial, often praising only the visual elements of the games instead of telling me whether or not I'll be able to enjoy it sober, but the reviews are the best. My friends are frequently let down by the magazines, and yet they still eat it up. (Shame on them.) Each time it's the same story. They get hooked in by the hype in the previews, read these amazing reviews, and then go buy the game... And what happens? Two out of three times the game sucks ass, and they wind up feeling cheated. The reviews are, in my eyes, commercials. They're written like commercials, they flow like commercials, the pages are even set up like commercials. This is advertising, not an honest review, and it shows. Sometimes the reviews aren't even remotely accurate, falsely portraying certain elements of the games they cover to make them look better. This is why I wait to read user reviews of games online or learn about them through the grapevine. I'd rather learn about a game from somebody who has actually played it, not some two-bit hack of a journalist who's essentially being paid to lie.
Hearing this all come from a real insider - an actual video game journalist - is very refreshing, and I'm glad that he's finally coming clean about it with himself. That's the kind of honesty I'd like to see more often in the publications! Movie reviews could use a bit of that, too, but that's another story for another day. This guy really hits the nail on the head, and it's good to see a reviewer do some reviewing of his own, and take a good look at his work and what he and his colleagues have really been contributing to... It's a shame he might not have a job much longer. Maybe he'll go and start his own magazine or something...
I remember a few years ago (Score:2, Insightful)
We received a review-copy of a bull-riding game.
The reviewer in charge of the genre was amazed by the pure idiocy behind the game, and reviewed it VERY thoroughly - it got 4% on our review-scale.
We didn't actually believe we'd ever get another game from that publisher (ever), but lo and behold; we did.
The second time around, they scored 18% (mainly due to music by Lynyrd Skynyrd..).
My point?
There are sites w
Drivel (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing to see here, move on.
How to fix this? (Score:2)
2) Implement a strong moderation system like Wikipedia's
3) Find a way to compensate and reward outstanding reviewers.
4) Make this service easily accesible and simple to use.
5)
6) Consumers profit huge.
If a system like that became popular(and useable) it would force game publishers to hire better talent and more of it, instead of using 30% of their production budget to brainwash us into buying their 3rd rate products.
PC Gamer (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure if he wrote it or not, but the first page of the reviews section was about their ratings system.
They sum up readers perceptions of game ratings, like this:
I'm sure it's somehow relevant.
Re:PC Gamer (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thank goodness someone said it. (Score:5, Interesting)
We read all of the reviews. All of them. IGN, Gamespot, Famitsu, Edge, Joystick101, The Atlanta Herald... you name it we've read it. This is where we get our impresson of people's impression of the game. This is where we get fodder to make alterations to future games. And you know what, it's disheartening when nearly every review gets at least one thing factually wrong. It's disheartening when the reviewer clearly hasn't played more than 15 minutes into the game that you just spend 16 months creating. And it's disheartening when the reviewer keeps talking about boobies and poop and fart jokes like he was a 12 year old on the playground.
One of the most insightful pieces I've read talked about how Half-Life 2 used darkness to symbolize safety and bright, light areas as a sign of danger. But this was Game Developer magazine talking about art direction, not a reviewer talking about the game itself. Maybe it is too much to ask for a reviewer to take as in-depth a look at a game as a developer would, but there is direction to be had here. Compare and contrast with other titles, plot developments, gameplay structures, etc. Give insight into what the developers were trying to achieve and what they created. Put the game into context. Even Ebert will delve a little bit into the movie school theory behind the movies.
Even as simple sources of opinions, reviewers frequently fall down. Afraid of "offending" any publishers, they don't say anything negative about certain titles. Afraid of stepping out of line, they keep their scores in line with everyone else's. I saw a review the other day that said "X may very well be the best game available on the PS2." He then gave it a 70%, same as everyone else.
There is a lot of room for innovation and insight in video game reviews. Hopefully somebody will pick up that opportunity and run with it.
I agree with what he says for the most part (Score:3, Interesting)
The PC Gamer CIV4 example (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure when the last time they actually followed the practice was, but i'm guessing it's been years.
Take CIV4 for example.
I did them a favour of informing them of how a significant percentage of gamers could not play the game because of brutal bugs that get worse as the game progresses. And I warned them that if they ignored it, they'd loose me as a reader as well as everyone else I could pass the word on to. They obviously didn't care.
For many, excitedly buying CIV4 when it came out meant nasty graphics problems ending in a crash to desktop or bluescreen. Playing with the large map settings made the game entirely unplayable beyond the early stages with turns that took exponentially longer until the crashes happen.
For at least 2 months gamers were subjected to this bullshit with almost no word out of 'gaming god' Sid Meier's Firaxis.
Then what do you know, a miracle happened. A patch was released and the game became playable, and was finally the game we expected.
I think it was the next damn day (gee what a coincidence) that I found the PC Gamer issue with a massive review suddenly now available which expounded on what an incredible game it is, gave it a very high mark in lines with the past CIV games
They mention that a few gamers had posted about problems in a forum. No mention was made about the wide spread crash to desktop problem. This game deserved a mark in the low 40's, not mid 90's.
It's total bullshit. hundreds complained on the CIV4 fansite forums. hundreds tried to find any link between their hardware and the crashes
So I'm sticking to my word. I'm not buying PC Gamer anymore and several of my friends are doing the same. A couple of them are serious CIV fans and will not be giving their money to Firaxis over the way they've treated their fans.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The PC Gamer CIV4 example (Score:2)
I may be sloppy, but it's obvious that you simply think you have some understanding of the Queen's English with little idea of the bigger picture.
That picture of course consisting of a redwood sized broomstick being lodged up your ass.
Re: (Score:2)
That's no paragraph... (Score:3, Interesting)
This article should come with instructions to breathe between each sentence, they're so long.
Most of the things that look like paragraphs are actually a single sentence. I agree with other comments about the quality of this guy's writing. Glass houses, and all that.
Oh, I know just how he feels: (Score:2)
I hate to drop the bomb, but... (Score:2)
I enjoy playing them (quite a bit, in fact), but worrying about the state of the journalism surrounding them, well, I just can't see why anyone cares.
Re:I hate to drop the bomb, but... (Score:2)
Confessions of a former videogame hack (Score:5, Informative)
I always at least tried to be honest with game reviews - if I thought something stank, I said so (I think the lowest review score - as the final percentage rating - I ever gave was 3%), and while previews had to be more informative than opinionated, I generally took the piss a bit if the game deserved it. There's only so many cutsey platform game previews a man can write without going mad.
Problem was, not only did certain publishers throw shit-fits and threaten to withhold future games if they got bad reviews (or sometimes actually go through with the threat: there was a period of about six months where my mag had to buy games by one publisher - fuck it, it was Ocean - because they wouldn't send us code), but as time went by they also started getting nasty about previews as well. Basically, they wanted their press releases to be reprinted, including the captions they'd written for the screenshots. Er, no. Not going to happen. So the PRs would go over my head and threaten to pull advertising - not just from my mag, but from other titles as well. Fun fun fun.
Since things were only going to get worse as the publishers ate each other and got more powerful, I decided to get out as soon as I got the chance.
There are some mags whose editorial policies I still respect - Edge, PC Zone, GamesTM - but many of the rest have fallen into the 'exclusive cover/fawning preview/minimum review score of 85%' routine/trap because it's the path of least resistance to ensure they can get product to cover.
(And I was never offered a free holiday in return for a good score. Bastards!)
History Lesson (Score:2)
A certain percentage of reviewers of any kind have always sold out. Be it music, movie, or some other form of entertainment such as video games. For example, take the Payola scandal [straightdope.com](s) of the 1950's, where DJ's & radio stations were paid to play certain songs and music "critics" were paid to write enthusiastic, favorable reviews.
If you dig deep enough in your hist
The Onion A.V. Club (Score:2, Informative)
They also have the extremely entertaining Games of Our Lives [avclub.com], which consists of very funny reviews of old games (20+ years in most cases) written by Wil Wheaton. [wilwheaton.net]
Inevitable (Score:2)
EDGE (Score:2)
All in all I find british gaming mags to be of better quality than their american counterparts. However I do find
Didn't used to be this way... (Score:2)
They eventually devolved into the IGN web site we have today, the morlocks to Next Generation's exalted heights of civilized gaming coverage. My personal low point of the new gaming media was buying the IGN DVD coverage from E3, which
games are hard to review (Score:4, Insightful)
A good example is Resident Evil 4. It got Game of the Year from several different publications. I rented it.
There is no way I would ever recommend Resident Evil 4 as game of the year, I couldn't even stand playing it for an hour. That's for one reason and one reason alone. Here it is.. are you ready?
You can't move and shoot at the same time.
Read that again. As soon as you pull out your gun, you lose the ability to move.
At that point, I don't care about the story, the graphics, the sound, or anything. The game is absolutely unplayable.
Only one review I read even mentioned the fact that pulling out your gun (or an axe, or any weapon) will switch you to "aim mode" where you can't move. How could they not mention that?
Well, probably because the reviewer is *used* to playing Resident Evil games. The entire series has a history of horrible control schemes.
Games are hard to review because your experience with them depends on your experience with other games. You're inadvertantly comparing RE4 with RE3, and the fact that the camera is over-the-shoulder in RE4 made it a little easier to move around compared to RE3... so your relative experience got a little better.. not worse.
Not all of us are guilty (Score:3, Informative)
I think bloggers will be the next big thing in game journalism. I have plans on writing reviews of the games I have bought and played on my blog. While it may not be pre-release reviews of games it will be anything from first run to bargin bin games from Gamestop. Either way look to bloggers to give perspective that you will be hard pressed to find on any normal gaming website.
As an avid gamer (Score:3, Informative)
1) There had better be a demo
2) It had better work on my hardware
3) I had better like the demo
Short of that, the game makers can get stuffed. They bought the reviewers off ages ago and every gamer knows it. We don't listen to the hype when we're picking a new game. We either go with a series we know and trust, or we hear via
I discovered this for myself... (Score:3, Informative)
The sound is good to excellent, making full use of your speakers' dynamic range. I always turn up the speakers when I've gotten a diplomatic message to hear the wonderful alien voices. The music is stellar, haunting, stirring and intriguing by turns. I never had the urge to turn it off and still find it compelling.
Summary: 4.3/5 *Note: 2.5 is average
IN SHORT: I rate the integrity of any game review site on the inverse of the rating that they gave Master of Orion III.
Re:Linky (Score:2)
Re:Linus is insecure (Score:2)
No, I'm pretty sure the US Cert study is skewed. Note that They count up the flaws for ALL flavors of unix/linux, and then press that number against windows. Also note that windows only gets its core application flaws listed, while *n?x gets its whole application database.
Yeah. Skewed. Filter it and Linux comes ou