Not for the faint of heart. Or mind.

• 6Apr 11

  Polarised Gaming

  Let's face it. There are titles out there that you can't say boo about. Reviewers don't have the nerve and the fanbase will hit you with more fire than a daisycutter.

  You know what I'm talking about; Final Fantasy. Grand Theft Auto. The Legend of Zelda. Halo. Doom. Half-Life. Starcraft. Diablo.

  The list goes on and on. I say screw the fanboys. Blunt, aren't I?Why should an entity so devoid of knowledge and so consumed by ignorance be pitied? This is not a case of being corrupted by the one ring.

  We throw around terms like "over rated" or "under rated" or whatever - as do they. But do they really know what they're talking about? I got into an argumentabout the story in Knights of the Old Republic 2, where I said that the storytelling was so bad that it actually ruined the game. The storytelling IS very bad, although the story itself, once you figure it out, is not only good, but the premise is unique.

  Another situation is howfanboys talk about how great Grand Theft Auto 3 is because no game was ever made on that scale up to that point in time. Obviously they never played The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, which has a virtual landmass that is over 200 square miles in size and takes two weeks in real time to walk across.

  Or that Halo has an amazing story. No, it doesn't. It does have good storytelling, though. Same with Mass Effect, although there are components of their story that border on plagiarism (like the Reapers; it's right out of the Revelation Space series by Alistair Reynolds).

  There's a flipside to all of this; for every fanboy, you have a hater that's out to bait everyone. And there are many series that have those, including the ones that I've mentioned.Their goal is to go in and cause havoc, but they're different than proverbial trolls. Most haters focus on very specific series or games. Halo, Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto are great examples. You can find a flame war about any of those on just about any forum. Just about every half-decent Nintendo property has its fair share of these. And of course, all of the game systems.

  We get it, you want to justify your purchase to yourself. Good. Then shut up, rent some games and enjoy it instead of making other people try to hate theirs.

  Finally, there are reviewers who tap into these groups. Some may even belong to them.

  While I haven't played Final Fantasy XIII, I have a friend who is, and he's enjoying it quite a bit. Well, everything but the grinding. So, is an 8.5 a fair score when a problem that has been around since the dawn of the series still hasn't been addressed 23 years later? Halo and Call of Duty games contain campaigns that get shorter and shorter. Their multilayer is still unbalanced (even moreso for CoD). Are 9's and 10's fair scores?

  The tinted glasses have to come off sometime.

  There are entire genres that take flak, like the Beat-'em-Upaction subgenre. It's like it's been sent to deathrow by a crooked judge and the appeals ignored by a barely literate governor. No matter how much this gameplay genre tries to evolve, it keeps getting struck down by the critics. That isn't to say there aren't turd nuggets - there are in every genre.

  And then there's the fact that PC games get scored more critically because of the platform. What about the platform? Okay, so there's a bajillion games on it. So what? If a game's awesome, treat it as such - regardless of the fact that there are more titles on this platform. Especially since this leads to questions, not answers. Is this an indication that consoles are viewed as handicapped, and thus console titles get more slack? If so,priorities need to be straightened out because good gamin' is good gamin' - and bad games suck.

  Mama's right; only you can decide what you like or dislike. Everyone has their own biases and you need to have the experience and common sense to discern this. So play some games and ignore the fans and haters. They're too busy complaining on a message board to play anything anyway.

  • Posted Apr 6, 2011 12:54 pm GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 26Oct 10

  Weakened Resolve or Coming of Age?

  Life takes a lot of interesting twists and turns. For instance: I'm back. Woo. Hoo. Sort of. Well, I guess I'm a hypocrite, but aren't we all.

  So I'm back. My reviews aren't. I still have them, but they're no longer relevent; the games are just tooold.

  Iguess some might be wondering why I've come back, considering myuhmm, dramaticexit.

  Well, I've been coming back since I reconfigured my router a couple years ago. I had to hard reset it, and I just didn't care, plus I like to read the Soap Box once in awhile. I don't care too much for the opinions of the reviewers or the bought-and-paid for reviews (I still can't forget GTA IV's extra point increase, and I won't) that omit important facts about gameplay (or outright lie, like Halo 3's campaign length), but I do care about what real human beings have to say when they aren't contracted to say something.

  I came back to comment on a Soap Box article, a really good one actually, about our expectations and hype and whatnot. That's what drew me out.

  Well, I'd like to think so. Maybe I just grew up and realised that, hey, I have nothing to actually lose one way or the other. It's just the internet. So, I might as well stay. Maybe post a few reviews about slightly more current titles. I dunno. We'll see.

  Maybe I'll use my flair for the dramatic to our benefit instead of my own embarassment sometime.

  • Posted Oct 26, 2010 7:36 am GMT
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• 4Dec 07

  Game Over

  As some of you may - or may not - have noticed, I've effectively removed my reviews. I've resigned from my unions - one of which I was an officer. And this is the final note, the final say, the last word.

  I've been a member of gamespot for 3 1/2 years. For 3 of those, I've been writing amateur reviews, and for over one of those, I was an officer in the Candid Collector's Union - which is by far one of the best group of people I've ever met online or off.

  And I'm not bragging. This is what I've chosen to give up because of the current scandal here. At the same time, I'd like to believe I'm not throwing this all away. But other than the friends I've met here - with whom I can communicate with in any form of IM software - what am I losing?

  An insider information site? I can always go to IGN, Kotaku, Game Informer, 1Up, EGM, Gamepro and Game Politics for that. You're not the only game in town - no pun intended. I'm certainly not losing a review site; I stopped taking reviews seriously a long time ago.

  I know that I am leaving a place of corruption. I know that someone lost their job so the company could save face with an investor - an investor often plaguedwith money troubles, at that! But that's what happens when you've already sold your own soul; you have to find someone else's as collateral.

  If I were a paying subscriber, I might actually be talking to a lawyer right now; if someone says their product is red when in fact it's blue, and I bought the product based on that pretense, you have a duty to either give me what I paid for or give me money back if I reject your substitute.

  Speaking of substitutes, there is no substitute for integrity. If Eidos tasks you, CNet, with a glowing review, you should have given it if you were so inclined, not handed it to Gamespot to see who'd fall for the trap.

  CNet, you have earned every ounce of illwill aimed toward you. And that's not my problem. Nor will it ever be.

  Now, for those of you who enjoyed my reviews, they're pretty easy to get; just e-mail me and ask; my contact information is in the "about me" tab, and I'm not going to change that.

  Also, to those who I've tracked and who have tracked me, thank you for all the articles and reviews; it was good to read some real perspectives.

  I wish you all the best, no matter where you go.

  NWC.

  P.S. This will be my last post. After I finish this letter, Gamespot and CNet will be blocked on my router; if you wish to contact me, e-mail/MSN is pretty much the only way. Just the way it goes.

  • Posted Dec 4, 2007 11:40 am GMT
  • Category: Rant
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