The Crevasse

So, you’ve just recieved a review code for the hottest new title of the year. You throw it on, climb into your “reviewing chair” and play like the world is ending for two days solid. On the third day, you wake up, write a glowing review (your best piece to date) and upload it.

Then you wait for someone to read it.

You submit it to N4G, hoping someone will read it, as everyone’s reading the ones by IGN, 1UP, GameSpot… Hell, even that damn fansite is getting a higher temperature than you are! Outraged, you slink back to your “reviewing chair” and turn the console off, damning the industry for creating such a huge gap between amateur games journalism and a successful journalistic career.

Does any of this seem familiar to you? I could play the Tim Rogers card and say this was an anecdote, but it’s not, as I review from my bed, not my chair. But it stands. Journalism is a hard vocation to become talented at, and the bigger obstacle to writers than simply getting better at what they’re attempting to do for a living, is actually getting a job so they can.

IGN, 1UP, even the morally questionable GameSpot – all sites we would throw our hats in the ring for if a job were to appear, regardless of what type of journalism we focus on during our unpaid work for other sites. Then there’s Rock Paper Shotgun and The Escapist, two sites that produce brilliant content that’s funny and insightful, and then there’s Eurogamer and their network of sites, another group we’d all throw our hats in the ring for, but more because they produce content that’s generally quite fantastic anyway. IGN UK does also, and I don’t know 1UP too well.

But then there’s where we are. It’s a catch 22 - we can’t get paid staff writer jobs because we have no experience being a paid staff writer. But we can’t get the experience because we can’t get the job. It’s patently ridiculous. Thousands of us write in, every time a job goes up. Hell, I was interviewed for a job on one of the aforementioned sites (I’ll stay confidential unless you know already) and failed. I asked for feedback, but I didn’t get it. Here’s my idea of the criteria you seem to need to make it:

  • You need to have written at least two books on video games. It doesn’t matter what area, they just have to be hundred-page think-pieces on the inudstry. Make sure you mention this in every by-line you have in a publication, especially print.
  • You must have freelanced for a variety of amazing sites. This isn’t so hard, but when you think about it, it’s a catch 22 again, as most won’t let you write unless you can prove you can, but you can’t prove you can write for them, because they won’t look at your writing half the time.
  • You are N’Gai Croal. Seriously. I’m not poking fun, I think he was one of the best, if not the best of all of us, and I think that it’s ironic he’s the only one who doesn’t want to work in the industry anymore. It’s almost like he’s “won the game”. I salute you, Mr. Croal, sir, but could you at least have held interviews?
  • You have guest-starred on podcasts where people know who you are before you have to tell them in a mumbled email.
  • You live in Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun is usually a good ticket to a Japanese correspondent job, but with living costs really not equating to what an American or European company is going to pay you, it might be tight. Refer to Tim’s many “starving artist” anecdotes as examples.

These are just some of the ones I can think of right now. Feel free to comment and add more. It’s frustrating, it is, but you know? The free writing is better, most of the time. I write the free articles because I want to, because I’m writing out of love and respect for the industry in which I label myself a commentator, of sorts. I just wish the bell would ring for round two, already.

Edit: Lewis made the mistake of asking me whether or not I thought N’Gai Croal looked like Predator. Well…

Judge for yourself, really.

Judge for yourself, really.

2009
05/27
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E3. It Rises.

The wave of news, previews, rumours and massive press conferences that is the Electronic Entertainment Expo begins next week, and I think everyone’s got a fair few expectations of what’s going to happen. These are mine, and comments on some widely-expected announcements I think are either accurate or full of nonsense.

Microsoft:

  • Microsoft motion-camera. We’ve all seen the leaked shots, and it seems like the right time to do this, though the guys and girls behind You’re in the Movies! are probably going to hang themselves if this particular announcement drops.
  • Perfect Dark on XBLA. This goes without saying. It’s been spotted a hundred-and-one times on spreadsheets, screencaps and mole-provided information, not to mention Rare actually having the icon for it on their NXE Dashboard, which was less than subtle. I’m hoping that was deliberate, if it wasn’t… I don’t want to be the owner of that gamertag.
  • MSG4 Final Decision. Either a yes or a no, but we’ll find out. I think Kojima did fans a great disservice by not clarifying whether it was happening or not, and I think we all deserve to know so we can finally either bin that jpeg of the green “on” logo, or make it our desktop backgrounds with an MS Painted-on date underneath.

Nintendo:

  • The Wii will be price-cut. For what it is, the Wii is a ridiculously expensive bit of hardware, at £179.99 in her Majesty’s kingdom. To drop the price now, during the period in which they’re announcing some pretty impressive software bundles (the Metroid Prime collection springs immediately to mind) can only mean good things for the men in Japan who are probably, at this point, wiping their behinds with cash.
  • More Pokemon Games. This doesn’t really need confirming. They’ve done Platinum, so they’re probably already hard at work on the next lot of pokemon to bring the total up into the 5/600s. I wonder what they’ll call it, because at this rate they’re running out of binary opposites in the spectral realm, and the periodic table, at this rate.
  • Another Zelda. It’s been a while now, and I think  Nintendo need to make up for Twilight Princess. Not a bad game by any means, but releasing it on two platforms when the Wiimote compatability felt simply tacked-on was a bad move. Personally, I’d love a return to the Wind Waker era. It was an amazing game, and didn’t deserve to be the only one sitting in a cel-shaded green adventurer’s outfit.

Sony:

  • The price of the PS3 is going to drop by at least 20%. Let’s be honest, statistically speaking they’re losing money for each console they sell unless they shift a lot of software per unit of hardware sold. A price drop is, therefore, illogical in theory, but I think the sheer amount of PS3 consoles they’ll shift will more than outweigh worries about software sales. There’ve been rumours about the PS3 Slim, but I’m calling shenanigans on that one, as it’s far too soon.
  • The PSP Go! will be announced. This is inevitable now, simply because we’ve seen concept screens, people have talked about it constantly when they shouldn’t have, and even the name for it is now in circulation, codename or otherwise. It’s the perfect time to drop a new handheld reveal, as it’ll stomp the DSi. That said, in all honesty I see the DSi as a step backward from the DS Lite – shorter battery life, unneccessary screen size increase, and no GBA cart slot is taking too much away from a good thing for the sake of an online store and some more memory.
  • Obscene amounts of PSX titles on the PSN. Honestly, I don’t really care about anything bar FFVII, though I think the same goes for a few others, too. Not to mention the obscene amounts of cash Squeenix will make if they decide to get it up on the store.

Everyone else:

  • Kojima will reveal what that weird advert was all about. Everyone’s been wondering, from Joystiq readers to Mega64, and I think E3 seems to line up with the countdown, so this all checks out, unless my math is off.
  • Blizzard will withhold their new IP until Blizzcon. C’mon, did you really think they were going to let the cat out of the bag a few months away from their own big, private, Blizzard-only press party?
  • Everyone will hopefully forget about OnLive. I really couldn’t care less about OnLive, simply because logistically it’s just not possible. Streaming that much content over the net is borderline impossible for most people unless you’ve got a Virgin fiber-optic hanging out of the back of that bad boy. It seems to me that they’re trying to do far too much in too small a box, and this will end up very similar to the Gizmondo fiasco.
  • Capcom’s no-show due to swine flu. If this turns out to be some kind of swine-flu inspired press stunt to promote Resident Evil, it’ll be the best press event in the history of the expo. C’mon lads. Have a sense of humour.

That’s it from me in the way of E3 predictions for now, though if any develop nearer the time I’ll be sure to post them. Feel free to disagree or leave your own in the comments thread, as per always.

2009
05/26
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A Retrospective on Narrative Analysis

It’s been almost half a year since I started my column on narrative in videogames. Since then the site’s gone down and I’ve missed four columns, which will be written when the site reappears. It’s made me think a lot about narrative, as did the podcast I made a guest appearance on yesterday which you can find here.

The thing with narrative in videogames is that there are so many obstacles in the way of actually producing one that’s going to be both enjoyable and memorable. Sure, it’s feasible enough to assume that with history-dependent titles such as Call of Duty a narrative isn’t actually needed, that we can depend on gameplay and worldly knowledge to tell us Hitler is the antagonist in this particular situation.

But how do you tell a story set in space, full of aliens and severely lacking in realism in any immediately identifiable form? Mass Effect teaches us that if we’re going to put the player in an environment where they’re going to need to absorb a lot of narrative and character information if they’re going to know where to head next, it’s important to ensure the way in which they absorb this information is both interesting and enjoyable.

You have infinite ammunition. This is something about a lot of videogames I’ve always found inherently ridiculous, from Space Invaders onwards. But Mass Effect goes out of its way to explain that, in fact, each bullet you fire is a tiny sliver of metal sliced off a block in the ammunition chamber, rendering a normal-sized clip capable of millions of rounds, which, by then, you’ll be back on the Normandy and your weapons are in lockers, presumably reloaded. That hardcore attention to detail is comforting, and immersive.

On the flip-side, there are games that encourage you to learn its narrative through the sheer lack of it, and the morsels of storyline offered to you in the form of audio diaries, and the occasional walkie-talkie monologue directed at your protagonist. I am, of course, talking about Bioshock. It’s a title entices you into discovering its storyline and its characters simply because it means you can apply knowledge to all the insanity taking place in the underwater utopia of Rapture. When you enter a broken room, your brain is going to assess the area you’re in in two ways: one, you’ll think about battle-damage, or at least the likely cause for the room’s dilapidated form. Two, it’ll encourage you to find out why it happened, and whether, in a room surrounded by billions of gallons of water, someone has decided to make it leak.

Dialogue seems to be the biggest obstacle. Mute protagonists always seem to get more done in the way of storytelling simply because it’s not relying on the player to tell the story. Gordon Freeman, the unnamed (no spoilers is a good thing protagonist of Bioshock, even the little lads and ladies you pilot around the various continents in Pokémon, not to mention Cloud Strife and a thousand other player avatars over the years. It almost indicates a lack of confidence, doesn’t it, from developer to player? Almost like we’re idiots, not to be trusted with the delicate aspect of videogames that is storytelling. Surreal, really, when you consider everything else we manage to mess up along the way, from not hitting the enemy base with the right type of rocket, to killing the population of Feros when we could have simply knocked them unconscious, but apparently that’s a “moral” choice.

Moral choices are… it’s hard to speak about them in a negative or positive light, really. On the one hand, it’s seriously lazy storytelling. If you want to be either good or evil, simply just interpret the character the way you think they should be interpreted. For some, Cloud Strife was a hero, someone who overcame a lot of mental instabilities in order to save the world and get the girl. On the other hand, some people thought he was a deranged, violent amnesiac who went completely nuts and killed everyone who ever questioned his true identity. Admittedly the game’s film sequel and various prequels and spinoffs did a lot to expand on his personality, but when you need at least two other narratives just for the one you’re playing to make sense, is that really a working storyline? Or is it co-dependent on titles the player may not even be aware of, let alone own?

Fable 2 drove me up the wall simply because the good and evil choices were so obvious, and to me it really did ruin a believable narrative at times. Don’t offer two donor characters in the form of a criminal and a cop, offer them in the form of an honest beggar who stole a loaf of bread so his children won’t starve, and a policeman who’ll lose his job if he doesn’t get the bread back. That’s moral choice. That’s storytelling that relies on the player for the more dramatic, controversial twists and turns in the plot. I’d have lost sleep over that choice. However, giving information on criminals to a criminal, or giving it to the police, isn’t a moral choice. Players won’t help the bad guy because he’s bad and they’re bad. They’re helping him because they want a district of the city to turn out differently, because they want the horns, because the black dog looks like their black dog. Moral choice gets mired in the long list of aesthetic implications of your actions, and renders it pointless.

I’ve spent my life pondering on narrative, to the point I’m now actually qualified in the subject. It’s taught me many things, but if anything it’s taught me that it wasn’t wrong to value narrative over gameplay. The same people who value narrative are the same people who value games by Tim Schafer. You’re not playing them because they have the same inherently amazing gameplay and gentle difficulty curve as the latest 10/10 FPS title. You’re playing them because the man is a master storyteller, and his characters are funny, his universes believable, and because he makes Tim Burton look so uninspired.

You can come up with the best storyline ever for a military FPS, but you’ll never make me lose sleep the way I have over Mass Effect 2‘s potentially changed character roster.

2009
05/25
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Star Bores: Return of the Journalist

Okay, I’ve been working seriously hard recently, and now, the rest of my life has opened up. I’m graduating in July, and I’m actively seeking employment. Tempting offers have fallen through, but motivation is my friend (read: girlfriend). As for content, the way things will work from now on, is this. I’m going to be putting up content on a daily basis, from Monday to Friday, along with a ramble-esque bit of content on a Sunday evening. The content itself will range from features to in-depth news reports, and of course Plot Wholes will be resuming soon, along with a ton of new writing for a magazine I’ll talk about once I’m done and dusted with the formalities.

It’s a pretty insane work ethic for someone two days out of his degree, but the way I see it it’s time wasted, otherwise. I’ll review anything new I get my mitts on as I go, and hopefully there’ll be somewhere to insert my work ethic in the near future. I hope whoever stumbles accross the content enjoys it, and here goes.

NB: I’m also looking at revising the site design, so you may see some further changes down the line. Still in blog format, but something more personal.

2009
05/24
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It Rises.

The GamerNode website is back up, and it’s also being completely redesigned at the same time, so thank you Josh and Ryan for messing with my head a little, there.

The next week is full of exams for me, and yes, this is why my updates have gone from daily to fortnightly, but after this all Plot Wholes and other articles go up.

The GamerNode “Vs. Node” podcast is also two bi-monthly episodes into its lifespan, and you can find episode one here, and episode two here. At the moment it’s just me and Eddie, but we’ll be getting guests on as soon as we can.

Work is interesting, I’m writing but it’s centered more around my degree recently, but that’ll be done with come Friday. Plot Wholes has many episodes to catch up on, and I’ll be writing one for every week the site was down, no joke.

Enjoy the podcasts, and enjoy daily updates from Friday onwards. My thanks for those who continued to check back here in the meantime, you’ll get a ton of content at the end of the week until I find somewhere that’d like to pay me to talk about the industry.

2009
05/18
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Assassin’s Creed 2, Ahoy.

I’m excited, and it’s in your best interest to be excited too. Four magazines in the UK are going to print with details of the upcoming street-to-roof-level assassination experience, and I think by now with names like Leonardo Da Vinci dropped as inspiration for the title, we’re all fairly curious. In case you’re wondering, the four covers are here, with their publishing dates below:

Left to right: Play, PC Gaming, GamesTM and 360.

Left to right: Play, PC Gaming, GamesTM and 360.

Grab the magazines from the shops when you can, I’ll be sure to nab at least one to take a closer look. The game’s shaping up to be something truly special, and with everything from double wristblades to projectile weapons rumoured, I think you’ll have a huge essay on the title once I’ve got my information. Enjoy the page shots!

2009
05/07
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Click Click Boom.

Well, damn you, internet.

Last night, Ryan (GamerNode’s site admin) had a server crash, and we lost every single item posted since the 22nd of February. At the moment it’s a case of going through my previous work and seeing what I have (and haven’t, sometimes) backed up in Microsoft Word, then posting it all onto the site again, bit by bit. At the moment I know I’ve permanently lost at least a thousand words, and although that’s less than one percent of what I’ve written since then, it’s still pretty devastating.

Especially as, and this is on a lighter note, the first ever episode of the GamerNode podcast went up today, too. So it’s a case of rebuilding and trying to get back on track, but to all the GamerNode writers who lost their work permanently, I’m really, really sorry, even though it’s not really my fault. I get upset when I lose so much as five words. Jason’s just lost about thirty articles off the top of my head. And Ryan’s just lost every site on his server, including people a lot more formal (and governmental) than ours.

I think I’ll send out an email later. Jesus. Heh, I always got asked why I was so stubborn with backing everything up in Word, and now you know why, as it seems me and Eddie are the only ones who’ll be able to re-post.

In other news, I’m finally done with coursework, and have three exams to go, not to mention something going on workwise that could turn out to be very, very big for me. I’m excited, and crapping myself at the same time, and I’ll post if something happens, but I’d rather not elaborate out of respect for the people involved (though I will say I am so excited).

2009
05/02
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Wanted: Original Protagonists

I’m sensing a massive wave of cowardice and issue-avoidance from the US IGN offices this week. They recently published a list of the most over-rated characters in video games, with obvious choices like Lara Croft and Sonic the Hedgehog, and seemingly inflammatory choices like Master Chief, who resides at the number one spot.

In all honesty, that choice for number one was pretty poorly thought out. Yes, he’s a genetically-enhanced space marine, and yes, it’s been done fifty thousand times before. But he had a history, a background, in the form of books: fiction released simply because Bungie wanted to communicate that he was more than just another super-human male in big armour, and especially as the female marines were just as strong, enduring, and dangerous as he was. He had a personality, but sadly the games didn’t do it enough justice, and it seems in this day and age, where every game is accompanied by at least one book of fiction to bulk up the back-story, journalists still ignore the extra character depth in favour of slagging him off for hits.

They claim he rarely talks, and to be honest, that made him more realistic than any space marine game character I’ve ever seen in my life. If I was a superhuman bred for combat, I wouldn’t fly around the levels in a Warthog, pulling off headshots while spinning on one wheel and saying things like “and that’s for dessert.” It’s childish, but seemingly, that’s what the majority of people want, according to some VG journos. They claim he could be replaced with “Gordon Freeman” and no one would know the difference. Well, they would, as his hands look different, he never talks, and he can’t jump ten feet into the god-damn air. What is wrong with these people? Why do we live in a world where the people who are better informed on character backgrounds and game narrative aren’t the ones writing about it for a living?

I won’t lie, I was tempted to call this “Mario is Boring” and be done with it, but that’s a lie, for the same reason that putting Sonic on that list was a fairly stupid thing to do. Sonic is original, and it seems the author has confused familiarity with originality. Just because he’s been there since you were drinking from a Tommy Tippee, doesn’t mean he’s unoriginal. Master Chief was (is, hopefully) a great protagonist, but he was a space marine, not a blue hedgehog. Yes, I’m aware he’s talking about characters being over-rated and not original, but let’s be honest, the only reason most characters happen to gain decades-long fanboy/girl cults is because they’re original, then someone gets annoyed because their favourite generic idiot isn’t “new” enough, and decides to aim at the biggest bandwagons to let off journalistic steam.

I am also aware it was a user-generated poll, but the opinions weren’t written by the users. The article was pointless because there was no clear criteria as to why any characters were over-rated.

Most of all, I think it’s amusing how much hype IGN US put on Bioshock 2, then had a journalist state on their site that the Big Daddy was a seriously boring character, and the period of the game spent (SPOILER WARNING) inside his suit (IT’S SAFE NOW) were the most mundane. I’m all for different opinions, but it made me giggle, as that’s going to confuse readers when the game comes out and the review raves on and on about it.

Protagonists are getting seriously generic, from the hideously pseudo-pornographic offerings of X-Blades and Bayonetta, to the grunt-grunt-shoot-shoot design of every FPS character currently residing in a warzone. What happened to the age of game design where someone would populate a world with angry turtles and toadstools, then pit them against a pair of Italian plumbers?

I’m also a bit baffled by the current trend in steroids and bench-pressing since Gears of War was released. They are scary, scary men and I was already very aware of my skinny stature before those fellas graced my screen and boy, did I feel weak. However, they’ve got a fair bit of personality to them, which I like. Chris Redfield? Not a single trace of braincells, and not because he’s full of muscles, it’s because he’s firearm-trained, been killing zombies for years and still cannot fire and run at the same time. Evidently, his arms can double in size, but not his multi-tasking skills. I could harp on about the female character looking weedy as hell but for once she actually looks more aggressive than the male, which was an interesting decision, but I expect all the other gaming publications were too distracted by the wild goose-chase for racist content to notice.

The problem is that more and more games developers seem to be targeting this new, scary emerging market that I’ll call “teener-weeners”. Boys around the age of thirteen who want nothing but female nudity, violence, and hyper-masculine protagonists to tear their attention away from their everlasting suppression of their anima, male insecurity and their lust for whiney, whiney blood. Gears of War was made by older gamers, for older gamers. That game, and its sequel, were solid, and I’d happily give them over 90% simply because they made no bones about what kind of game it was. The characters were butch, but simply because the warzone they inhabited was so violent that conveying emotions wasted time that could be spent pushing back the tide of alien forces who, ultimately, killed various members of the main cast in one way or the other.

But there are bad examples, like Redfield, that show all this new generation of gamers want is macho-idiots with guns that they can have run around and shoot things and never consider intimidatingly deep parts of the game’s experience like narrative, or exploration not motivated by 50G achievements. Alternatively, they’ll also happily indulge in titles where the backside of the female protagonist is on display so often they’ve managed to circumvent the family firewall on the computer by finding softcore pornography somewhere else. The number of developers coming up with original, engaging characters is lessening, with even more going in the direction of sandbox games and simply removing the protagonist’s personality altogether because it hinders the player spraying poo over people in Saints Row 2.

Oh, and by the way? Gordon Freeman has shedloads of personality. Stop looking for dialogue and look at the responses to him given by other characters. He generates response through his lack of speech, his emotions conveyed by the reactions of his supporting cast. If you can’t appreciate the subtlety of acting in the Source engine, then please kindly stop claiming he’s a blank slate and go back to watching Oscar winning performances (by your definition) in Mean Girls.

 

If you’re feeling like reading another wall of text, I recently finished a five-page (don’t worry, our pages are small) feature on EVE Online for GamerNode. It’s here and I’m fairly proud of it as it’s my longest body of continuous journalistic work to date.

2009
04/26
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Plod, Plod, Plod

Hey, just a small update from me to you.

Academic work is nearly finished, with the 29th being my final piece of written work, and 22nd may being the last exam and end of my years as a student.

I recently interviewed Tony Gonzales, a sci-fi author and IP dev manager at CCP Games about EVE: Online, which was an interesting interview: there’ll be a feature going up soon. Head over to my “previous work” page if you’re interested in catching up with my Plot Wholes column, as there’s a few more that have gone live since then, along with a preview of a fun hospital-based title called Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Room.

I’ll be posting more regularly come May 22nd – I look forward to returning to writing daily blog posts, because as fun as it is to learn about journalism, Jung and literature, after over one and a half decades of school and university, I’m a little tired out.

2009
04/23
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Ph34r the Loud Ones

Why is it that critics get such a hard time, all the time? I can’t post casually about some software I didn’t like without the person wheeling around and claiming I’m being “unprofessional” because I said his user interface looked like it was made in Microsoft Excel. I hate to be the one to break it to him, but I wasn’t being harsh, it literally is a user interface you can make in Microsoft Excel. It might not work if you made it in the spreadsheet program, but hell, it’ll look the same.

It’s really difficult shopping for games as well, especially for other people. I spent almost fifteen minutes solid debating over what DS game to buy someone last year. I knew they wanted a certain title, but I refused to buy it at first because the voice in the back of my head was screaming “NO! THE GRAPHICS ARE DISGUSTING AND THE CAMERA IS BUGGED! BURRRRN!“. Why did I care? The person didn’t care, they played the game every day for two months, they loved it and I loved that they loved it. It’s like a state of mind I can’t escape. It’s damn useful picking games for myself, because I have a very good idea of how most games will play before I buy them, because you’ll end up playing most of them before they’re in a form you can buy them anyway.

But it sure does turn you into a grumpy old man, and it’s fairly entertaining to some. You ever remember the first time 56k was dropped for broadband in your house? Sure, it was faster, but I missed the noise. I still want it back, I’d have that thirty seconds of angry static and electronic screaming for a ringtone any day of the week, especially if it drowns out an R ‘n’ B track every time someone’s phone rings on a bus in North London.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I applied for something that could turn into a really big position for me today, and I’d like to think I’ve got a fairly good chance. It’s been three long, hard years of non-stop writing, either for myself, businesses or university, and if I can just get to the point where it all fades so I’m left with what I really want to write, and not four thousand word treatises on why Jung and Freud really fell out, then I’m a happy man.

I’ll also never understand all the stuff I get for free at press events. Recently at an event that was sports themed, I got a bag full of stuff. In it was a sports cup that I use to this day as it’s got better capacity than all my cups and it’s plastic, so I can’t break it, but I also got weight gain pills. Seriously? I know they think we’re nerdy and skinny, but jeez. Talk about wining and dining. Honestly, I don’t need free things, free food, free anything. Just sit me down in a chair and hand me a controller, and I’ll be honest. I’m fine with that. If your game is bad, it’s bad, and that’s as far as it can go, because I’m not GameSpot. You’ll get some really nice, genuine people in the PR business, most of them are (big-up THQ, who helped me get home when I was stuck in Birmingham). But I get really horrid feelings in my stomach when I have a plate of Michelin-star food in my hand, and I’m playing a really horrible game.

Have you ever noticed how there are no video game journalists who’ve taken sides in the console war? I found that really interesting. I don’t mean “journalists” to include the angry people on N4G who post anti-console news articles and run for the hills, I mean real journalists. I’m fine with the PS3 and the Xbox 360, I think they’re both damn good consoles because if they weren’t they wouldn’t be here. Sure, you can argue exclusives and features, but were you really thinking about all of this at sixteen, at twelve, at five? Did it matter then? Even now I’m not bothered about how many USB slots a PS3 has as a person. As a critic it’s something you evaluate fairly and with research. I’m into games, I’m into consoles. Sure, MGS4 had hours of cutscenes, but so did FFVII and people didn’t complain too much. Okay, perhaps it had a few more but it’s a game, it’s there to entertain, not to force you to do all the work and entertain yourself all the time.

Wow. Seven hundred and eighty words because someone called me unprofessional. I guess it riled me up a lot more than I thought it did. I just want to be able to relax after hours. I don’t post on forums outside GamerNode and GamesPress, because I have no interest in other forums save for research or casual reading. I voice my opinions on games in my day-to-day writing, not in my leisure time. But I can’t talk about music server software in my vocation of choice. I can only talk about games, because if I say they look horrendous, I get points for being honest. If I say something that isn’t a videogame looks shoddy, I get put up on the cross. My day job is to criticise things other people make. I wasn’t aware there was a night job for criticising other people.

2009
04/20
CATEGORY
Musings and Ramblings
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