The Skill of Games Journalists

 

Games writing the last handful of years has got a bad wrap over the last few years.  Whether it be the shoe-horning in of identity politics in reviews, giving perfect reviews to good or average games, giving bad scores to niche titles they don't understand or weird "gamer bad" opinion pieces, a lot of people on the internet have a certain disdain for gaming news sites and their writers.  One thing that often comes in to question is "Do games journalists actually need to be good at games in order to review them?"

Well to put it simply, yes they do you flipping twit, how on Earth is that even a question?!  But let's go into it a bit more shall we?

The first question that you have to ask yourself is, what even is the purpose of a game review?  What game reviews are SUPPOSED to do is help you make an informed decision as a consumer on whether or not you think a game will be worth buying.  Obviously these can't be written without a little bit of the writers own opinion on the title being peppered in but, as a customer, you would hope that the person writing the review would know what they are talking about.

Well that's where the problem lies with game reviews on these major sites such as IGN and Kotaku.  The writers for these sites aren't just clueless about most of the games they play, they seem to be clueless about the entire medium in general.  The biggest example of that that sits at the forefront of peoples memories was the review of Cuphead.  The person who put that review together struggled SIGNIFICANTLY with the tutorial stage of the game.  Specifically on one of the first jump where the player is expected to perform a jump followed by a dash to reach a high up platform.  Cuphead is considered to be a fairly challenging game but this is something that a 4 year old perform in seconds and yet it ellued this guy for quite a while.  Another example would be The Independant slamming Astral Chain on Switch for "not giving grades after combat encounters".  The only problem is that the game DOES do that, but foregoes the feature if you're playing the game on the casual setting.  Not that there's anything inherently wrong with playing the game on casual but avid fans of that kind of game will want to know how the higher difficulty levels stack up and they will not be able to get that information from a review.

These writers are not fit for purpose.  I'm not saying that every games writer needs to be a top 5 speedrunner of a game in order to write a review on it but to be able to get a good idea of how the game is really like you need to AT LEAST be able to clear it on Normal.  Playing a game on easy may give the writer an idea of basic stuff like the control scheme or maybe they can put down some thoughts on the story, but because they often miss the real meat and potatoes of a games content it is IM-POSSIBLE for them to write a review that will successfully help a person make an informed purchase.

Let's imagine if we weren't talking about game reviews and instead we were talking about cars.  Let's imagine you aren't much of a gear-head and you have zero idea what kind of car you want to fit your needs.  To maybe educate yourself on the topic a little bit before heading to the dealership maybe you'll go online and check out some reviews of car models that you might think fits your needs.  You find a car review and it says stuff like "the car handles terribly and all the extra features make it confusing to operate".  Only here's the kicker, the guy writing the review can't drive, like at all, and doesn't know a steering wheel from a gear stick.  In fact, the guy writing the review for this car sucks SO BAD at driving, that when he took it for a test spin in order to write his piece, he crashed into a food bank for starving children and everyone in the village went hungry that day.  The confusing features he talked about? He was referring to thinks like the indicator and gear box.  If you found that out about the guy who wrote the piece, you'd be pissed off.  You NEED a good quality of information to make an informed decision on a purchase that big but instead you got a guy who can't drive and a 800 word article about how the back seats are sexist and the colour of the tyres are racist.  

Well that's the kind of enthusiast press we have have with gaming.  Not passionate users who care about making sure you spend your hard earned money on the best games for you but shitters who don't know a face button from a d-pad telling you the bare minimum in the shortest possible time frame in order to farm you for traffic clicks to their shitty websites.

So here's my proposition for how a review SHOULD be conducted

1) Make sure the person doing the review is at least somewhat versed in the genre of the game they are reviewing.  If you have a guy that loves JRPGs but hates fighting games, then for the love of God don't have him review Guilty Gear Strive, his opinion on that particular topic isn't worth shit

2) At least TWO playthroughs of the game in question, preferably the second being on an elevated difficulty or a New Game +.  If you really want to inform people about the easy mode have another writer whos less well versed in whatever genre give it a go for a little bit and just include it as some quick extra thoughts at the end

3) No rushing.  Stop trying to get reviews out either for or just before release day.  Some people "wait for the reviews" before buying, so how about making sure their wait is actually worth it?  If they really care about the game they'll buy it anyway and if they are on the fence an extra few days to make sure they get the information they need wont bloody kill them.

4) Keep your opinion as far away as possible.  Not 100% possible I know but if you think giant anime titties in whatever RPG you're reviewing are "sexist" then save that for a different article.  In the main review you can just include it as something like "a stylised look that might not sit right with everyone", for example. That's really what I mean by this

and I think that's all I'm really asking for.  Modertely skilled players giving me a basic rundown of what a game is like so that I can get a vague idea of if I want to drop 6-8000 yen on it.  It REALLY isn't  that hard, if YouTube boi with 500 subs and a mic from 10 years ago can do it then a salaried "professional" games writer can do it too

Cuphead 200% Deathless Run Stream Highlight

Cuphead Any% Deathless Stream Highlight

A Slight Change of Pace

This is just a short update post regarding a little switch up to the stream for the next few weeks.

As you may be aware, between donation requests, challenge runs and the retro wheel there is a lot going on with the stream right now.  In order to make a decent amount of progress all at once with these segments, the stream schedule will be changed so that I'll be dedicating an entire week to a specific segment.  So for a while, the schedule will look like this

April 28 to 30- Dragon Quest 5
May 5-7 Cuphead challenges
May 14-16- NES 100 game challenge

I am also hoping that the marathon this month can fall on the 18th.  I'm sort of hoping that maybe this whole Corona Virus situation will just magically be resolved by then and we can proceed with the second half of Megaman 2P1C but I have another idea ready for the more likely outcome of everything still being closed and locked down.  I will announce that a little closer to the time after seeing what happens.

Don't forget to follow at www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

Regarding Megaman 2p1c

This weekend I was scheduled to do a 2 players 1 controller marathon of Megaman 5, 6 and X at Critical Hit Nagoya with the owner of the establishment however as I'm sure you're all aware, the world is getting fucked over by COVID right now and of course the best course of action for most people is to just stay home.

As a result of this, I'm sorry to announce that the Megaman marathon this weekend is cancelled for April.  That does not mean its cancelled completely, once this whole virus thing is over and we can safely gather once more a new date will be set and the stream WILL happen.  A 200 GBP incentive was met for this thing, there's no way its getting cancelled forever.

Instead of the 2p1c marathon, on April 11th and 12th I'll be doing two 8 hour streams consisting of a two hour session of each of the stream segments.  So the schedule will look something like:

100 NES Game challenge

Cuphead Challenge Project

DQ5 Playthrough 

Chillstream -> More than likely to be FF7 Remake

Also I'll be doing a long-ish stream of the FF7 remake on Friday, 10th April because I'm excited as all hell for that game.

So while it's a shame that we have to cancel Megaman for now, it's probably best for all of us to stay inside and stay safe.  It will happen, and for now we can enjoy the new releases and some classics over the weekend! 

The Journalist Skill Debate Again

Cuphead is an upcoming run and gun game coming out soon that I'm fucking excited for.  It looks like a cartoon from yesteryear and mixes that with challenging game play similar to things like Contra.  It looks awesome and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

However controversy has once again reared its ugly head however this time it has nothing to do with the game itself and more to do with the people playing it.  If you remember when DOOM was coming out and a dude called Arthur Gies played it and sucked massive cocks at it?  Well it's that AGAIN.  People are pissed off (rightly so) that so called industry professionals can't handle a fucking tutorial level and of course gaming press is shooting back by claiming people are over reacting.

I would recommend at this point to go look up the video, it's easy to find but I'm not linking it here because I don't want to give any of the idiots at Venture Beat views on their shit, embarrassing video.

Let me start by saying that I have ZERO respect for games journalism.  It seems to be entirely populated by fucking morons who don't know anything about games and are more interested in writing clickbait or sucking corporate cock rather than ACTUALLY helping consumers in any meaningful way.  I'm not the only one who holds this view either, go find any thread about the state of video game journalism on social media and you'll see a lot of people repeating that sentiment.

So big question of the day, do video game journalists have to be good at video games?

The quick answer is yes, of course they fucking do.  The job of a reviewer or someone reporting on industry goings on is to assist the consumer.  Therefore, you MUST know what the fuck your on about or your failing at the most basic facet of your job.  No one is asking journalists to be pro gamers winning The International every year or speedrunners with 5 or 6 world records under their belt but we ask that you at least know how to finish the tutorial of any game that you might come across. 

Imagine if you were trying to buy a car so you look up reviews of various vehicles.  Imagine then you find out that the person reviewing the cars CAN'T FUCKING DRIVE.  This is what the Cuphead/DOOM debate is basically all about. 

If you are an individual and you make a YouTube video or write a thing for a personal site, it's OK to suck at games or suck at just that one game.  For example I don't know shit about sports games  so if I gave a scathing awful review or did a terrible gameplay video of the new Fifa and then called it shit, it's clear that it's just one tossers opinion on the sea of piss that is the internet.  HOWEVER, if I was writing for a PROFESSIONAL news website in a PROFESSIONAL capacity and then couldn't even finish the most basic stage of a game with like, 2 button controls, of course people are going to question my ability to do the job.  In the case of Cuphead it brings into question everything that Dean Takahashi has EVER said because clearly the man lacks the basic motor function to hold a controller properly.

Which leads me to my other point about this.  Arthur Gies and Dean Takahashi didn't just show "bad" performances.  People can have an off day or just be not particularly geared towards a certain genre, that's fine.  These performances were INCOMPETENT.  The kind of game play I'd expect from a child who has never touched a game before.  No word of a lie, I could give my mother a copy of Cuphead and within 26 minutes she would finish the tutorial level.  Even my wife, who doesn't game and who has put in some FANTASTICALLY embarrassing attempts at certain titles would probably finish the fucking TUTORIAL of Cuphead in 26 minutes. 

You couple this with all the problems that games journalism has had over the years and now we're at a point where people have a problem trusting these websites.  One stupid prick writing for some stupid website Game Revolution said "If one plumber fucks up your taps, do you never hire another plumber?"  Which is a fair point in a way but he's missing the bigger picture and generally being an apologetic little bitch.  If a plumber fucked up my taps, I'd hire a different plumber FROM A DIFFERENT COMPANY.  So we now know that Venture Beat can't be trusted to pick up a control pad without probably choking on it, where am I going to go?  Gamespot? IGN? Kotaku?  Well these websites are also full of complete bullshit.  People are mad because, if we're using the plumber analogy, that ALL the plumbing companies in the towns are staffed ENTIRELY by inept wankers.

You want game news?  You want game reviews?  There are plenty of enthusiastic individuals on sites like YouTube/Twitch or various blogs and personal websites that you can get your info from?  This is ESPECIALLY important if you are into a niche series or niche genre.  If you're into dungeon crawling who are you going to trust?  Some cunt on IGN who played Grimrock once for 20 minutes and gave it an 8/10 or someone who has been playing games in that genre for fucking YEARS. 

Sort your shit games journalism.  Maybe if you hired some actual passionate people who aren't borderline brain dead, people wouldn't hate you.  Stick to writing about "social issues" for easy clicks and leave the games, to the gamers.