Numbered Game Scores are Meaningless

 

Despite what people might say about the people who write for games review sites, review scores are still things that a lot of people pay attention to and for your average consumer of video games I can understand why.  A numbered review score is a nice quick way to see if someone thinks a game is worth your time or not.  If you don't want to risk potential spoilers or you want to go in as blind as possible but still want a recommendation before dropping some cash, a numbered score can be useful.  For example if you wanted to get the general opinion on a game like LISA, a game best experienced with as little prior knowledge as possible and wanted to limit the risk of any spoiler talk or having any of its more fun plot beats ruined for you, a quick look at Metacritic or IGN (IGN doens't actually have a review of LISA because they suck shit) will let you know if it's worth picking up.

But, for as long as I can remember reviews being a thing the numbers in these reviews barely mean anything.  For example, a 10/10 is a perfect score so therefore one might assume that a 10/10 review means that the games is perfect, a flawless masterpiece meant to be played by absolutely everyone, a work of art so good in every way that even non-gamers would be able to pick it up as their first entry into the medium and have their mind blown.  Well no, not the case.  IGN gave Breath of the Wild a 10/10 review despite the game being sparse, far too easy, chocked full of filler bullshit in the form of shrines and seeds and having some of the worst combat the series has ever had thanks to shitty damage calculations and breakable weapons.  Despite its laundry list of flaws and annoyances, because it belongs to a long running IP run by a big corporation, these sorry excuses for writers will slap a 10 on it.  So if 10 doesn't mean perfect and instead just means really good, then anything under a 10 becomes equally skewed.  We now live in an era where a game that gets released and is given a 6/10 by a reviewer will be deemed by a lot of people to be "unplayable".  Just look at IGNs review of Starfield, a game that is disliked by many for being sparse, buggy and full of copy-paste jobs still manages to get a 7.  

The numbers have been skewed so hard they don't mean anything anymore.  Do you like the game? give it a 9, did you like it A LOT? then bump it up to a 10.  Did you dislike the game? 7/10, was it really not for you? slap a 6 on that bitch.  I feel like anything below a 6 is reserved for stuff that's flat out broken (or maybe not since Starfield got a 7 hyuk hyuk) or for games that offend the reviewer in some way such as the infamous God Hand review where the guy playing it sucked at the combat and didn't like the humor so he gave it a 3.  Fuck that guy by the way, deserves to be kicked out of the industry if you ask me, twat.

If you ask me, a real 10/10 game doesn't exist.  Nothing is perfect, everything has its problems.  There are certainly some games that skirt the line of perfection like DOOM, Hotline Miami or SMT 3 but even those titles have certain little things in them that pull them from that number.

But despite all that, outside of a quick reference so some punter can know if a game is worth the buy in or not, numbered reviews are generally really fucking stupid.  It is completely daft to expect a person to boil down a complex opinion on a thing, not just games for that matter, into a number.  Like I personally, if you put a gun to my head and asked me to do it, would rate famously shit survival horror game Countdown Vampires and medicore but the still impressive Parasite Eve 2 a 7 out of 10.  Without hearing my thoughts in detail those two identical numbers don't mean anything.  A lot of reviews do come with articles attatched to them but there are also a great many cases where people don't read those and instead either look at just the number or worse, the metacritic which is why the skew is so annoying

Reviews have a lot more problems than just the number at the bottom, the people writing them not knowing what they are doing, chiefly, I'm just bitching about something I find stupid while I'm sick with the flu.  Ideally, you should just ignore reviews entirely.  Look at a little bit of promo material, decide if its your kind of game or not and just fucking try it.  You don't need internet approval to enjoy a game, ignore the general audiences and just play stuff

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

Review Scores and Mainstream Games Writing

I make no effort to hide my disdain for "games writers" or "games journalists".  The crap that these people churn out, whether it be a poorly written review or some crappy clickbait opinion piece about how something (usually from a Japanese developer) is offensive just isn't worth the time of day.  Also the fact that almost every writer I encounter on Twitter or on some other facet of social media just seems to suck massively at games just boggles my mind.  It's OK to be a less skilled player and we all have our weak spots (mine is RTS!) but these are people who are being PAID to tell you about games and they can barely muster the ability to finish a game on Normal.

Imagine the show Top Gear

One of the reasons that show is so compelling even for people like me who aren't really into cars is that the three presenters for that show are very knowledgeable and passionate about the topic and listening to them talk motoring is really interesting.  It's true for anything, I am a HUGE fan going onto YouTube and firing up some video about musical theory or musical production and despite the fact that I know diddly jack shit about music theory but just listening to people who know SO MUCH about it I find really interesting.

But now, imagine Top Gear but replace the presenters with people who know NOTHING about cars.  3 people who can't drive, know nothing about the topic of cars or motoring and then they are paraded around on TV trying to tell you which car is good or what manufacturer you should pay attention to.  I'd bet you'd change the channel pretty god damn fast and I imagine the show wouldn't last very long.  That nightmare scenario of a TV show is what is currently happening in the games writing scene and it's an absolute joke.  To put it another way, imagine a movie critic trying to tell you what makes a movie good or bad but they only thing they ever watch are Marvel super hero movies, you wouldn't give it the time of day

"Sekiro is too hard", the guy who couldn't clear the Cuphead tutorial, the Astral Chain incident and so much more are just a few examples of just how there is a group of people that don't know all that much about gaming, aren't very good at it and in some cases I imagine they don't even really care that much, trying to get you to respect their opinion on a given title.  Granted in 2020 with the likes of YouTube and Twitch games writers have become somewhat irrelevant but its still mind numbingly frustrating when some trumped up Twitter addict comes along and tries to tell you what's good or not.

Although the people involved in the actual writing is sort of only half the problem, it's the way in which reviews are presented which is also shitty and dumb.  Most review sites will use a 1-10 scale; the writer will do MAYBE one playthrough of the game, write a couple of paragraphs about the mechanics and the story and then slap a number on the end.  When it comes the scale itself 9 and 10 usually mean a good game, 8 means an OK game, 7 is mediocre and anything below a 7 is complete garbage that isn't worth your money.

I can't help but feel that trying to boil down a complex opinion about a game or any piece of media for that matter into a number is an incredible waste of time.  People can't even decide on what certain numbers mean for certain titles, most recently evidenced by The Last of Us 2.  The game got many 10/10s and I saw many twitter threads of people arguing not only about if that score was deserved but what even "10/10" means.  Seeing someone unironically tweet "10/10 doesn't mean it's perfect" made me put my phone down and walk away from Twitter for a while because I cannot believe the stupidity of some people on that website.

The solution to this problem? Don't put so much pressure on the games press to churn out a review as fast as possible.  Make the standard for a review two playthroughs and go into A LOT more detail on various aspects of the game.  I know I was being mean to games writers in the above paragraphs but you don't even have to replace them. If it takes them a long time to get a review out because they found the game hard is a legit point that may help people make a more informed purchase in the end.  They don't have to be good at the game but the writers skill level should be taken into account so that a reader can find a writer who somewhat matches them and get an opinion similar to where they stand.  Also dump the number, with the extra detail given to the review you don't need the number, the writer has more space to properly articulate what individual aspects they like and didn't like

To basically sum up what I mean you should look to a channel on YouTube called Joseph Anderson.  This guy may be a little overboard in the other direction (his latest video on The Witcher 1 is over 4 hours) but even if you don't agree with what he says he is clearly a dude who knows what he is talking about and puts a lot of effort into these pieces.  If HE tells me a game is good I'm more likely to take an interest rather than some dude who rushed through the game once or maybe didn't even get to the end just so he could write 500 words with a 8/10 on the end.

What I'm saying in a very long, poorly put together way is don't get your games info from places like IGN, go find someone who actually gives a shit

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.

Why Do People Like God of War So Much Again?

A while ago I posted my thoughts on a replay I did of God of War and I followed it up by starting to play God of War 2 and while I am having a certain amount of fun I can't help but be a little confused as to just how these games became so huge.

Now don't get me wrong, these aren't bad games by any stretch and the production quality on pretty much all the titles in the series are top notch but the review scores for these games are always really REALLY high and I don't quite understand.  For example God of War 1 on Gamespot got a review score of 9.3 and God of War 2 got 9.7(!) on IGN!  That's a damn near perfect score and maybe it's just because I've become cynical in my old age but I just don't understand.

These games do have some good things going for them such as great cinematic quality and an insane level of violence which is rather satisfying to watch after battling your way through a horde of enemies.  There's also a decent variation in enemy types and the soundtracks are quite nice feeling appropriately epic for the tasks at hand and the main theme will pretty much stick with your forever after playing.

That said though, in the game play department these games are samey and a little dull.  Combat consists of nothing more than mashing square on an enemy until the prompt appears above their head and then doing a little QTE sequence to finish them off.  The game tries to give you lots of tools to try and deal with all the enemies such as magic spells and alternate weapons but there is very little reason to use any of them because mashing square is easily the best thing you have.  If mashing square doesn't seem to be working quite as well as usual against a certain enemy then click in both your control sticks to activate Rage of the Gods which is basically a win button.  Rage makes you strong, removes hitstun and makes your standard combo so insane and screen filling that even bosses don't stand a chance against you.

Aside from the combat the puzzles are insultingly easy at best and frustratingly obtuse at worst.  There have been instances during my God of War 2 playthrough where I'll be stuck in a room for a few minutes not knowing what to do because the key to a puzzle is some kind of pullable block but the block just looks like a background prop so I end up stumbling on it by accident and I never would have known if it wasn't for the big stupid R1 prompt in the corner.  The worst case of "puzzle" solving though is when the game wants you to find keys.  Usually there's a locked door and another path, go down the other path, kill dudes, get key and then loop back on yourself so that you can go through the door.  If this happened just once or twice but this is almost every single locked door in God Of War 2.

Like I said I don't hate these games at all but they get near perfect scores, glowing reviews and hordes of raving fans.  If I worked for one of these websites I would have given it like a 6/10 for being a competently made action game with some annoying aspects and an over reliance on QTE for cool shit to happen.  Devil May Cry let's you look cool as hell without using QTE at all but God of War struggles to pull of anything visually impressive in the combat without going into canned animation mode.

Still, despite my complaints I'm gonna finish off 2 and probably go play the third one again too, good bit of mindless fun after a stressful day.

Lets talk Super Potato

So recently on Twitter someone linked me to a video that was featured on IGN that was titled "This is what $250 will get you in the worlds best second hand game store".  The store featured was Super Potato and the idea of that being the worlds best anything is laughable 

If you want to watch the video you can google it yourself because there is no way I'm linking that shit on here.  

So first, for those who are unfamiliar or don't live in Japan, Super Potato is easily the most famous retro game shop chain in Japan.  Partly for good reason since almost everyone I've ever met over here, gamer or no, has at least heard of it. 

The one thing that this store has going for it is the selection of games.  If there is something you are looking for then you can almost guarantee you can find it there.  However, calling it the best retro gaming store in the world is fucking laughable and it just shows that IGN just did a piece on the biggest, most well know store available rather than doing any real research.  

You see, the problem with Super Potato is the prices.  They will always jack up the price of everything and charge out the nose for stuff that is really worth not all that much.  I've seen games in there for 1000 yen plus that are only being sold for mere hundreds in other retro gaming stores.  My favorite example of this happening is when I found a copy of Megaman 2 for Famicom in Book Off.  Super Potato usually asks about 2000 yen for it but I found it in the other store for 250.  Granted it's worth a bit more than 250 but with a bit of patience you can easily beat most of their asking prices.

You see, there is so much depth to retro collecting in Japan and just waltzing into Super Potato and dropping tons of cash is the exact wrong way to go about it .  Generally speaking, Book Off is about your best bet price wise but it's ALWAYS worth hunting down the small time retro shops for that special deal or that one guy who might price things a little better.  Also in my experience, the Tokyo stores tend to jack the prices up a little higher than in other areas and finding small time retro shops takes a bit more effort than it does in places like Nagoya.

Super Potato isn't a bad store by any stretch but it would be a shame if people new to collecting started to get ripped off every which way because IGN put out a shitty video.  Shame on you IGN, Super Potato isn't even JAPANS best retro store, let alone the worlds, do some goddamn research next time. 

Games Media Is Busted

I've mentioned on this blog a number of times that I think games media is a giant steaming pile of horse crap.  I've commented on individual things, events or articles that have pissed me off but never on why I think games media as a whole is so bad.  This is A LOT wrong with this side of the industry so if I tried to go in too great detail then this blog post would never fucking end but to me there are 2 big reasons why games media sucks so bad so I'll talk about those.

1.  The Way They Make Money

So almost every games media site that I'm aware of make money via advertising sponsorships and then clicks on their page.  This in and of itself is not a terrible thing and I'm sure there are plenty of websites that do this without being crap.  The danger of a business model like this though is that your people are going to write things in order to generate those clicks that bring in the big bucks. 

I don't mind people writing articles for clicks if it is relevant to gaming.  You can hype up the newest Call of Duty all you fucking like, lots of people enjoy that series and if writing about that game brings in the money, then by all means.  But we have had a trend in the industry for the couple of years where writers are turning not only to huge titles but to outrage in order to generate the site traffic.

All these fucking articles that have popped up complaining about certain aspects of games that the writers have probably never played or all these idiots moaning about violence and sexism that is apparently rampant in the industry.  I'm almost 100% certain that there is at least a good handful of writers on these sites that don't actually believe this crap, but writing it is what brings the people to the site which in turns brings home the pay check.

It's all well and good complaining about this side of things but I'm no fucking businessman, I don't know how you could fix this side of things.  Like I said it's not a bad model on its own so I guess the only real solution is to hire writers who actually have a sense of pride in their work and aren't willing to write stupid drivel for traffic.  This of course leads me nicely into my second point which is

2.  The Writers

This is my biggest problem with games media, more so than wanking over AAA and stupid Buzzfeed style clickbait journalism.  The writers who are currently employed by games media are fucking trash, for the most part not in terms of writing ability but in knowledge about the industry they are writing about.  This has seemed to be the case for a very VERY long time with writers shamelessly praising certain aspects of big releases for doing shit that other games did fucking YEARS ago. 

This realization came to me a long time ago with the release of the first Halo.  After getting over my disgust for the fan base and all the fucking praise that the game got Halo is actually an enjoyable series.  But every single member of the games media writing about how it was "revolutionary"?  Holy shit are you crazy?  Before Halo, first person shooters were awesome with things like Doom, Duke and Quake.  They had puzzle solving, exploration, great weapon load outs and then Halo comes along and puts everything in a grey corridor with set piece battles and that's seen as a fucking step forward?!  Are you insane?  Halo did do a couple of things for the console FPS genre but it did more to ruin it than revolutionize it.

I think if you are a fan of the horror genre then the weakness in the knowledge of these people becomes most apparent.  ANYONE who gave The Evil Within or Silent Hill Downpour a positive review is a fucking idiot who doesn't understand what they are talking about.  Just look at the IGN review in particular of The Evil Within.  "Terrifying enemies" and "convoluted story".  Most of the enemies in that game are just fucking dudes and the story is only convoluted in the sense that it seems to have been writing by a fucking 6 year old who watched too many slasher movies.

All these writers who gave The Last of Us and fucking 10/10 are either pandering or fucking stupid.  I quite like that game really but it is in no way a fucking 10 on 10 game.  Hell, it's a fucking 3rd person, over the shoulder action game and I saw numerous people praising the games originality.  It's about as unoriginal as it gets but it's very well crafted, polished and is ultimately fun to play so a good 8 or 9 I could handle but a 10?!  You really want to claim that shit is perfect? 

This isn't to say that 100% of the writers in games media are clueless.  Hell, it'd be a little harsh to call most of them "clueless" but their expertise are not enough to be writing about certain things.  This is why small time YouTube reviewers have become so popular because instead of having some idiot chatting about a series or game that you really enjoy, you can go somewhere and get the specialist knowledge.

I think what I'm trying to say in a very long winded and stupid way is that the writers for games media write for money and to echo popular opinion rather than for the benefit of the consumer.

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There are many more issues than this with games media but these are the big 2 for me and they are very closely linked.  I'm too much of a huge dumbass to know how to fix it but really we live in an age where games media isn't really needed anyway.  If you want info on a game, go lookup some passionate youtuber or twitch streamer who will give you an honest and informed opinion because they love the games rather than because they want to make some money, it's that easy.

Why Gender Politics Pisses Me Off

So I've made posts in the past about this kind of issue and why it isn't really important to gaming as a whole but I've never really explained why this thing ticks me off so much, so I thought I'd shed some light.

Just to give the reason I was inspired to do this post, I read a thing on IGN about the new Zelda Triforce Heroes game and here's the link

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/30/e3-2015-why-you-cant-play-as-a-woman-in-zelda-tri-force-heroes

This fucking hack job writer gets an opportunity to talk with the director of the game, Hiromasa Shikata and what does he ask?  He asks fucking questions on if it's possible to play as a woman.  WHO GIVES A SHIT?!  What a crappy series to ask this question for as well because Link is so fucking androgynous anyway.  I have to give big props to Shitaka though because his response was essentially "because we want it that way" which is what all developers should be doing when asked stupid, inane questions like that one.

So just why does all this talk of "female representation" and all the other crap that goes along with it piss me off so much?  Well if you believe what you read on most of the internet its because I'm a no-life nerd who lives in my mothers basement and hates women.  Except that's not true and the reason it really pisses me off is because almost EVERYBODY making comment on this subject is fucking WRONG and has no fucking idea what they are talking about ever.

The two main arguments that I see flying around the internet are "there aren't enough strong female characters in games" and "there aren't enough women working in games".  Both of these points are complete bullshit and have been complete bullshit since the dawn of the fucking medium. 

First the whole "women in the games industry" thing.  There are plenty of whiny, talentless idiots on twitter and various other gaming websites who will argue that there aren't many women working in the industry and it needs to do more to hire greater numbers of female staff.  Well I call bullshit on this point because you can look at the credits list for basically any game ever and you're guaranteed to find a bunch of women on there in all sorts of roles.

Hell, I looked at 3 titles on my way home from work just to make sure I wasn't chatting out of my ass.  I looked at the credits list for Bravely Default, Persona 4 Golden and The Last of Us and there were plenty of women kicking around those development teams.  Hell, just go look at the credits list for Persona 4 on Giant Bomb and the fucking EXECUTIVE PRODUCER IS A GODDAMN WOMAN!

The reason these hack indies want to make it seem like women aren't valued in gaming is because it gives them an out and an excuse for whatever shitty game they made.  Suddenly, their games go from sucking due to having no talent to unappreciated due to gender of the creator.  The only other people pushing this idea are the ones who are looking to profit by playing the victim in a so called "oppressive industry".  They make up a bunch of bullshit about how awful things are in order to generate outrage and then they have, quite cleverly I might add, found a way to capitalize on said outrage.  It's sad, pathetic and it's a point that's INSTANTLY disproved by a quick Google search.  These talented women who are making good games aren't speaking up because they are "oppressed" or "undervalued", I'd bet money it's because they are quite happy doing what they are doing.

The second point is the whole "not enough female characters in games" or "too many sexist female characters in video games".  This is also complete bullshit and can be easily debunked by anyone who knows a single thing about gaming outside of the shit you are spoonfed by major gaming news outlets.  There are TONS, fucking hundreds upon hundreds of great female characters in games ranging from protagonists to antagonists and everything in between.  Hell, the character I put at the top of this post is a good example of a good female protagonist and I bet half these idiots complaining have never even heard of Koudelka.

Even the idea that a sexy character is sexist is fucking dumb.  Take a look at this.

This is the kind of character that would get instantly slammed for being sexist filth, but it's not sexist at all.  The developers of this game don't hate women and their intention isn't to degrade them, they are just developing for a certain market.  There are plenty of men (and women I've found since coming to Japan) who enjoy this kind of thing and that's fine.  I'm sure this animated underboob isn't oppressing you or making your life any harder so just shut up and let people enjoy some fucking fan service without having to be ashamed of their sexuality.

So there you have it.  The tl;dr version of this post is that the gender politics thing pisses me off because it's made by clueless fucking idiots who don't know anything about gaming.  It's double annoying because these clueless idiots are being paid to write for games.

Well whatever, guess I'm just going to enjoy my games and try to ignore these morons.

Games Media Is and Always Has Been Trash

Every medium needs its critics.  If it wasn't for people criticizing the works of others then things would never get better.  Content creators wouldn't have much of an idea of what people like and what people don't and we'd be a lot worse off for it.  That said, mainstream games media is complete trash and has been complete trash for a fairly significant amount of time.

I've ranted about how shitty certain sites are in the past such as PC Gamer and Kotaku but just generally speaking, mainstream games media is fucking dreadful and it always has been.  Even before I was using the internet as my main source of information, back in the day when I had a subscription to Edge Magazine, I thought games media was a fucking waste of goddamn time.

It's not ENTIRELY useless as we need someone to come along and report the facts so there is some merit.  When a company announces a game or when something happens in the industry it's good to have a publication on hand to report that shit so we know what's going on with this hobby that we all hold so dear.  However, reviews of individual games and opinion pieces are a complete waste of fucking space and I don't know why anyone bothers reading them.

There is some evidence to point out that a fair number of reviews, especially for big name titles with a lot of money pumped into their development are paid for by publishers but putting that aside reviews are still a waste of time.  A review is essentially the opinion of the person writing it and quite frankly the people who currently write for games media just aren't worth listening to.  All too often I've read stuff written by some prick who claims to have expertise in the field of games but in reality knows very little.  Too many fucking morons claiming to be "life long gamers" who are actually just part time bloggers writing about a game they played for half an hour one time.

Not only that but games review sites INSIST on using fucking numbers at the end of their reviews which pisses me off to no end.  How can you boil down a complex opinion on something like a game to something as simple as a fucking number out of 10.  The numbers have lost all meaning nowadays anyway with 10/10 meaning "really fucking good" rather than what it's SUPPOSED to mean; "perfect".  It annoys me with films as well how everything is X/5.  Fuck off with that, just write about the movie/game and leave the fucking numbers out of it.  If you base your decision to purchase a game based on it's score out of 10 on IGN then you are a fucking idiot that needs a slap in the face.

Also in recent months (maybe years) there's too many fucking opinion pieces written by people who know nothing of games and have skins thinner than a wet paper bag.  All too often I hear about "this game is sexist" or "this game causes violence" written by fucking idiots who know nothing about games in general OR THE GAME THEY ARE FUCKING CRITIQUING

What I want from the games media is cold, hard facts.  X developer is working on Y game.  A event has happened to company Z.  I don't give a fuck that you think the latest AAA game is "8.8/10" or whatever, or you think that a certain title is sexist or overly violent because your opinion is absolutely trash and you should keep it to yourself.  They all parrot the same shit anyway.

You could argue that I should keep my opinion about the gaming press to myself but I'm a nobody blogger who isn't be paid to do this shit.  The fact that you are receiving a salary to write shit opinions about video games is disgusting and in an age where YouTube/Twitch and enthusiast blogs exist, you money grubbing idiots aren't needed.  Fuck off.

Xbox One Used Game Fee

When there were all these rumours flying around about how the next gen systems will blocked used games I was laughing at people.  I was like "There is no way you can possibly believe that right, that would be the dumbest shit!"

But I have been thoroughly told to shut the fuck up and had my chops slapped about by a news story on IGN with the headline "Microsoft Details Used Game Fees, Installation Requirements"  You can read the thing for yourself just here

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/21/xbox-one-may-have-mandatory-game-installs

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME?!

What planet doe these people live on?!  At what point in time did anyone think this was a good idea?!

Now, I know what people are going to say when people moan about this.  They are going to be saying stuff like "yeah, but you use Steam and that's basically the same thing!" or "You've not been able to do that with PC gaming for fucking years" etc. etc.

Well guess what shit biscuit, I've NEVER been able to do that with PC games, even before I started using steam.  In the UK, GAME wouldn't take used PC games, and my experience of buying used PC titles from other stores like Gamestation has pretty much ALWAYS ended up in tragedy.

I remember buying fucking Half Life 1, used and the damn thing not having a CD key, then me having to ask my friends dad to give me HIS fucking CD key so I could play the damn thing.  Plus the thing about Steam is that while there are games on there for full price, the vast majority of my steam library has been purchased on the cheap.  Steam make up for the whole 1 account thing by offering shit like Game X + All DLC for like £2.50.

Hell, after selling some items on the Steam Marketplace I picked up Dragon Age: Origins + all the DLC and expansions and what have you FOR NOTHING. £0, $0!  It was paid for totally with TF2 items that I obtained FOR FREE ANYWAY.  Thank you Steam!  I could have bought some other stuff too if I didn't get curious about DotA keys....bad move....

But you know what? I'm not even all that mad.  PS4 seems to be focusing on games and isn't doing it.  Wii U, once it picks up some steam will probably end up pretty strong and THAT doesn't do it.  3DS and Vita don't do it.  So you know what Xbox One? Go and fuck yourself, if you want to implement your little money grubbing used game fee, go ahead, but all you're doing is shooting yourself in the foot and basically handing this entire generation over to Sony and Nintendo.

You have seriously, dun goofed

YouTube Paid Channels

I found out today that there are now channels on YouTube that you must pay a monthly subscription to in order to view.  Wow, what a load of fucking shit!

OK, I'm being a bit harsh, I do see the point of it here.  It allows creators of content to get something back for the work their putting in.  Not that they weren't getting it already with the whole YouTube monetisation thing, but this just gives them more options or some shit I guess.

Right now I don't give a flying fuck really because all the channels that are pay2view are a load of shit anyway.  But I hope people with gaming channels are aware of the fact that not ONE FUCKING PERSON with any kind of common sense would pay a fucking penny to watch shit like playthroughs and reviews.

I mean think about it, if someone like IGN went and put a subscription on their channel, people would just fuck off somewhere else for content.  If some Let's Player goes and does the same thing, people will just fuck of to another guy who didn't.  Even more so with playthroughs because why pay a monthly fee to view them when you could just buy the game yourself and fucking play it.

I know full well my nobody status on YouTube but rest assured that if I ever did somehow get to the point where subscription content would be an option, I would tell YT to go shove it up it's own arse.  If people are going to pay money for anything I create, I'd rather they direct it at the Alzheimer's Society than me, I can just get a fucking job!

Speaking of which, don't forget to throw a donation to the Society, that disease ain't going to cure itself!

www.justgiving.com/identitygaming

(Please forgive my shameless begging for charity donations, I won't do it often)

How Scary Is Outlast? Not very

Outlast is a game I've mentioned a few times on this blog.

First I said that it was worth looking out for, then I said that while some of my hype had been dashed I was still looking forward to it, and now it's just another one of those games in the back of my mind that I'll probably get on the cheap about a year after it's release date.

I saw this video on YouTube put out by IGN called "How Scary is Outlast?" here it is

This is a silly video where a bunch of people play the game and over react to bad scares like they are 12 years old.

The game itself looks pretty solid technically speaking.  The demo that they were playing ran smoothly and it didn't bug out or anything like that.  Also the game doesn't seem to have that DreadOut problem of the character having a move speed no faster than a frail old person with broken legs.

But I'm not talking about the game from a technical standpoint, I'm not here to discuss fucking graphics, frame rate and shit like that, I'm here to talk about scares, and this is where this whole thing really falls flat on its fucking face.

If you are scared by this game, you need to seek help.  Now I'm not saying I'm some big manly man but this game isn't scaring you at any point, it's only shocking you.  All the gore and bodies and shit like that is really in your face and it's the same kind of "scary" that a movie like Saw is.  Also when the game does attempt a scare it plays a huge bang and fucking loud violins go off in the background here, the soundtrack is TELLING you to be scared and instead it has the opposite effects.

When you hear huge bangs and shit like that you aren't scared, you're shocked and the effect wares off immediately after.  What's worse is that jump scares seems to be the only thing this game has, so it becomes even less scary because I know when I play the game I'm just going to be looking for points where a jump scare is probably going to come out.

Also the big dude running around and grabbing you isn't scary because he's just a fucking dude with a strange face.  Even the Amnesia monster was scarier than that because even though it was just a humanoid type thing at least it looked sort of fucked up and you could only ever get a passing glance at it.  But no, here, it's just a big burly man trying to beat the shit out of you, WHOOP DE FUCKING DOO.  Plenty of games have big burly men beating the shit out of you, and they aren't scary, it's not just magically scary here because you put the burly man in a long corridor and surrounded him in gore.

Outlast has disappointed me before it has even come out.  Way to go Red Barrels, you proved that you know absolutely nothing about making horror games.  I'll be sure to give it a go still, but the rant about your incompetency is going to get really long when that day comes.

Dark Souls 2 Gameplay Demo!

So today I watched the Dark Souls 2 game play reveal, here is the video for you so you can too!

So basically the video is 12 minutes of a character running around some environments and doing things while a guy talks over it.  I think it is safe to say that Dark Souls 2 is in good hands here folks and it is perfectly safe to go and get all hyped.

Some people have been complaining about the health and stamina gauges being high and enemies not doing all that much damage but do keep in mind that it was a game play trailer to show off the game, so they were probably just playing with a levelled guy so that they aren't getting destroyed while trying to show you the game.

The enemies are doing cooler things now too, like in that scene where he shoots a dude in a cage and he busts out or that guy who uses his curved armour to roll on you if you get behind him.  It'll be great on the first play through when you have no idea just how a certain enemy is going to ruin your shit even when you may think you have the upper hand.  Also deflecting projectiles with your weapon is fucking RAD.

There are a couple of things I would say are a little concerning, like the environments being a little empty, but it's hard to make any kind of solid comment yet because it is just a specially designed game play demo to give us an idea of what it's going to look like.

From Software do good work, I don't think they will let us down.

Please Stop Moaning About Difficulty

There needs to be a rule when it comes to video game reviews, where reviewers should not be allowed to talk about a games difficulty at all.  This seems like and incredibly stupid and unreasonable thing to say, but what choice do we have when almost every reviewer is wrong about difficulty in games.

Let's talk about Castlevania for a second here.

A good majority of people think Castlevania is a hard game, and they would be right.  The level design and enemy placement is fiendish, the bosses are tough as nails and with no save or password system it can turn into a bit of an endurance test if you die a lot.  On top of that, you sort of have to know whats coming so that you can make educated choices about your sub-weapon.  This isn't bullshit because the games fairly kind with checkpoints, but overall, castlevania is a hard game.

Now what about Demons Souls, or even Dark Souls, are these hard games?  No, no they are not.  Everything in Demons and Dark Souls is designed to kill you and make your life a living hell if you are not willing to play by the games rules.  It's a game where you have to learn the mechanics well, take in your surroundings and above all be careful and observant.  If you do all these things then chances for survival in Demons and Dark souls is actually rather high, and while it's still a rather challenging game, the levels between these games and basically everything in the 8/16 bit generations is massive.

Let's take another example, Etrian Odyssey 4

Etrian Odyssey is a series of dungeon crawlers designed as a throwback to games like Wizardry and it falls in a genre known for it's difficulty.  A few weeks ago I was made aware of a review on IGN basically panning Etrian Odyssey 3 for being too difficult and unfair.  This is of course bullshit and really it was a case of the reviewer not being arsed enough to learn how the game works and getting frustrated when things didn't go his way.  Etrian Odyssey 4 on the other hand got a great review, because the person in question played it on easy mode and didn't have to learn the ins and outs to get by, and this is sort of sad in a way.

He's right, its a great game but not because there is an easy mode that makes it accessible to newcomers.  That is a great feature but that isn't the reason the game deserves the score it got.   Dark Souls is a challenging game but all the hyperbole being thrown around regarding its difficulty caused people to turn away.

Panning a game for difficulty, especially when you are wrong about it, is not good.  It gives the developers this false idea that people don't like challenging or even hard games.  If you as a reviewer find a game kicked your ass into next year, then say so, but don't pan the whole game because you assume that everyone else is like you and isn't willing to put in time to improve at it.  Until reviewers can talk about difficulty in a mature way, and not just throw a low score at a title because it beat them, discussion of difficulty should be disallowed from reviews.

I swear to god if Dark Souls 2 is ruined because of shit like this I'm going to be rather upset.

Survival Horror making a comeback!?

Survival Horror has been a bit dead for a long long time.

Konami, with the help of Tomm Hulett, has been ruining Silent Hill
Resident Evil turned into a series of bland action games with grotesque monsters
Project Zero (Or Fatal Frame if you're American) hasn't had a main series game outside of Japan since 2005, and nothing since 2008 in Japan
Alone in the Dark was murdered and no one gave a fuck

the list goes on and on...

But then some good things have been happening.  ZombieU came out on the WiiU, which I have yet to play, and while it doesn't look particularly scary, it looks plenty survivaly and with permadeath hanging over you I imagine it would keep you at least somewhat on edge.

On top of that, we have Tomm Hulett leaving Konami, so he's not going to be making any more fucking awful Silent Hill games, so maybe the next person to step up will breathe some life back into things.

Then I came across this article on IGN!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/31/resident-evil-will-return-to-its-roots

Which is basically a big article of Masachika Kawata saying that Resident Evil needs to go back and stop sucking ass, read it.

Well, nothing concrete has happened yet, but these are good signs if you ask me.  In the meantime we have the Amnesia sequel to look forward too, so maybe after that we can get decent horror games once again