edge was and still is the only intelligent magazine out there, just, i am not much of a gamer anymore so i don't care enough to buy it. It was utterly pretentious, but consciering the rest of the gaming mags are still in collegehumour mode, I'll take a bit of snobbery!

I don't think 'collegehumor' is inherently bad style of writing/way of going about things. But any kind humor or kind of writing I suppose can get tiresome after so long. (Though, gaming information sites HAVE been doing things that way for a long time)

a kotaku guy's review of minecraft "admits" it's not perfect, but for an entirely trivial reason: its controls are "clunky", as if that's the worst thing anyone could possibly say about this game. on the other hand rock paper shotgun guy's review of minecraft (on a different site) gives it 10/10 with the only negative comment being that some things are unfinished and will probably improve with time. he also references Justin Bieber a couple of times. fucking imbeciles

Even if you think Minecraft is shitty (or at least think there should be a much longer list of flaws that they could have come up with) Your reaction is a bit overly strong, no? I read the minecraft review you are referring to (from that rock paper shotgun guy) and I thought it was perfectly fine as a review. I know very little about Justin Bieber (other than that the internet hates him for being a shitty pop singer and for having the looks of a 10 year old), but bringing him up for use as a joke/metaphor seems... not stupid. A little arbitrary, but not stupid.

I don't know if you calling them fucking imbeciles as a loud and angry insult or saying that they are rubbish in a dismissive, calm, and quiet tone. Could you clarify?

I really doubt any of this shit is worth reading. besides casual reviews on SW/GW, I have never seen a single person who has any idea how to critique video games. that's probably partially because the vast majority of video games aren't worth reviewing or thinking about critically. the "games industry" really is an industry, selling mindless entertainment. it's almost like trying to critically review Avatar or any of the Transformers movies, but unlike those movies, the majority of video games don't even have a legitimate item for comparison. which is better, dragon age II or skirrym?? the only way you can discuss that is by focusing upon completely superficial elements. the fact that video game magazines (essentially amounting to BUYERS PREVIEWS) have so long been the pinnacle of video game reviews should be pretty telling. I know there is intelligent stuff out there, I've heard of it, but for the most part it's relegated to obscure games few people know about. in the future this might expand to more popular games, but for now I really wouldn't suggest wasting your time reading any of this garbage

I usually read up on gaming blogs/news sites to get up to date on whats going on in gaming, since I have a interest in gaming. And gaming blogs and news sites are the only place that I can get it (for free, and quickly). I'm not going to just shut myself out of them entirely and then not have any source at all. I also just all around disagree with the idea that games aren't worth thinking about critically. I think there are plenty of games worth thinking about critically. (just as every from of entertainment or media) I don't even think that is necessarily praise for video games. Since technically, one can learn even from shitty movies/books/art by thinking about it critically. Saying video games aren't worth being critically thought about is kind of absurd.

If you are making the argument that there are no 'great' video games, you are viewing games from both a overly broad and in other ways narrow POV. Broad because you are bunching other forms of media that can't be so easily compared with video games. And narrow because you think that the ways that those forms of media are normally discussed and valued are the only legitimate ways to evaluate any piece of media. I guess I'm making a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" sort of argument. That all of this that we are discussing is very subjective since video games, movies, books, and art are all complex topics and there aren't straight forward methods of identifying things that are worth while and what isn't. Basically, that's just, like, your opinion man.

lol I downloaded a bittorrent of possibly every Goosebumps book for Kindle soon I will be fully assimilated into 90's

I did the same just recently with Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Got a kindle touch. Which Kindle you have?

I think everyone should just ignore the numbers and just enjoy the review treating it as the author's opinion. Some reviews are pretty cool to read and might enlighten you to some things you haven't consciously realized about the game, but all in all it isn't the basis of the absolute quality of the game. Those numbers are really stupid.

I agree that reviews can be interesting to read I read reviews even of older games I beat a long time ago on occasion (which goes to show the review can be on its own interesting even with out its general use in determining which game to purchase), and that numbers CAN be stupid, but only where they are influenced by ad dollars or a logical failure on the part of the reviewer (such as reviewing a game positively/negatively because everyone else did, or the opposite, reviewing a game with a score that is against the norm just to be against the norm). Every argument though I've read as a spectator about this I've shaken my head at those involved missing certain important points about the score/numbers. And in cases where I am participating, when I bring these points up I'll occasionally enrage people. These are the points:

-Video game critical score's bell curve is generally consistent through out different sources of game reviewers. Which means that the numbers can very easily given meaning. Namely, it can be clearly seen that the score generally conforms to traditional 'school grading'. 0-59 is an F, 60-69 is a D, 70-79 is a C, 80-89 is a B, and 90-100 is an A. Which all have meanings, F is failure, D is barely satisfactory, C is satisfactory, B is good, A is excellent. I am not going to say that this bell curve is better than another bell curve, because that's stupid. I'm merely saying that the numbers are consistent, and accurately portray a meaning the reviewer is trying to get across on the overall quality of the game (or maybe just 1 aspect of it in some cases).

-So one might ask, "Why use numbers at all then, why just just say satisfactory or failing or Excellent?". Simple, because those can't be averaged by a set of reviewers. And an average on lots of opinions is generally more useful than just one. And can even further accurately identify how good a game is and even how likely it is for you to enjoy it/ or even more generally, derive some positive experience from it. The basic way to sum this up: you get a good idea what most critics think of the game. This number alone, is not what I suggest basing a purchase on entirely of course, but its a good start. On a less important note, numbers can give a reader a quick way to ascertain an individual's outlook on the game they are reviewing.

The only reason honestly I can imagine one still being against numbered scoring systems (and wanting to abolish them entirely). Is either due to stubbornness, some overly sentimental belief that numbers take the soul/meaning out of discussion with a dash of "ra ra fight the power/machine", or some fear that the games that get higher scores will always sell better (not really true) thus hurting their favorite developers that maybe don't get such great scores, or finally, because at some point a reviewer bruised their ego and their favorite game with a negative review/most hated game with a positive review.

yeah video game reviews are universally stupid and a complete waste of time. all AAA titles get perfect scores, everything else gets around 60-70. maybe some shovelware disney-licensed shit might get a 50. it's pretty much common knowledge at this point that game sites/magazines depend almost entirely on advertising revenue and they won't dare give a big name title an honest low score if it deserves it. just recently you had some pr person for duke nukem forever on twitter openly threatening to blacklist sites that gave the game a low score. then there was that gamespot dude who got fired for giving some game a 60 something score (which isn't even that low, but whatever).

Universally? Complete waste of time? All AAA titles get perfect scores, everything else gets around 60-70. maybe some shovelware disney-licensed shit might get a 50. These are very clear examples of blanket statements. Very very inaccurate ones. Resistance Series, Cyrsis 2, Mafia II, Manhunt 1-2, F. E. A. R. 2-3, Need For Speed: The Run, Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun, Brink, Black, Homefront, Kane & Lynch 1-2, Fable 3 (PC), Armored Core 4. Almost all of these did not get any perfect scores, NONE of them got 90+ scores on average, and every last of one them was considered AAA before release (in the case of the series, release of the first game).

Now I wont deny that game reviewing site rely on ad revenue, but they also rely on being at least viewed by their readers as honest, other wise they lose them. Which is significantly harder to do when you actually aren't. Sure, there are plenty of people who don't see this dishonesty when it hits them right in the face (or go into denial), but I would say that sights that are viewed as dishonest do generally get hurt by the image. Gamespot is still going is confusing to me, but I know of a few other sites that have gone under. One that very much seems like its going under is VGChartz for such things. They basically lost all of their writers over shady dealings with advertisers (and of course, paying the writers).

Hell, that GameSpot fiasco if anything, proves to me that there are at least some reviewers out there with ethics and integrity. And for every shady business man behind these sites, there are 10 writers that aren't lying dicks.

That blacklist threat shit though is probably the only thing I 100% agree on as a thorn in legit game writing's side. That shit generally disgusts me. Not much one can do about that I can think of though.
 

look at the final fantasy games for example. every single one of them. all of them. they all receive universal acclaim and never score lower than a 90 (most often they just get perfect scores). and yet i can't find a single one of those games worth playing released in the past 10-15 or so years. i heard good things about 12 but the story/writing/cutscenes were really, really embarrassingly bad and the game didn't hold my interest for any more than 2 or 3 hours before i died of boredom and never touched it again. metal gear solid 4 is another great example. critical acclaim, perfect scores, kojima is genius, etc. and yet throughout the game i couldn't help shake the feeling that the horrible fangame-esque story and general shitty-ness of it all was actually intentional (how do you make a stealth game without any sneaking at all?). like it was objectively supposed to be a bad game. then on the flip side you have earthbound. ask anyone now or look at any mainstream gaming press and suddenly they're all big fans, but when that game was new i remember it was absolutely trashed in all the reviews because it had the misfortune of being released right in between final fantasy 3 and chrono trigger so of course earthbound was a shitty game because of its graphics and gameplay.

Final Fantasy got bloated reviews because of nerdy reviewer fanboyism, and the gaming cultural obsession with Japan, and nostalgia (Final Fantasy series has been around forever). I really doubt that there is too much bribe influenced reviews for the final fantasy games. I can't comment on MGS4, But MGS 1 and 2 WERE excellent games. (I didn't enjoy MGS 3 but I respected it for what it was)

As for Earthbound, I'm not sure what you are saying is true, http://www.gamerankings.com/snes/588301-earthbound/articles.html (though I'm uncertain of how recent those 3 reviews are, as the dates may merely be when the reviews were added to the site) I loved Earthbound (Though I've still yet to complete it, I'm like hanging around 80% or so) but even assuming what you are saying is true, This happens all the time in other areas of media. Classics get bashed in there own time plenty (mostly books), only to be recognised as great later. This is hardly reason to dismiss current critical views on video games.

Especially since all of this that you have brought up is at best anecdotal evidence. In fact, largely subjective anecdotal evidence. If I were to meet someone that told me they did not like Earthbound, I'm not going to sneer and call them a philistine. If anything, I'd be very interested in what they have to say (if they can explain their opinion thoughtfully)

Anyway, I have to cut this short, going to get some delicious Peanut Butter cookies, fresh from a bakery. fuck yeah.

I will respond to Kaworu soon when I can.

it gets in the way of anybody who tries to get videogames taken seriously. Remember, these people don't just write about games, but to the outside world are it's representatives. Some obese neckbearded guys talking about how bitchin Saints Row's dildo bat is, or how we shouldn't apply western concepts of 'sexism' to japanese games, all the while referring to CAD strips or family guy episodes, while unironically wearing a KFC and Budweiser stained football shirt that's fifteen sizes too small.
Articles on SKYRIM ORK WHORES, references to outdated 80's tv shows, PWNING, sexualisation of weapons in FPS games, man the whole shit is wrong, and no other form of media/entertainment has the kind of representatives that gaming has, with the possible exception of Metal, which is far more mysogonistic and childish than videogames (and both things have a high level of crossover actually).

This I actually agree with mostly. I would like more serious discussions on video games. However, I don't think we should completely get rid of the humor, even the low brow stuff. (Though I suppose that isn't what you are saying). The thing is though, I associate most of this with 4Chan and other stupid internet related shit than gaming. It just so happens that a lot of stupid internet 4chan types are nerdy and like video games.

Also, Kotaku, GamesRadar, IGN, etc. are hardly at 4Chan's level.

I say that though, and I have to say I actually personally know 2 pretty smart people who check out 4Chan. One of them is admittedly kind of irresponsible (though, I'm one to talk) but they are both on the whole, well rounded and friendly. anyway, off topic.

I would say that this sort of shit exists with other media to. Not just video games. Video games are just more commonly latched onto by this particular crowd. And there are certain inherent elements to games that attract certain types of people (competitive nature, escapism, ego-stroking), the ones you are talking about.

Though smart, level headed discussion on gaming does happen. Its just that places where it happens aren't popular to the typical gamer (nor necessarily as common as they should be). They are popular to game developers usually though.

Extra Credits on PATV is a perfect example of intelligent discussion/media that appeals to the common (non-developer) gamer. You should watch some of it. Here is the first episode: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/bad-writing

not trying to be a dick but i honestly never heard of most of these games - or at least never heard positive things about em. i think kane and lynch was always considered shit? fable i've heard nothing but bad things ever since the first one failed to live up to its enormous hype. medal of honor and need for speed i would hardly consider to be AAA, they're just kinda popular for some reason. for what it's worth i've more or less fallen out of the loop with regards to gaming, so take whatever i say with a grain of salt i guess. when i think of big important titles i think of, like, any first party nintendo game for example. plenty of those have recently been medicore/above average at best and barely held my interest for more than an hour, and i know those games get near perfect scores all the time.

Oh, well... I thought you were say AAA as in games with big budgets or long development time (mostly the former) and all of those games have big budgets. Games with the flashy graphics and lots of hype before the release are also general traits of the AAA title. You never hearing positive things about them is kind of my point. That they are recognized generally as being 'meh' at best by most game reviewers/critics.

my little brother recently got skyward sword and i watched him play through most of it and, apart from the very pretty graphics, it looked so fucking dull to me. nowhere near as awful as twilight princess, but still. how are these games still getting such critical acclaim? zelda games haven't tried to do anything interesting since 64. for comparisons sake look at team ico's games. there's no reason why shadow of the colossus couldn't have been a zelda game thought up by nintendo first instead. you're link, you have your master sword and your horse, and you're traveling through a barren hyrule landscape taking down giants in order to save the princess. that would've been a good zelda game. not this regurgitated shit where you're just going on the same series of fetch quests solving the same dull puzzles over and over.

Haha, actually I can't comment on Zelda games... I've only played the SNES one, and I did not beat it. (Though it was kind of fun though) In general, Nintendo has never really interested me with the exception of the Mario platformer and rpg games to a degree. And I'm not buying a Wii solely for Mario Galaxy 1-2.

MGS1 is an excellent game. It holds up very well. MGS2 is very flawed and can be very easily misinterpreted, but it's a very interesting game if nothing else. If you 'get it' then you'd probably even like it more than the first. MGS3 had interesting ideas (camouflage, survivalist shit), but overall wasn't that great. Kojima wanted to end the series after the second one, which was why that game was such a clusterfuck and somewhat of a criticism on sequels in general. By the third game you could tell he didn't really care anymore and then the fourth game was just a giant fuck you to stupid people who just wants more gamesgamesgames.
The fourth game shits on everything interesting about the series, ruins otherwise interesting characters, and acts out as if it's trying to be a really bad fangame. It has all the tropes of a stupid piece of fanfiction; returning characters that make no sense and act completely out of character from whatever they were established to be in prior games, "badass" anime inspired cutscenes with cyborgs doing kickflips off each other while smirking, everything illogical about the plot is handwaved away with "nanomachines", aaaa the whole thing is just bad.

Well, I have heard from some that MGS4 is a joke and then from others that they loved it. I hope you understand that since I haven't played it for myself, its all hearsay to me till I do. I will probably never beat 3. I do not have the patience.

david hayter was then inundated with mountains of hatemail because, again, gamers are retards.

Well, You are likely merely speaking of a vocal minority. (hopefully)

in some sense i guess mgs4 is a good game if you understand that the entire thing is trying to be awful, is very tongue in cheek, is winking at you very hard the entire time. of course no reviews at all mentioned this. they took the story at face value and called it brilliant because game reviewers are massive retards.

Again. I can't say I agree or disagree since I have not played through it. :P

as for final fantasy, there is no excuse. nostalgia for the old games should make you hate the new ones that much more. the old games were just these fun little light-hearted medieval adventure games with bits of scifi thrown in so it's not too much of a tolkien rip off. then 7 kinda changed everything. ff7 is actually a really bad game imo. the midgar part in the beginning is very cool, but as soon as you leave the city the game falls completely flat on its face. as if they handed it off to different writers or something. in the first portion you're playing as environmental terrorists fighting against an ominous, all powerful corporation. there's so much they could've explored with that. maybe cloud and the others develop a schism in their group because he realizes blowing shit up kills innocent people and is not the right way to fight against capitalism or whatever and then barret goes nuts osama style and he becomes the real enemy by the end. idk, something interesting like that. ANYTHING. but no, instead you get sephiroth and anime robots and fuck you instead. fuck that game. ff8 was a decent but deeply flawed game. feels more like some bizarre experimental SaGa game in retrospect. i like it but most others don't. everything after that has been trash ever since. just because you're a fanboy doesn't mean you can't see these games for what they are. i was a pretty big final fantasy fan as a kid after all. and if you're that stupid where nostalgia and 'japan obsession' clouds your judgement then you shouldn't be reviewing these games in the first place.

I have tried almost every 2D FF game and was unimpressed. Only ones I didn't give a fair try was FF2 and FF3(japanese 2 and 3, not 4 and 6). *shrugs* but I played them well after their prime so that may invalidate my opinion. Of the 3D releases, I've played FF7 and FF10. Liked neither. Played about 1-2 hours of each, TRYING to like them.

So all in all, we might very well be looking at 2 different sections of gaming culture entirely. Because almost all of these games, I did not try until well after their release. (which reinforces what you said about MGS1 and MGS2, both of which I only beat maybe 3 years ago) and I was never into Japanese releases in general. (and all of these are Japanese games)

You said you were kind of out of touch with gaming, but I imagine you know that the Japanese gaming industry has largely begun to falter (in both the US and Japan). So these may not be the best examples. Though I suppose Nintendo's Wii is kind of an exception (though even it recently has begun to falter). I'm talking about financial success as well as good, solid, yet innovative design. Which Japanese games don't exactly have a lot of as of late.

I'm a mildly jaded gamer myself. I haven't really been mind-blowingly excited for a game since Halo 2 (and it didn't exactly live up to my expectations). But I've always gained enjoyment from video games like nothing else, so I'm probably never going to stop till I am incapable or dead. (honestly though I hope neither ever come to pass, despite the fact that they are both basically certainties)

I was using minecraft as a litmus test because it's an immensely popular game that also happens to have a ton of flaws. anyone who rates it too favorably is obviously taking all the hype into consideration (at which point they should have stopped themselves and thought wait, what does this actually have to do with the quality of the game?? but of course they didn't). the shotgun guy's article was essentially "whoa...everyone's talking about this...therefore it's good". and it's not just bad reviewing, it's also plain stupid. there are things, I hope these people realize, that are immensely popular in their time, but largely forgotten in the future.

He reviewed it anyway, but he does make a point early on though that he sort of thought it an odd idea to review Minecraft. He also doesn't take the 10/10 seriously since he doesn't take the numbers at the end of reviews seriously anyway. So, I kind of didn't really take that seriously either.

if you didn't know, there's a very annoying meme where people go around to completely unrelated articles or youtube videos and post stuff like "omg it's justin bieber!" or "ugh gross! throw it at justin bieber! O.o", and because places like youtube are full of extraordinarily dumb people, those comments always get voted to the top. shotgun guy's just using that meme because idiots like him like that kind of humor. it's also ironic because memes, while popular by definition, are generally pretty awful.

That's very unfortunate. :/ Mainly because this is actually a bad meme among memes. In defense of memes, while most memes do suck, I've encountered a rare few that have actually made me laugh pretty hard. They are almost always absurd or lowbrow admittedly, but still. I guess its a guilty pleasure?

fucking is just emphasizing how worthless I think their reviews are. but they are imbeciles
I do start to form critical thoughts about any game I play, but I would never even think of playing and critiquing a game just because it's supposed to be good, or just because I feel like it. it just wouldn't be worth it, with so little thought and innovation going into so many hours of gameplay. and the vast majority of video games would completely fail any even vaguely insightful critical analysis in almost the exact same way

Yeah I suppose you are right. It does seem odd or stupid to review a game for that reason. Maybe it was stupid of him to write the review. But that doesn't make him a complete imbecile. Smart people can do stupid things (my friends who check 4Chan for example). I generally reserve judgement on one's intelligence until I get to know them or take in a relatively large sum of their work.

Maybe I'm too optimistic. Which is funny, because often with the friends I had back in Arizona, I was always viewed as a pessimist.

Yeah that makes sense, I understand I guess why'd you'd do that. I can understand using it to really reinforce what you are saying too. I'd be paranoid about burning bridges with people though, and I think strong insults just divide people rather than convince them of anything.

Bleh, I sound like a nauseating goody-2-shoes.

I generally avoid hyperbole and sarcasm unless its painfully obvious because I've had far to many misunderstandings on both ends in that respect to.