Your Favorite Game Sucks

[More Fun To Compute]

I have more respect for people who experience something for themselves and come up with something original to say rather than just saying the same thing that they heard someone else say. If you have nothing to say about The Great Gatsby other than the name sounds really stupid and the cover art looks lame then you are not really contributing much. Go ahead and don't buy the book for those reasons but don't come on like you are making some sort of expert decision.

 

[kementari]

They were satire, but a lot of people agreed with point #2 - that you shouldn't have an opinion on a game until you've played it. This is a horrible and self-destructive attitude to take. As a consumer, it's your job to be discriminating with what you buy.

Right, but your points were directed at game reviewers. I think it's fair for consumers (fanboys or not) to expect reviewers to withhold judgment on a game until they've actually played it.

 

[Mr. Omega]

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I never would go on a Halo forum an say that. That would be trolling.I have several friends who are Halo fans who give me headaches simply because I don't have the game, that's all. I'm not dumb enough to do what you mentioned. Going on a forum about that you don't like is being a troll. Not liking it despite not playing it is having an opinion. As long as you aren't a dick about it, there shouldn't be a problem.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I get a lot of flack in my circle of acquaintances for being biased before trying things. I do this almost to a fault, so perhaps it's deserved, but in either case this article made me feel warm and fuzzy (as preaching to the choir usually will).

 

[Electrogecko]

Its okay to have an opinion on something, but blurting out you don't like it in a forum only to reveal you haven't actually tried it is understandably going to be met with hostility by those who do like it.

This is the problem. There is no reason for hostility. I LOVE me some ice cream, but if somebody says that ice cream sucks I don't get all angry and confrontational. There is simply no reason.

There lies another problem. If somebody said ice cream sucks I WOULD get all angry and confrontational. If somebody said "I don't care for ice cream," or better yet, "ice cream doesn't appeal to me for these reasons.....," I would be perfectly content.

 

[kementari]

They were satire, but a lot of people agreed with point #2 - that you shouldn't have an opinion on a game until you've played it. This is a horrible and self-destructive attitude to take. As a consumer, it's your job to be discriminating with what you buy.

Right, but your points were directed at game reviewers. I think it's fair for consumers (fanboys or not) to expect reviewers to withhold judgment on a game until they've actually played it.

I don't expect reviewers to hold judgement about those who have a different opinion than their own. You wanna insult the game, great, but leave the player out of this.

O..kay? That doesn't really have anything to do with what I was talking about, but that's a fair opinion to have, I guess? Otherwise, cool story bro.

 

[theSovietConnection]

This is the problem. There is no reason for hostility. I LOVE me some ice cream, but if somebody says that ice cream sucks I don't get all angry and confrontational. There is simply no reason.

That's why a lot of people agreed with point 2, though. It's gone too far to the troll side of the spectrum. It's one thing to say Halo is a series that doesn't appeal to you. It's another thing entirely to go out of your way to infuriate the fanbase of it, particularly when you haven't played the game.

Personally, I disagreed with 2 out of personal experience. I have come across far more good games by taking a chance then I've come across stinkers.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I think the point most people with that view were trying to raise (or at least I'd hope it was the case) is that you shouldn't act like you know everything about the game without even trying it. We all do, and all should, use outside information to help in our decision making process prior to purchasing something and this is, as Shamus says, more than okay. It's really the smart thing to do. If something looks like crap to you, then don't buy it. If something looks good but not worth the full price, wait until the price drops. Don't, however, go around bashing a game as if you've personally experienced all of it's faults if you haven't even pressed the start button on it.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Actually... I did try out Farmville for about an hour or two and hated it because it was fucking boring. To me, it wasn't a game, it was a system of menus to fuck around in. Does that make Farmville evil? No, its just really, really fucking boring.

And I gave the Twilight series 3 chances to overcome my preconceived misgivings about the series... i.e. I actually read the first three books of the series before finally deciding that the series wasn't going to be worth my time. Sure, none Twilight's characters act like vampires (for lessons on how to act like a vampire please see the movie Daybreakers and the works of Anne Rice). Does that make Twilight evil? No, its just stupid.

 

[Browbeat]

Hatred is a more profound emotion than most give it credit for. However, hostility for the unknown/untried/flawed is understandable. The verbal castigation and ire that follow popular and unpopular trends are simply responses from a mewling consumer mass that let our paymasters know that we're paying attention.

 

[krellen]

Right, but your points were directed at game reviewers.

No they weren't.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

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Ok, are ANY of your article not trolling?

 

[ArtPhsyc]

Well...I was all ready to jump in and agree that you can be entitled to your opinion and not waste money on something you're not very keen on. I was also going to agree with jebussaves88 that to have genuine back and forth is going to be more beneficial if based in experience. Then again experience is also subject to opinion.
Forget arguing on the internets.
If you feel like stepping out of a gaming comfort zone, go ask someone you trust that is into said-genre-you-don't-like. Get his or her opinions. He/She may even have a game to let you borrow (keeping you from even wasting money on a rental). Ta-da!

 

[starwarsgeek]

And just to make things clear: The point of the article last week was to show how a fanboy will dismiss any criticism. You either went in with preconceived notions or you didn't know enough about the game in the first place. You're either overlooking the awesome story or you're judging a game on the story when you shouldn't. You either ignored the graphics or you made too big a deal about them. You either skipped the multiplayer or focused too much on it.
No matter how someone expresses their dissatisfaction with a game, a fanboy will be there to let them know they're doing it wrong.

However, shouldn't a reviewer do his or her best to have a well-balanced review that at least covers all parts of the game in question? Not focusing on the multiplayer in a review of Halo 3 is fine. Ignoring it completely, however, is not. (Same goes for Forge Mode).

Also, focusing on the plot of a game that is not story oriented is a legitmate complaint. You shouldn't complain about a simplistic excuse plot of a Mario game while not discussing the power-ups, level design, or gameplay.

The whole "don't judge a game without playing it" is just one of the tools they use, and it's just as invalid as the others. Case in point: Yahtzee's SSBB review. He played the game even though it wasn't his thing, and people slammed him for being "biased." (Yeah. That's what a review is for, you know?) If he had ignored the game some fans would have slammed him for not giving the game a chance, for being afraid to try new things, or for being "unprofessional" by not reviewing a particularly popular title.

Well, it wasn't exactly his best review anyway. While I won't say they were playing it "wrong", I always enjoy the frantic chaos of four players stuck on a smaller area or map more than two seperate duels on opposite ends of a large map (the likely cause of one of his complaints). Also, he had two conflicting complaints about the genre in general (a button masher can defeat a master, but if you unlock all the content your friends will avoid playing you because you're better than them). It's nowhere near his worst review--especially when you look at some of his other Wii-exclusive videos, but some of the negative response he received was quite valid. The idiotic insults that made it into his response video, however, were not.

 

[Dogstile]

Its okay to have an opinion on something, but blurting out you don't like it in a forum only to reveal you haven't actually tried it is understandably going to be met with hostility by those who do like it.

This is the problem. There is no reason for hostility. I LOVE me some ice cream, but if somebody says that ice cream sucks I don't get all angry and confrontational. There is simply no reason.

But surely you get slightly annoyed when someone tells you that what you like is wrong, even if said person hasn't tried it and is going by what they've heard.

I mean sure, they can go ahead and not like a game, i've got no problem with that. But why would you tell someone that the *insert aspect of game here* sucks if you've never experienced it?

Hating on something you've not tried is ok. Telling people who have tried something and enjoyed it that they're wrong isn't.

 

[Baldr]

THIS HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM.

Shamus Young is not really qualified to be a professional journalist, he never had any training or school to be one. He is very good at writing, but he is very wrong.

Are you seriously going to pay to play every game out there? Then make your own decisions? No! You can't afford that. We(or the Media organization) pay people to supposedly "play" the games for us and give us a fair review of the game so we can form opinions to buy or not. Why do you think we have review critics. Critics are suppose to be fair, it is journalistic ethics, training that almost everyone with a journalist or media specialist has had if they gone to school for it.

Then there are critics out there that don't have those credentials. I mean if they are paying you to review the game, then you should have very well have played it.

Every game has a target audience, a professional reviewer has some understanding of the target audience and knows what is acceptable at graphics, gameplay, story, etc... Things that separate a bad, good, or great game, and if they are not doing this, they are doing something wrong.

Especially wrong if they are not doing the ethically thing, like being paid to write a non-fair review.

Yahtzee is a special case, he doesn't review games to sway people's opinions, it is parody sometime to the extreme for entertainment.