Your Favorite Game Sucks

[EvilYoshi]

I also agree and disagree with this topic. I am generating internet traffic for you Shamus and at the same time indulging in the vain fantasy that you care specifically for my contribution. Your sensibilities are very much middle-of-the-road and very much like my own. Let us bask in the illusions of certainty and purpose.

I'm typically not this cynical, I swear.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I'm still personally in the state of mind that if I haven't played a game, I will most definitely try not to judge it. Unless I'm informed by a reviewer that a game is so utterly unplayable, that every reviewer decides unianimously tell their readers to not buy it, chances are I'll give a game a look at least.

There are too many elements in a game to judge it based on trailers and reviews. Considering trailers are simply footage to showboat the graphics and gameplay and reviews are never objective, it's safe to say that I'd have to play a game to form a valid opinion on it. It's like the kid who doesn't eat his vegetables because they look or smell bad, the idea of food is to eat it. Just like the idea of a game is to play it.

I have very little love for the Halo series, but it's because I've played them all (save ODST) and I know that I don't like them. I enjoyed Combat Evolved, but I didn't assume Halo 2 would be just as fun. In fact, it wasn't. I was bored shitless by it, likewise with Halo 3. Then Reach came out and I played it around a friends and loved it.

The decision of buying a game is so different from picking a book to read or a movie to watch. A majority of movie trailers and book blurbs give a good enough of an overview for me to decide weather or not I want to watch/read it. Because the blurb/trailer will express the genre and the themes. Whilst game trailers do this, it fails to show anything deeper. Which is why I always download demos or at the very most RENT a game before buying it (with the exception of my favourite franchises, because if I enjoyed the past titles I'm willing to risk it).

EDIT: After last weeks delightful and mocking article, I'm really unsure about how serious this weeks is...

 

[Squeaky]

You do know, you your self are defending idiots why even comment on somthing you have yet to try when thier are people that have played the game fully. Maybe people shouldnt express hate when they havent delt with the "subject" like Americans are all fat ,southern and are all related. Ive never met an American but hey I can just guess.

 

[MonsterZero74]

I know for a fact I can dislike something without trying it. Case in point...Taco Bell's new menu item..."Dog Shit Taco." I know for certain I won't like it because I know dog shit would make me vomit just to smell it let alone eat it. Same goes for anything Zelda, Sims, Pokemon, Megaman, Final Fantasy, Prince of Perisa, Tekken, or Halo. I go to sleep at night completely content that I have not played one moment of any of those games.

 

[Irridium]

Ah, this article needed to be said. Especially here.

I work hard for my money dammit, you bet your ass I'm going to be very, very critical of what I see. $60 isn't cheap. And in most parts of the world games are more than that. Don't tell me I have to buy/do/read everything to have an opinion on it, because I don't. If I don't buy something, that means my opinion of it is that its not worth the money at the moment. Too many people take it as me hating the game without question.

Maybe if people didn't jump to extremes all the damn time, things would be different. Shamus, you said what needed to be said. Especially in a place like this.

 

[DTWolfwood]

This should be Gospel in the videogame bible XD

 

[Fensfield]

I'm sorry, but, there is a difference between pre-emptively establishing an opinion of a game for the purposes of making a wise purchase.. and shoving that opinion down people's throats, or misrepresenting its weight.

If you've decided you don't like a game prior to buying it, based on available information in the world at large, then.. yeah, goodo. We all do that sometimes. If someone asks you if you intend to buy it, well of course you're justified in saying no, and maybe explaining a bit, if you fancy.

But a review without touching a game? That's screwy. Now, sure, not playing the whole game through is understandable - a game might get wonderful in the later part, but it's a failing on the creator's part if they made the first half bad and put you off. If a decent stab was made, then all well and good.

Going onto a game's fansite and bashing the game without playing it? That's .. well yeah that's hater territory, and stupid. .. Actually so's going onto a fansite and bashing the game it's for having played it is iffy, too, come to think, what with it being a fansite and all.. but whatever.

There's a .. well, not a fine line, really, but a line anyway, and while having an opinion on a game without playing it or having only briefly played it is all well and good, the manner in which you deploy that opinion is not automatically justified. Now, what you review's you're own lookout and people reading that is their's, but all the same, what is unprofessional (note, not accusing anyone of anything, just rounding up this silly little post) is failing to warn at some point - preferably the start - that the opinion in the review is formed from an incomplete view of the product.

Honestly I think that's just good writing practice - not misleading people, I mean. Doing the game in question justice has nothing to do with it, and I wish all reviewers would point out how much of the game they've experienced.

... I really shouldn't try to post after midnight x.x

 

[Infernoshadow211]

I actually tried reading twilight in the library (I'm not paying money for that), and I fell asleep. I woke up an hour and a half later when the librarian shook my shoulder and said she understood. So I feel I have a decent reason for hating twilight.

 

[Athinira]

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.

Now try replacing the Ice Cream with something that matters more to you, and see if you still hold the same opinion. Try for example to replace "Ice Cream" with "your brother" (if you have one), and try replacing "sucks" with "Child molestation". If you some day found out that someone on the internet was spreading a false rumor that your brother was molesting children, wouldn't you get angry or confrontational?

I'm well aware that above example is very extreme, but i use it to point out that the problem isn't the hostility. Hostility is in fact quite often justifiable. The problem (or rather, the root of the problem) is the people who are trying to give a bad reputation to something based on pure speculation. Noone, be that any person, product or object, deserve to have false rumors spread about them based on speculation, and then it doesn't matter if it is a video game, ice cream, your brother, your dog or whatever.

Or to put it another way: The problem isn't that people get angry and confrontational when defending something. The problem is that (in many cases) they shouldn't have to.

 

[MisterColeman]

The best thing you can ever do for yourself as a consumer of games is to find a reviewer you agree with 90% of the time or more. The hours it takes to do this will potentially save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars.

 

[camazotz]

But on the other hand, recklessly broadcasting an opinion about something you haven't tried can be unnecessarily damaging to a products reputation. 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. So yes, it is healthy to have an uninformed opinion, otherwise you'll get burned by purchases you simply won't like, but mindlessly yelling about it at those who do like it over an internet forum is not going to lead to many decent arguments.

This happens a lot because you get people who confuse "I don't like this thing," with "No one should like this thing." If someone is expressing their opinion, its always cool. When someone barges in and starts ranting about why I shouldn't like the thing they hate on principle, then it gets annoying....sadly, the latter is a lot more common on da interwebz than the former....

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Snip

Ok, are ANY of your article not trolling?

Yeah, seriously, how did this guy get a job here?

 

[Something Amyss]

But it begs the question; if you don't like a game, and you haven't tried it, why are you getting involved in an argument over something you clearly have no interest in in the first place? If you'd played the game, or even demoed it, and had genuine criticism for it, then I think its something to discuss, but wading into the troll pit blindfolded is not bringing anything to the table except bad feeling.

For example, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't like the cover system in Killzone 2, and have never thought it was really that pretty a game, which rendered it as a console shooter rather impotent (to me anyway). But you don't see me wading into a Sony forum to tell all the members that their most anticipated game of last year was a big grey pile of something unpleasant. Just because I didn't bother to buy or demo it does not give me the right to criticise peoples taste, which is what anyone who stumbles into such a conversation is doing. "I didn't bother playing the thing you like, but I know it's just bloody awful, and anyone who disagrees is just a moron". If you were to say something like "It just didn't appeal to me" that would be something, if not completely pointless and a waste of time.
If people want mature conversation about something, then the people within that conversation should really be informed about what they're talking about, and anyone who isn't is entitled to their opinion, but within that conversation, that opinion isn't needed.

(Don't take this as me defending fan boys, but to be honest, anyone who blindly criticises a game without playing it is equally guilty of trolling it up)

To be fair, simply expressing your dislike for something is far from saying "anyone who disagrees is a moron."

Maybe it's because I get a lot of the Yahtzee example that I agree with it.

"Have you played (game)?"
"Nah, not a fan/isn't my thing."
"BAWWWWWWWWW! (game) is awesome! You should totally give it a chance!"

This branches into two choices: I don't try it and they remain like that until the NEW thing to complain about me not trying comes out or I try it, most likely did not like it, and get told I didn't give it a chance or I'm doing it wrong.

and I only have to deal with my friends. If I were Yahtzee, I'd probably be raising a lesser demon to deal with the folks who were no-winning me.

I'm in my rights to hate any FPS that comes out, because it's the first person part of the game I don't like. There's literally nothing you can do to make it appealing to me except drop the "FP." I agree there's a certain level of antagonism, but on most boards these things rarely come out of a vacuum.

 

[Snotnarok]

I'm clapping, you just can't hear it.

Seriously I went with the mentality for the last time that you need to play something to enjoy it. It was Other M, I knew I was going to hate it and after I got it I didn't just hate it I DESPISED IT.

They dumbed down the gameplay and made it awkward and the story, oh my god the story was horrible. Now I have to sell for less than half the damn price I bought it for. That's what the shitty mentality gets you, now I supported a game that I hate and don't want another of and fanboys just get to smile ignorantly because they got another shiny Nintendo game that's impossible to be bad.

 

[HentMas]

If you can't hate something until you've tried it: How many people hate crystal meth?

People don't hate the taste of crystal meth; they hate its effect on society. That's different. If Halo Reach was causing mass infertility, tooth loss and discolouration of the skin, then we would have every right to tell the Halo fanboys to button it. But it isn't, so we kind of don't, unless we've played it and are now chewing with our gums and firing blanks.

have you being near or suffered from the effects of crystal meth??

if not, how do you know you hate it?, the media made articles about it?? woah... thats exactly why i hate "such and such" game/movie/book

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

It IS, under the right circumstances, perfectly reasonable to hate something without first-hand experience if you've done your research. I hate Twilight and I have practically since I first heard about it, because as soon as I did, I went to look up some stuff about it to find out what it's all about. And I found out that the story is stupid (I actually READ the plot outlines and it IS stupid), the characters are shallow and moronic (they absolutely ARE) and the overall themes are disturbing and misogynistic. And then last Christmas I was forced to watch the first movie (I was accompanying my little 11-year old cousin who got the DVD for Christmas and felt that for her own good she shouldn't watch it unsupervised) and low and behold! It was just as bad as I'd expected, if not worse.

Do you have to actually PLAY RapeLay to formulate the opinion that it's horribly offensive and misogynistic and promotes rape? Or can simply reading about it for a few minutes (or even seconds) tell you everything you need to know? Sure, you may have to play to game to find out whether or not you LIKE it, but that may be something you'd be better off NOT knowing.

Just because an opinion lacks first-hand experience, that doesn't mean it has to be uninformed and ignorant.

 

[stuartnz]

I actually disagree with most of the points in this article. I've never posted on The Escapist's forum before and probably won't again, but I want to say this:

I feel that not trying out a game because it doesn't interest you is fair enough. However - saying that the game itself is bad without playing it makes you a fool. Same goes for film and any other medium. I can't say that The Expendables is a bad movie because I haven't seen it. I can, however, say that it's something I'm not interested in watching.

(And for the record, I read the first two Twilight books just to be sure. They suck.)

 

[VGFreak1225]

I think it really depends on how in-depth that opinion will be, though. If someone is going to go into great detail onto why a specific part of a game isn't good and act like your word is law whilst not having played it isn't the best defense.

A good example is probably Metroid: Other M. Is it perfect? No. Is there room to build upon what they had? Absolutely. It's also a very polarizing game. I've seen just as many people say that they don't like it as I have people who do, including me. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's nigh-on impossible to tell whether or not you'll like it until you've played it, seen what it does and doesn't do well first-hand. Heck, I thought Dead Space looked exactly like something I'd love, only to then walk away from the experience disappointed and unsatisfied.

I think if you don't think that you'll like a game but there is still some hope that you will, then you should give it a shot even if it's just borrowed or rented.

But that's just my two cents.

 

[Enigmers]

Video game advertisements annoy me more than they convince me to buy things. My local EBGames had a Red Dead Redemption advertisement running for a few months prior to the game's release and it didn't sound like a very good game to me (more like generic moral choice illusion) but after trying the game at a friend's house, I loved it. The best way to decide whether or not you want a game is to play the demo, clear and simple. Things like art style, gameplay videos, etc. can help, but if the average gamer is anything like the occasionally appearing cynical bastard voice in my head, they don't listen to advertisements at all.

Of course, discriminating what you buy/don't buy is always important. It's not worth 60$ to buy a game and say "there, I bought it and I hate it." It'd be better to say "That doesn't look good, I'm holding on to my 60$" and considering that many people don't have time to try plethoras of demos (I have a few downloaded which I haven't played yet, because I keep playing the games I already own, but haven't beaten.)

I really don't know where I'm getting with this, but my opinion is vaguely that the article has a good point and that trying demos is still the best way to determine if a game is worth your 60$/40$/bargain bin bucks/digital download/torrenting bandwidth.

 

[mjc0961]

^this a million times. People need to learn how to articulate their opinions better and try not to present it as fact.

I almost never see anyone presenting their opinions as a fact. Just stupid people who try to come back with "well that's just your opinion!" because they disagree and can't come up with something to actually carry on a conversation.

But anyone intelligent already knows that an opinion is an opinion, and if you say something like "inFamous sucks", that isn't saying it as a fact. That's an opinion. If I said "inFamous sucks and if you disagree you are wrong and an idiot", then that's trying to pass off your opinion as a fact. But if you just say "inFamous sucks", then nope, that's clearly an opinion. It is completely unnecessary to slap something redundant like "IMO" or "I think" before any such statement; anyone with a brain already knows its an opinion, and anyone who needs to be told isn't worth having a conversation with in the first place.

In summary:

Spoiler: image inside