Sorry, Young, but you're way off on this one. Let me write an extensive post on the third page no one will read to count the ways why.
I won't waste time on the difference between making an opinion that you shouldn't buy a game and making an opinion that a game is bad because people have already gone over it. That is a lie. I wrote two paragraphs on the matter and realized I had said nothing new so I deleted them. You're welcome, internet.
Let's move on to my second point, which is much more important. If you haven't played something, then okay, you can criticize it based on a number of facts. You can ultimately look at second hand accounts and decide you won't like the game. But
you can't argue about that game with someone who has played it. Why? Because your understanding of the game is at a different level, not to mention possibly wrong. If someone asks you, 'What is it you don't like about the game?' you might give a nonsense answer. If someone decided not to play Mario 64 because he didn't like the SNES Mario games that's his issue, but if he said he didn't want to play it because he didn't like time limts you'd thing he was daft!
I'm making a distinction between casual analysis and deep analysis here. You can buy some wine for yourself without being an enologist, but you can't really discuss your choice with one (so just punch him in the face for spitting off all that wine). Even if you dislike a game playing it will have you dislike it at a different level, and you'll be able to argue your point. If you haven't played it, then you should be quiet about it.
You ask us if we played Farmville or read Twilight. I haven't done either. I also never said anything bad about those series, except from a cultural perspective (which doesn't require understanding of the thing itself, but of its effects) for that precise reason. And I have played many games that I thought I wouldn't like to see if they were as bad as I thought they would be (they weren't but they were still pretty bad). Why? Because I like to discuss games as a medium and I like to discuss certain popular games in them, and if I need to decry them as being bad I need to have solid ground to stand on. If I made an assumption about a game and it turned out the feature I assumed that game had was lampshaded and used to criticize its proeminence in games it'd take all the wind from my sails! (Which is why I need to play Bayonetta because I'm still not sure if it's actually serious about the whole... um... tits.)
What I'm saying is, if you're going to say ice cream is bad to a room full of ice cream eaters you'd better be able to defend your idea [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/awful-links/awful-link-3540.php].
The problem, I think, is a lack of discernment on one's ability to do a deep analysis, and mistaking a casual for a deep one. Making a casual analysis is OK, as long as you know it's casual. The problem is mistaking it for a deep one. We all can do a casual analysis of what's showing when we go to the movies, but no one would write a blog post (a deep analysis) on a movie they
didn't watch.
For the record, I consider the difference between casual and deep analysis to be the ability to examine different aspects of something separatedly. For instance, if you ask me about my opinion on a game, I can talk about its gameplay and its design. On a book, I can talk about its character development and its narrative structure. On a movie? I know that editing and framing are
things, but I can't separate them from the greater structure of the movie, so I don't consider myself, personally, qualified to review movies. I can tell you precisely and objectively why I like or dislike a game or book, but can't do that to movies. So I don't. I can only review a game I haven't played to the same extent I can review a movie, so I know my review has to be lacking. (Of course this is personal; someone who
can judge a movie's editing and framing has full right to review them.)
I'm not sure of what was the point of this article, but if you walk into a fanboy discussion complaining about a game you haven't played, you're a fanboy. You're an anti-fanboy, a fan of hating something. A kismesis [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004295]. This is because a fanboy is someone who forms an opinion and then refuses to change it, and if you do it while holding an opinion about something you are less informed about than who you're talking to, then you're one hell of a fanboy. What was that quote about a fanatic being someone who refuses to change either his mind or the subject?
Arcane Azmadi said:
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.
Reading about something is already something, but it's not as good as firsthand experience. Maybe Stephanie Meyer is an awesome writer and she really manages to make those drab characters and situations come to life with her excellent prose! And it just so happens that the movie failed to translate her exquisite style. Have you thought about that? Yeah okay that's probably not the case, but if it was you would probably have the same idea about her, unless your research was deeper than I'm assuming. The more your research is thorough, the less likely it is to be wrong, but only firsthand experience has 100% certainty. Just like the higher the number of people interviewed for a poll the lower the margin of error, but a margin of error of 0% only happens if your poll consists of 100% of the total.
And at any rate you can definitively say that you don't like Twilight, but if you were going to write an essay on why you'd need to read the book. Trust me on this one.
As for the RapeLay thing, 'misogynistic' is not really subjective, so even a cursory understanding of it would tell you that it is misogynistic. And 'disturbing' is subjective, but subjective related to the themes shown - most people find rape disturbing (phew) so they would find a game based on it disturbing. It's not enough to base a big analysis though. If I found death disturbing I might think Fullmetal Alchemist is disturbing, so there. And of course, you're only analysing the themes. So if you said that RapeLay is disturbing and mysoginistic and then some asshole (probably in a checkered shirt with popped collars and a Doritos cap) asked you, 'But is it FUN to play?' what would you say? Well you'd probaly say that the guy was a creep to even ask, but you still wouldn't know if RapeLay would be a good game even if the offensive elements were removed. Sure it's okay to think that given the nature of those elements no further consideration is needed and they cannot possibly save the whole of the experience, but it's still a missing view. Or, to put it in another way: I have just created a full conversion mod of RepeLay that keeps the gameplay but removes everything else. Now the commands that were used to dominate and rape women are used to - say - hack computers in a cyberpunk setting. Is it a good game? I think your analysis was insufficient to say that!
That said, I'm still not playing Halo.
