Be warned this is sort of just a huge rant I have about a website I absolutely hate but still somehow visit every other day or so because I guess I'm a weak person (or perhaps I just want to be pissed off :\).
So besides BW I love to play a lot of games and I guess you could say I'm a pretty hardcore game fan (also I am going to school for game design lol). This leads me to reading a lot of game journalism and visiting a lot of game press websites (gamespot, gamasutra, IGN, giantbomb, etc). Over the years, perhaps just because I am maturing a lot, I have found it harder and harder to find good game journalism. It's so extremely rare whenever I read a game review that actually speaks to me about ANYTHING im interested in knowing about a game (and not just listing a bunch of bullet points for the game).
But now onto the subject of this blog:
I have always found IGN to be especially unprofessional and unreliable in their writings. Not only are their reviews/editorials total trash (both in how poorly written they are and by how useless/uninformative the content is), but they have some truly disgusting business practices that I guess aren't really that bad but super annoying (spreading out small articles to several pages, constantly creating pointless lists/"countdowns" every week that require you to look at 25 to 100 pages to see everything, etc).
I think my biggest gripe with the website though is just the overall tone of so many of their articles. I swear that every positive review that the site puts out reads much more like an advertisement for the game and not an actual critique/analysis of it. Read their review on pretty much any game scoring over a 9 from the last year and tell me otherwise.
Anyway today I came across this article from IGN and just felt the urge to share my anger with some people on TL, hopefully encourage them to stop trusting anything written on this site lol:
Basically just a hype article for the most hyped game of the year that they have a review about to come out for. The article is just so full of bullshit and hype that it's almost impossible to believe that no, Activision didn't write this. A 3rd party game journalist wrote this. A guy who presumably helps out consumers by judging if a game is worth your $60 or not.
Trying not to go into specific scathing, but come on!
the 1st 3 "innovations" are just the same thing (persistent character profile that ranks up and unlocks things) described differently. Not to mention that MW4 wasn't evne close to being the first game to do that, or even the first FPS (or even the first POPULAR FPS lol). BF2 had this back in 2005 (and probably FPS games before that did as well), and BF 2142 (which came out in 2006) got really in depth with the unlocking mechanic. The social network thing isn't different from a number of different services offered by other games already (FOR FREE BTW) and it's attached to a game that ISNT OUT YET. The killstreak thing I can't think of a game that did it as much as MW4, so I guess I can't fault that (although it's arguably one of the worst aspects of the series).
regardless of how much bullshit is in the article, it's just so sickening to me of how much it just FEELS and READS like a fucking advertisement I would see in a magazine or something. there's just so much of this sort of thing going on in game journalism :\. The worst part is is that I would say they are not being bought off by Activision or anything, they just either don't know how dumb this makes them look or want to please publishers to ensure that they keep getting preferential treatment (IGN always gets a lot of "exclusive advanced reviews!"). Or maybe they just have a "helping e-sports!" mentality but replace e-sports with game industry.
which reminds me of how IGN has that fucking SC2 tourney. how the fuck are they supposed to legitimately review the SC2 expansions now when they so clearly have a vested financial interest in the game selling well? How can "we" trust their review of SC2 in the first place?
I dunno, I feel like I just get trolled so hard by IGN and other shitty game "journalism" websites. Games can never grow up if so many journalists covering them are so shitty. Good games need an informed game-buying public to succeed, and shitty game journalism is getting in the way.
there are't any good gaming review site at all to be honest. but with the power of internet, you can always watch some walk through and see if the game matches your taste.
just browsing some of the comments under the article it would appear that most people seem to agree with you. i would have to agree that this article is rather ridiculous, there three points were customization, killstreaks and social media tie ins which they make out to seem like its all original and has never been tried before. i dont read much ign but i can say that if most of their reviews are like this im glad i dont spend much time on them lol
The countdowns/lists really irk me too, I can't recall how many times I've said "screw this" because I had to keep clicking through so many pages just to see what the top 5 are. By the time I've clicked 5 pages I've already lost interest.
I still go to IGN for news though, but for all my gaming reviews I go to Gametrailers.com. They don't provide written reviews but I feel their video reviews are top notch. When I watch their reviews I don't feel like they're biased, and they do critique the game properly and thoroughly. I find their reviews (even though spoken) are well worded compared to IGNs reviews. An added plus for me is the guy's voice (and it's always the same guy) is soothing to listen to haha.
they listed facebook integration as a plus? LOL. SC2 did that back in beta and people hated them for it, how can they possibly list it as a plus.. Besides the 95 percent of noobs playing MW3 that want to post how pro they are directly to their facebook wall because being a gamer is somehow cool now..
yeah after the whole Gamespot scandel game reviewing just whent to shit. IGN's always been a sad joke even in the good old days when they had a large flash games site.
I largely agree with you. The last review I approved of on IGN was 'Bioshock', my favorite review ever. I'm disappointed with the gaming industry as a whole however, not just it's journalism.
Yeah, I think it's fairly well established that IGN is kind of terrible. I've grown more fond of them since they invested in SC2 (not that a BW fan would care), but it's true what you say that this completely compromises the integrity of their SC2 reviews of, say, HoTS and LotV
If you dont like a website, dont read it. hopefully other people wont and then change might come about. As long as you're bitching about something and generating them traffic you're only compounding the problem
On November 08 2011 15:50 Endymion wrote: they listed facebook integration as a plus? LOL. SC2 did that back in beta and people hated them for it, how can they possibly list it as a plus.. Besides the 95 percent of noobs playing MW3 that want to post how pro they are directly to their facebook wall because being a gamer is somehow cool now..
No one hated them for facebook integration, everyone hated the fact that they prioritized facebook integration over chat rooms. Facebook integration was overall a plus, however ignoring other vital things such as public chat rooms was a much larger negative.
On November 08 2011 15:52 sermokala wrote: yeah after the whole Gamespot scandel game reviewing just whent to shit. IGN's always been a sad joke even in the good old days when they had a large flash games site.
Don't know if that's referring to my post but Giantbomb.com is comprised of old school gamespot editors (Jeff Gerstmann Ryan Davis Vinny Caravella Brad Shoemaker), and their shit is still awesome.
On November 08 2011 15:41 Hyde wrote: The countdowns/lists really irk me too, I can't recall how many times I've said "screw this" because I had to keep clicking through so many pages just to see what the top 5 are. By the time I've clicked 5 pages I've already lost interest.
I still go to IGN for news though, but for all my gaming reviews I go to Gametrailers.com. They don't provide written reviews but I feel their video reviews are top notch. When I watch their reviews I don't feel like they're biased, and they do critique the game properly and thoroughly. I find their reviews (even though spoken) are well worded compared to IGNs reviews. An added plus for me is the guy's voice (and it's always the same guy) is soothing to listen to haha.
what I hate about gametrailers is there's not accountability for their reviews. their narrative guy just reads a script, and i have no idea who wrote it. not to mention they always just say really dumb shit and have baffling scores that dont match up with the review words at all. like they're good for sorta getting a sense of if a game is terrible or not, but rarely have I watched a gametrailers review and though to myself "ok all questions are answered!" or even "ok that makes a lot of sense". for instance with the BF3 review (just re-watched it for reference lol) they covered the entire single player campaign in like 4 sentences, basically just saying "it is linear, but slightly more open path that some other shooters, it has some variety, x y and y, 5 hours long" without actually CRITIQUING IT or saying why x y and z is good or bad and comparing how it works to other shooters. Or look at how it talks about multiplayer. "there are these modes. you do x in each mode. 64 players!!!!" and that's as far as it goes, without talking about how it has changed from previous games or if it's better or worse than other game's multiplayer.
I like the "wot I think"s from rock paper shotgun. They aren't reviews but just an editor talking about how he felt about a game or what was fun or not to him. even if I don't agree with him at least he gave an opinion. games are art and need to be critiqued like art, not treated like a fucking car and sold on how many features it has.
also I used to really like GT before they teamed up with spiketv and stuff lol. man I hate geoff keighly and all the other douches they hired lol. just the worst personalities ever and them being hosts of a tv show about games is an absolute insult to anyone who plays games lol. NOT TO MENTION gametrailers also does really dumb shit like the top 5 thing but in different ways, my favorite example being ripping 3-second animations off of the SC2 website back in the day and putting out like 12 different videos of those lol.
On November 08 2011 15:52 sermokala wrote: yeah after the whole Gamespot scandel game reviewing just whent to shit. IGN's always been a sad joke even in the good old days when they had a large flash games site.
Don't know if that's referring to my post but Giantbomb.com is comprised of old school gamespot editors (Jeff Gerstmann Ryan Davis Vinny Caravella Brad Shoemaker), and their shit is still awesome.
I love giantbomb's quicklooks, but their reviews are sorta meh. greg kasavin was the true game journalist hero, and ever since he left gamespot went downhill (for about a year before gerstmann got fired). the giantbomb guys are really likeable and funny, but I dont think their reviews are really that great at all (so many of them are super fucking short and shallow).
On November 08 2011 15:52 sermokala wrote: yeah after the whole Gamespot scandel game reviewing just whent to shit. IGN's always been a sad joke even in the good old days when they had a large flash games site.
Don't know if that's referring to my post but Giantbomb.com is comprised of old school gamespot editors (Jeff Gerstmann Ryan Davis Vinny Caravella Brad Shoemaker), and their shit is still awesome.
I love giantbomb's quicklooks, but their reviews are sorta meh. greg kasavin was the true game journalist hero, and ever since he left gamespot went downhill (for about a year before gerstmann got fired). the giantbomb guys are really likeable and funny, but I dont think their reviews are really that great at all (so many of them are super fucking short and shallow).
I don't read the reviews really, scan them and watch the QL. What they say there and what I see of the gameplay is more than enough to inform my purchase (or non purchase) of a game.
Speaking of Greg Kasavin, he's doing a 12 hour marathon of Skyrim (like his Oblivion marathon) on the site. You might need a premium membership though, not sure. $5 bucks for a month or $50 for a year. Not usually into Let's plays or gaming marathons but I love Greg and the shit he does, so I'm definitely watching it (probably after the fact though, since I wanna play without spoilers)
On November 08 2011 15:41 Hyde wrote: The countdowns/lists really irk me too, I can't recall how many times I've said "screw this" because I had to keep clicking through so many pages just to see what the top 5 are. By the time I've clicked 5 pages I've already lost interest.
I still go to IGN for news though, but for all my gaming reviews I go to Gametrailers.com. They don't provide written reviews but I feel their video reviews are top notch. When I watch their reviews I don't feel like they're biased, and they do critique the game properly and thoroughly. I find their reviews (even though spoken) are well worded compared to IGNs reviews. An added plus for me is the guy's voice (and it's always the same guy) is soothing to listen to haha.
what I hate about gametrailers is there's not accountability for their reviews. their narrative guy just reads a script, and i have no idea who wrote it. not to mention they always just say really dumb shit and have baffling scores that dont match up with the review words at all. like they're good for sorta getting a sense of if a game is terrible or not, but rarely have I watched a gametrailers review and though to myself "ok all questions are answered!" or even "ok that makes a lot of sense". for instance with the BF3 review (just re-watched it for reference lol) they covered the entire single player campaign in like 4 sentences, basically just saying "it is linear, but slightly more open path that some other shooters, it has some variety, x y and y, 5 hours long" without actually CRITIQUING IT or saying why x y and z is good or bad and comparing how it works to other shooters. Or look at how it talks about multiplayer. "there are these modes. you do x in each mode. 64 players!!!!" and that's as far as it goes, without talking about how it has changed from previous games or if it's better or worse than other game's multiplayer.
I like the "wot I think"s from rock paper shotgun. They aren't reviews but just an editor talking about how he felt about a game or what was fun or not to him. even if I don't agree with him at least he gave an opinion. games are art and need to be critiqued like art, not treated like a fucking car and sold on how many features it has.
also I used to really like GT before they teamed up with spiketv and stuff lol. man I hate geoff keighly and all the other douches they hired lol. just the worst personalities ever and them being hosts of a tv show about games is an absolute insult to anyone who plays games lol. NOT TO MENTION gametrailers also does really dumb shit like the top 5 thing but in different ways, my favorite example being ripping 3-second animations off of the SC2 website back in the day and putting out like 12 different videos of those lol.
I can agree with you that there really isn't any accountability for who reviews the games. What are some of the dumb things they say though? Or do you just mean obvious things? As for the other things you wrote, all I can say is what you're looking for in a review is totally different from mine, I guess this may stem from you studying game designs and wanting that extra analysis. For me GT reviews provide sufficient information for to determine whether I want to invest any time in the game. Especially when I don't know jack about the game or haven't heard any new information about it/don't keep up. I don't really look too much for the "they did X which is better/worst than what Game Y has done". They go through enough of the good and the bad for me to make a choice, which is ultimately what I like. (Also they had two BF3 reviews, I wasn't sure which one you saw)
I don't watch any of the shows on GT, just their reviews and any video game footage they might have on their site during E3, TGS, etc So I can't really say anything about that.
Anyway maybe you can do some indepth reviews and post them up on your blog, wouldn't mind reading some of your thoughts about some modern games.
WCS
