1/26/00

The Sad State of Game Reviews

Has anyone noticed some disturbing trends in game reviews lately? Have you read reviews that just left you thinking "Huh?" There has been some craziness as of late, and it seems to have infected the entire industry. Here’re some examples:

For the last year or so, I have seen countless reviews begin with "I don’t really like this kind of game, so…" and then continue on to tear up some generally good stuff. Unfortunately, the worst offender of this seems to be Gamefan. Now, before I go any further, let it be known that Gamefan is probably my favorite mag out there, and I have been an avid reader since the second issue of their first year (that’s about 8 years, kids), so I don’t really want to pick on them. Hell, they’re almost as opinionated as me, and you’ve gotta respect that. However, when I see Cerberus begin his Sega Rally 2 review with "I don’t like Sega Rally. I never have and I never will.", that makes me think that, just maybe, he’s not going to have an objective opinion of the title. Eggo hates wrestling games, so, of course, they have him reviewing wrestling games. And ECM, who doesn’t seem to like anything that’s not a 2D shooter, seems to review everything, and proceeds to rip on fairly good stuff, like Gran Turismo 2, Medal of Honor, and Space Channel 5. I can respect that everyone has their own opinions, but why bother if it’s obvious that they aren’t going to like these games no matter what? That’s like having me review platformers exclusively. I can’t stand those things, so what would be the point of me offering my two cents on something like DK64? I know quality when I see it, but games of DK’s ilk generally make me physically ill, so I wouldn’t be too objective about them, would I? Instead, if the review goes something along the lines of "I usually like this kind of game, but this one sucks.", I’m a little more apt to think that maybe the writer’s opinion holds some water. I can also respect having multiple points of view about each title, but again, why waste the space if the reviewer is just going to whine about how he hates that particular genre? Lame.

Another thing that I have noticed lately are reviewers comparing games for one platform, say Dreamcast, against titles on another, like Playstation. If it’s not already obvious, this is pretty unfair. Especially graphics-wise, comparing Medal of Honor to Quake III, Crash to Sonic, or even Gran Turismo 2 to Sega Rally 2 has no value whatsoever. That’s’ fine and dandy if you have every system under the sun, but not everyone does. This also goes for comparing the same title over multiple platforms. In the case of something like Ready 2 Rumble or Hydro Thunder, one should really compare these titles to others on the same system, not to other versions of the same title. It’s true that the non-DC versions of R2R kinda suck compared to the original, but it’s probably the best boxing game on the other systems as well. And yet, most reviews I saw were fairly bad because the N64 and PSX versions weren’t as good as the DC version. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Now, I know firsthand that once you’ve played Dreancast stuff, and soon PS2 stuff, it’s fairly hard to go back to foggy, pixilated games with oodles of load time. Yes, I feel your pain. However, if you’re going to review games for a living, it seems like you should try to recognize quality on each system, depending on its strengths and limitations. Except, of course, N64 stuff, since it mostly sucks. But, I digress.

One thing that is really disturbing is the recent use of reviews to make some kind of political statement. The most egregious example of this is the Final Fantasy 8 fiasco. I saw several reviewers give it a bad score simply because they don’t like the direction the series, and RPG’s in general, are going. Everybody now wants them to go old-school or bust. That’s just sad. Progress isn’t necessarily evil, people. Of course, everyone and their momma has an opinion on this subject, but here’s my take on it: FF8 is, without a doubt, the best RPG on Playstation, and easily ranks among the top five of all time. When FF7 came out, it got perfect scores from pretty much everyone, regardless of the fact that the characters were one-dimensional and hollow (except Cid, of course) and the story was god-awful. Like Evangelion, all that psychological crap at the end just ruined it for me. And speaking of the end, FF7 had the worst one ever (it looked real purdy, though). FF8 has a great story, great characters (for the most part), and much better graphics and music, a lot of which probably shouldn’t even be possible on the ‘Station. The Materia is long gone, and we have the next best thing to Espers introduced. And the ending is easily the best ending ever. A happy ending? In a Square game?!? What a concept! It does my old heart good to see something like that. So, do I like the old-school stuff? You bet. Did it diminish my enjoyment of the latest? Not at all. Anyhoo, what I’m trying to say is that FF8 may not be the best RPG in history, but it sure as hell deserves a near-perfect score, not those barely-above-average scores I saw almost everywhere. Thankfully, it sold skillions of copies, so maybe there’s hope for this country yet…

I’m sure that everyone has noticed the spread of Jaded Gamers’ Syndrome throughout pretty much every mag out there. This unfortunate disorder renders a large number of gamers every year immune to the effects that an excellent piece of software would have on a normal person. This results in writers that are not impressed by anything, and they write their pieces accordingly. They churn out jaded responses to games that you and I would think are stellar. The aforementioned FF8 is one example, as are GT2, Power stone, NBA2K, and Superman64. Of course, I’m kidding about that last one, but you get the idea. I have even seen bad takes on the gift-from-the-gods Shenmue online, I kid you not. The writers admit that they have no idea what’s going on, and yet they still say that the game is boring. Wha? Man, how much better do you want this stuff to get? Methinks that mayhaps these guys need to go on sabbatical and get away from games for a while. Maybe then they’ll appreciate the gifts of gaming goodness that have granted to us. I know that there’s a LOT of crap out there, but let’s not let the bad experiences ruin our enjoyment of the genuinely good titles. I think El Niño from Gamefan said it best when, in response to EGM’s less-than-generous review of NFL2K, he declared: "If I ever get so jaded that a game like NFL2K doesn’t impress me, please shoot me." Now, if only he could pass that sentiment on to ECM…

Lastly, I just have to say that the unadulterated use of the prefix "uber" has got to end. Everything is an "uberconsole" or "ubermascot" or "uberwhatever". Sweet fragging criminy, in the name of all that is holy, end this madness now. If I see it once, just once more, it may be time for Uncle Brad to go on a tri-state killing spree. I almost preferred that brief period when everything was "hella-" something. Almost.

Note: The inflammatory comments spewed forth in Brad's Soapbox are his own editorial steps on the brink of madness, and are not necessarily the opinions of Gamehits, or anyone else on Earth, for that matter.

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