Monday, November 28, 2011

That's great and all, but what's it like?

Gaming journalism is dead. Whenever I read reviews, all I see is hyperbole and description. "But..." you might say, "...shouldn't a game review be descriptive? That's the point!"

No, stupid. I can get descriptions from any one of the 100 previews and movies that are out. Let me give you an example of a modern day review:

http://www.gamespot.com/gears-of-war-3/reviews/gears-of-war-3-review-6334586?tag=summary%3Bread-review&page=1&tag=stitialclk%3Bgamespace

Here's what is essentially said:

Gears of War 3 is savage, wicked, brutal, thesaurus. One of the best games of the year. (Better than all those other best games of the year--this got a 9.5 compared to a solidly mediocre 9.) There's lots of neato dialog. The game looks really good too. There are enemy generators to shoot! WOW! You have to use cover, but you can't stay behind the cover if you want to win the game. So there's a lot of fucking strategy involved. Do you stay behind the wall, or emerge from the wall and shoot shit? Choices. There are lots of guns in this game. The sound of a bullet hitting an enemy sounds like a bullet hitting an enemy (if a bullet hitting an enemy sounds like stepping in a 4 foot deep mud puddle). The different difficulty levels have different difficulty. You can play with other people or against them. Killing is cool. Getting killed sucks. You can play against other people lots of different ways. The more you play the game, the better you get. There's a mode where you shoot aliens and pick up money, because games where you can shoot aliens AND pick up money are better than games where you can only do one of them. The game is pretty easy. Even if you suck you'll be able to finish it. This is a game that is fun.