kane_magus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kane_magus) wrote2010-03-23 03:39 pm
kane_magus) wrote2010-03-23 03:39 pm
Entry tags:
Destructoid's FFXIII review
Ha ha ha, oh wow.
I've ranted a bit about it in the past, but this is probably the best (or perhaps "worst" would be a better word) of several similar recent examples* of why Destructoid (a site I used to love, by the way, but now visit maybe once a month or so, if that much) has become only slightly better than completely worthless to me lately. It's really disappointing because it used to be a great site. Still, I admittedly have a kind of vague "just how low will they stoop for page-views next time, I wonder" interest about it as well. It's the whole "train-wreck, can't look away" phenomenon at work.
* - Which I won't link here, because I don't want to give the site any more traffic than that, if I can help it. But if you just can't help yourself, look up the follow ups to the FFXIII review I linked above, their Assassin's Creed II review, or the several articles about Heavy Rain including their review of it, as well as the various rants against indie/art games and the "Counterpoint" articles that invariably show up a few days after the very few good reviews that they give (not counting the 10 out of 10 they gave to Deadly Premonition, because that was merely another "joke" at Heavy Rain's expense). A big impetus for a lot of it is just angry fanboys being angry fanboys, true enough, but even so, I feel there's a lot of legitimate beef to be had with some of the crap the site puts out these days. Not to mention the fact that there are usually a bunch of sycophantic, pro-Destructoid fanboys clogging the comments of these crappy articles lately, too, which is another reason I feel that the site has hit the skids.
In other words, Destructoid went from being a cool site to being just another typical, crappy gaming website, with a similarly typical, crappy gaming "community" to follow it.
I've ranted a bit about it in the past, but this is probably the best (or perhaps "worst" would be a better word) of several similar recent examples* of why Destructoid (a site I used to love, by the way, but now visit maybe once a month or so, if that much) has become only slightly better than completely worthless to me lately. It's really disappointing because it used to be a great site. Still, I admittedly have a kind of vague "just how low will they stoop for page-views next time, I wonder" interest about it as well. It's the whole "train-wreck, can't look away" phenomenon at work.
* - Which I won't link here, because I don't want to give the site any more traffic than that, if I can help it. But if you just can't help yourself, look up the follow ups to the FFXIII review I linked above, their Assassin's Creed II review, or the several articles about Heavy Rain including their review of it, as well as the various rants against indie/art games and the "Counterpoint" articles that invariably show up a few days after the very few good reviews that they give (not counting the 10 out of 10 they gave to Deadly Premonition, because that was merely another "joke" at Heavy Rain's expense). A big impetus for a lot of it is just angry fanboys being angry fanboys, true enough, but even so, I feel there's a lot of legitimate beef to be had with some of the crap the site puts out these days. Not to mention the fact that there are usually a bunch of sycophantic, pro-Destructoid fanboys clogging the comments of these crappy articles lately, too, which is another reason I feel that the site has hit the skids.
In other words, Destructoid went from being a cool site to being just another typical, crappy gaming website, with a similarly typical, crappy gaming "community" to follow it.
no subject
I agree that creator intent would perhaps be an interesting point to note in reviews of things like this. That said, I remember (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/142511.html) an article (on Destructoid, no less, written by Anthony Burch, aka the "games as art and indie gamer guy") about a game a while back, where, at least in the comments, they most definitely did get into talking about the intent of the creator of the game. (Burch, in the article itself, just said that the guy was probably boozed up when he made the game.) A bunch of the comments were along the lines of "Bah, whoever made this crap is just a smug, pretentious twat and it sucks" and then there were comments disagreeing with that assessment, and then still other comments saying things like "Even if the author of this game is a smug, pretentious twat, so what? The game is still cool and fun to play despite that." For what it's worth, too, the actual creator of the game, posting under the name "heliopod" made some comments in the thread about his intent in making the game. (And I have to agree that it would probably be pretty hard to write a Flash game, or a game in any other language, while under the influence of anything more than strong tea.)
Also, for that matter, in the FFXIII review that kicked all this off, Jim Sterling says that the game was a "pompous and masturbatory affair, created seemingly to promote the developer's ego first, and the player's enjoyment second." That's kind of talking about creator intent, or at least Sterling's malformed opinion of said intent for the purposes of trolling, anyway. I doubt that's what you were talking about though. >_>
no subject
As an aside, it's very interesting to see the differing opinions on Passage between "games as art and indie gamer guy" and the "sarcastic son of a bitch who's angry at everything" (http://www.destructoid.com/passage-in-ten-seconds-art-games-lol--164818.phtml) (and all his "lickspittles" (thanks again TvTropes)).
no subject
I mean, Square Enix openly said that they wanted to create a strongly linear game so they could control the experience. You cannot all of a sudden hold it against them for creating a linear game. You may not agree with it, but you have to judge it accordingly.
Just like if you don't like the colour pink, and an artist uses the colour pink, you don't dimiss it. You judge it based on how he used the colour pink and weather he was successful or not.
I don't understand why reviewers (of anything) fail to understand this. That's why I've always like reading Roger Ebert's movie reviews. While I don't always agree with him, he often had the ability to judge what was on the screen for what it was, not what it wasn't.