Worth Reading: 09/20/2013

That argument about wonderful 101 makes no sense. Fighting games are at the very end of the scale, needing A LOT of time to get skilled to enjoy it, but games like SFIV got 93 on metacritic.

Sorry dude, either your game is bad, or it just very polarising.

Pity there was such a small crowd for Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett

Finally got to start GTA V last night and so far I'm...unimpressed I guess? It's not that it was bad or broken; it really seems well made. But, after playing a ton of Saints Row IV, I just feel kind of bored playing GTA. Maybe I'll start enjoying it a little more the more I play.

Watching State of Play right now. So far: Interesting, but kinda slow.

...

Edit: Watched State of Play through completely. It's very slow placed, and isn't the kind of documentary that has tons of narration and explanation. Don't look to this to learn anythign about the Korean StarCraft Scene if you know nothing about it. It pretty much just follows the lives of some of the players, wanna-be players, has-been players and even some fans, as they go about their e-sports lives in the e-sports world.

Tries to pull at the heart strings a little at the end, but otherwise just kinda drones on (perhaps purposely?).

Unless you are REALLY interested in the world, I'd skip it.

Give it: 3 Pylons out of 5

The 'Horrifying Village' for Animal Crossing was an entertaining trip, whether it was the Village itself or the couple playing it..

I can understand the Wonderful 101 getting into heavy waters with it's reception. I enjoyed the QL and that many cum one function of the game. It could be nothing more than a cultural (say) blind-spot of what a critic thinks should be invested into a game or genre of game. Time and time again, the majority has been wrong in history when decisions are set by it's prevalent contemporary values. How many scientists, mathematicians, thinkers etc. have died unappreciated or worse but have been vindicated after their deaths? This is not such a dramatic example, but the mechanics and social politics still hold.

I see what you did there

Kris Graft is a bonafide idiot and Leigh Alexander should just go do something else.

On point. I guess most folks just wrote obituaries, so nothing worth reading. I know I would like to read more, I kind of expected something from Polygon's own Kevin Gifford. That guy knows his history down to like quoting Japanese newspapers from the eighties.

I wasn't going to get GTA V, but now I have it I'm so pleased I did! Rockstar have great passion for what they do and it shows throughout the game, I have little interest in the social commentary about female protagonists, violence etc. This is a game to help one vent their frustration towards society... and does a really good job of it. That iPhone mission was classic!

@ejiehi: long live the new flesh!

You completely missed the point about the reviewer's expectations. When someone picks up a fighting game like Street Fighter they aren't going to play through the story mode once, complain about the nonsensical story and bitch that the game never explained how to do anything so they ended up just spamming hadoukens to beat the game.

hey, this section always seems to have decent horror game coverage thanks to patrick of course, was wondering if anyone can suggest some games to play next month that are horror themed/ jump scared :)

thanks for any replies

Writing that large article about "Women and GTA" is literally going "hey look at me I want attention and I'll write up words". I have better advice, play GTA because they really did create a ridiculous game.

There is too much to consider. Lets just accept the fact that they made the most ambitious game of all time and pulled it off remarkably. Say what you will about the jokes, if you understood the references because you watch the news, you get some funny stuff no one else will have the balls to say or put in a game. This game pushes the limits on so many levels where are all the articles about random parts in the game and how amazing it is. There is literally too much to say, and the game is too big to talk about definitively yet, a perfect example is the "women in gta" thing. They poke fun at themselves in the game about how they portray women. It isn't like they don't know, so writing an article about wah wah wah doesn't do a single thing except try to steal a little bit of Rockstar's thunder to talk about nothing. Basically what I'm saying is Stephen Totilo is one of those people that Rockstar is making fun of in their game, whether he knows it or not.

Hell I'm a parody in the game look at my last name and first initial, and people have mispronounced my last name with an A and O before just like in the game. And I play games all the time and live with my parents! OMG!

But seriously they aren't no proto hipsters.

Bravo Rockstar! So happy this game was able to be made! :D

I just can't get a read on the nVidia Shield. The reviews really run the range, often with focus on Android (an ecosystem you've either brought into already or dislike for reasons a device can't do anything to change - and it seems many people writing about tech thing iOS is the only real platform for mobile, despite the majority of users buying Android devices), but generally point out it is both competent and competitive for the price.

When I came down to grabbing a new device this Summer then the Nexus 7.2 was the device I felt I needed more; providing me with a high DPI, large screen when a combination of phone and Kindle didn't cut it without needing to invest in an ultra-light laptop as a consumption device (I'll keep going with this ultra-cheap laptop). I guess that is the point of the Shield, it's an engagement device (like a laptop) not a consumption device and so comes with the penalty of lugging the peys to enable that with it in the form factor. It isn't replacing a phone/7" tablet for consumption, that was never the plan. It is just for gaming and giving PC users the Wii U/PS Vita remote play experience while also being a totally mobile game device on Android for people looking to play their $1 copy of a GTA or MineCraft on the go without virtual buttons.

Hey @patrickklepek, thanks for another interesting read!

(There are a couple of minor typos: "I could not be excited about the prospects for the future" missing "more" and "left-than-perfect criticism", unless that's an intended turn of phrase, as someone else noted in a previous comment.)

@jasondesante: Going "ha ha! we don't understand how to portray 50% of the world's population!" isn't fixing anything. I absolutely adore the game, but their female character issue is an actual problem. They had an opportunity to make Michael's wife a real character, their Skyler White or Carmela Soprano, a woman living the high life but cannot stand what her husband had to do and is currently back doing in order to get them there, but she loves her lifestyle, so she has to constantly debate between morality and comfort for her and her children. Instead, she's a yelling shrew that's always cheating on Michael. They could've had at least ONE female character with any depth.

@mrgtd: But both males and females are ridiculous exaggerations of real human beings. If anything they don't know how to realistically portray 100% of the world's population. Every "male" character is either a hilariously overblown stereotype, sociopath, pervert or worse.

Also no, the game doesn't need to have anything the writers didn't intend for it to have merely to satisfy an ethereal quota.

@weaponboy said:

Also, SFIV got a lot of those high scores because it leans PRETTY HARD into SFII nostalgia. I'm fairly confident that the vast majority of reviewers were pretty much this while playing the game:

But they still awarded it with high scores, because "Hey, I guess there's probably some complexity that I, as a casual reviewer, don't really understand but it's Street Fighter so I'll automatically give it the benefit of the doubt, also the graphics are good, also it has all of the characters I know from SFII".

The point is, for skill-based games where there aren't outside factors (e.g. the popularity of SFII, and Street Fighter as a whole), reviewers are unlikely to put in the time to learn the game's systems in the short time they have to review the game.

Or you get reviewers who are just never going to like the game because they fundamentally don't enjoy the gameplay type/genre, and are never going to care enough to learn how to play the game properly. As much as I more or less agree with Jeff's 2-star review of Catherine, if he kinda knew that he doesn't like games where the gameplay is almost exclusively block pushing puzzles, he probably should've asked around the office to find someone who would be into the game a little bit more.

Granted, the expectation these days is that unless your game literally is a multiplayer-focused fighting game, most character action games do have in-game tutorials explaining most of the moves, or an easily accessed comprehensive moves list. I haven't played Wonderful 101, so I don't know quite how much of an offender it is in terms of not explaining what to do.

@humanity: You are the best.

@humanity said:

Yeah, for example, Michael has elements of Tony Soprano (what with seeing a therapist, having a family that is used to all of the dirty money he is able to provide, etc.) except oh wait Michael is a caricature of an aging criminal and not written anywhere near as well as Tony Soprano, nor were they ever trying to do that.

@somberowl: hyyyy

@somberowl: hyyyy

@somberowl: hyyyy

@bisonhero: I think you are right. When it comes to systemically and mechanically dense games many reviewers either don't have the time, or don't dedicate the time, to invest fully. If this style of game has a certain level of popularity the benefit of the doubt will often be given.

You can hear the apathy with statements like "I'm never going to make it to the top of the leader boards. Only crazy people do that", which tells you immediately that putting effort into improving is off the table. This is a relaxing hobby. Anyone who puts effort is abnormal.

Which is fine! It is a big enough gaming world that all games don't have to appeal to everyone. I think where people get bent out of shape is when instead of saying "this just isn't for me", it is obvious the reviewer isn't trying, isn't paying attention, and made no effort to apply themselves, and then blames the game.

It is like a flaccid lover blaming the other.

Do we have to include Leigh Alexander's terrible excuse for writing in every 'worth reading' segment?

Not to piggyback on your comment too much ... but yes, Simon Parkin is a truly awful writer. He did this at IGN where he tells a bunch of gamers about "lost games you've never heard of by big name developers!!" ... that aren't really lost like "Let's Tap" on the Wii. Did you know that was made by the guy who made Sonic?!!? YOU DID!?! NO WAY!!

Last week Patrick had an article by Parkin about the Yeti in GTA San Andreas ... which was, in my opinion, plagiarism. A far better written and researched was done in Kill Screen (the magazine)... his read like a cut down version of that. The specifics in some of the sentences is incredible.

I felt that way after reading Leigh Alexander's article on Gamasutra about GTA V... fuck can we ignore her yet? Seriously, she is complaining about how limiting GTA V is because it's hard to obey the law. You don't have indicators on your car and can't just live your life without commiting crime. So there should be a button on the controller for indicators now? I mean that quite seriously, present me with a solution not just a whine. Would you complain that Pac-Man never gets to leave the maze and that he HAS to keep moving in the direction he's facing? Mario has to save the princess, but what if he doesn't want to? What is my motiviation to fight in Mortal Kombat? Can't they talk it out?

All she does is complain about modern game design and rarely, if ever, offers a solution. Frankly I'd rather play a game where I can plan a bank heist than just pick up my laundry. I want someone to tell me what her point actually is and what he SOLUTION is. OR at least what the crux of her whine is about. $800million, critically and commercials lauded open-world game five years in the making, but you can't not be a criminal so it's hardly an open-world game? Fuck me dead. It's so common in the games media.

Game journos so often rest on the opinion piece to do 90% of their work. Do some research and interviews. If the reporters at my newspaper, or any other, where this lazy they'd be fired in a heartbeat.

Holy shit! I saw that proposal video ages ago but never realized that was Matt Gilenbach. That's awesome! :)

Leigh Alexander and Cameron Kunzelman, as always, are the smartest voices in the room when it comes to these discussions.

There's a large divide between "smart" and "smart sounding."

In the Gamasutra piece, I like how Leigh explained what she wanted out of a game like GTA; newer, shocking options to explore. Though I guess I wonder why she felt that way when the game has some stuff that could really bother people like waterboarding. Maybe it just wasn't for her?

Also, this:

Man do I hope everyone reads the Ouya editorial by the That Dragon, Cancer developer. No matter your thoughts about Ouya (negative it seems most of the time) the post really gets at the mob mentality of the internet and gaming culture (whatever that is).

Shit, Kickstarter links.

@humanity: Ha, that is the perfect summation of tedious video game journalism, desperately trying to justify it's worth. By contrast, I would read hours of Tim Rogers, all in the delivery.

Uber excited for your Shocktober plans :D

Some great chat about GTA V. I do wonder if it's unfair on the franchise though. So much of the chat centered on the position GTA holds in the industry and how people want more from it than what is essentially a light weight, blockbuster story. Almost as if GTA has to put out a deeper story to match it's popularity and production values on the gameplay side. Would any other industry do that to a franchise? Or would they just recognise GTA for what it is and look elsewhere for that deeper narrative.

Or to put it in a less wordy way, why does GTA have to be something it clearly has no interest being?

Why is there so much hostility toward less-than-glowing articles about GTA5?