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Giant Bomb News

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Worth Reading: 11/09/12

This week, we've got a controversial take on Halo 4, a web browser game that doesn't suck, a fan who's trying to remake Aliens vs. Predator, and your usual assortment of links to fill the weekend.

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If all goes according to plan, I’ll pull the trigger on ordering parts for my computer over the weekend, and finally put into motion an idea I’ve been kicking around for a couple of years now. It’s been so, so long since I’ve built a PC, though, so I’ve forgotten...everything. I’ve heard your requests, too, and we’ll probably film putting it together and bringing it to life. Nothing can go wrong with that, right?

As mentioned in the last episode of Spookin’ With Scoops, where we played the first hour or so of System Shock 2, that feature will take a rest until the PC comes together, which means it probably won’t come back until after Thanksgiving. Even with a powerful PC, that doesn’t mean we’ll leave behind a return to Lone Survivor, System Shock 2, or even Friday the 13th and Clock Tower for SNES. It will, however, mean closing out episodes with Slender won’t look like a total trainwreck.

A few weeks away from horror will do my heart some good, too. You can only take so much.

Hey, You Should Play This

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It’s early days for browser games, but Save the Day, a fast-paced action game in which players fly a helicopter and save people from imminent disaster, make a solid case for what’s possible when competent developers are in the drivers seat. It doesn’t have to be all exploitative free-to-play games that are more about wasting time than they are about learning and enjoying game mechanics. Let’s also remember Supergiant Games managed to port Bastion to Chrome’s app store on HTML5. It’ll be some time before we’re seeing a game like Bastion made from the ground up for a browser, but the potential audience is enormous, and it’s only a matter of time before someone makes a killing.

There are also two other games I’m going to link to below, and I’ll say nothing more about them.

And You Should Read These, Too

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What do you want from your reviews? Do you want someone to reaffirm your preconceived notions about a game, or do you want to be challenged, and look at a game in a new light? Tom Chick’s review of Halo 4 would probably do a better job of accomplishing the latter if a score wasn’t attached, but the score is what made his review a lightning rod. Chick is used to being the industry’s punching bag, and publishing contradictory opinions is nothing new. I haven’t yet played Halo 4, so I can’t say whether or not I agree with his conclusions about the latest entry, but it’s a well articulated argument, and definitely an outlier from the general consensus. Does that make it wrong? (Hint: no.)

This is Halo 4. A shiny old dog without any new tricks. I got more out of the Halo 1 remake, which at least had the appeal of nostalgia. Playing through an updated version of the original Halo was at times tired or tedious. But it was also a reminder of the raw genius that launched the series. There is none of that in Halo 4, which is a drawn-out retread without any fresh perspective or energy, and furthermore missing a lot of what I need to pull me through a Halo game. Halo 4 demonstrates that if there’s one thing worse than more of the same, it’s less of the same.
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Games have trouble keeping secrets these days, and whatever you think of Assassin’s Creed III, it’s admirable the company was able to keep a lid on a particularly cool twist that comes early in the game. If you haven’t played Assassin’s Creed III, you should not click this link, but if you have, Ars Technica has talked to Ubisoft about the process of keeping a secret over a three-year development cycle and huge amounts of marketing. Not easy!

May says he didn't even discuss the big reveal with his closest friends or family—he just "couldn't take the risk." While he could talk about [CENSORED] with other members of the development team, that didn't really relieve the stress. "All we would end up doing was riling ourselves up. We were on thisthing, and we were all having the same fears and anxious nervous anticipation. That didn't make it any easier."

If You Click It, It Will Play

I Don’t Know About This Kickstarter Thing, But These Projects Seem Pretty Cool

  • Elite is the latest classic trying to come back. Would be nice if they showed, uh, anything about it.
  • We need more physical spaces to show off video games. L.A. Game Space could be terrific.
  • Wait, is Distance a spiritual successor to San Francisco Rush?

The Latest Assassin's Creed is Out, And There Are Mixed Opinions

Valve Just Launched Greenlight, So Here’s Some Games That Don’t Look Terrible

  • Dark Rain looks awfully early, but an open world horror game with a day/night cycle? Yes.
  • Draw a Stickman has players getting involved by actually drawing objects into the world.
  • Sapience is a modern attempt to create a DOOM-style sci-fi RPG. Those are golden words.

Oh, And This Other Stuff

Patrick Klepek on Google+

164 Comments

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sjupp

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Edited By sjupp

I'd give Halo 4 a 3/5 because it's a fun game when you play it in multiplayer but it doesn't really add anything at all. It doesn't have a taste like the other games did. I'm still curious as to where the story will go but I'm not on the edge of my seat.

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colourful_hippie

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Edited By colourful_hippie

I agree with just about everything in that Halo 4 review but that score is kind of a joke. It comes off as attention seeking by clearly going against the grain.

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Creme

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Edited By Creme

Saw that AvP thing on NeoGAF and was impressed, but it's a shame the original game is horribly difficult without multiple saves. Colonial Marines seems better in that regard.

Also, bought Lone Survivor from Steam after seeing the QL a long time go and now Scoops, and it sucks so bad. God that game is uninspired, derivative and has boring micro-management and copy-paste zones. Plus the pixel look is really exaggerated, SNES games have less pixelation than that, the game could really use a zoom out function.

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dropabombonit

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Edited By dropabombonit

After finishing Halo 4 last night, I agree with what Tom says in his review. But like Patrick I think he shouldn't of attached a score to it

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mbr2

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Edited By mbr2

I'm glad you included John Teti's AC3 review Patrick.

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vinsanityv22

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Edited By vinsanityv22

Another awesome group of things I need to click on, Patrick. Thanks for sucking up all my free time this weekend!

Btw, way to make me sad. That Distance Kickstrter project? I mean, I played Nitronic rush - it's easily the best Digipen game I've ever played. If it were more stable, I'd still have it installed on my PC. It's super fun. But you compared it to Rush, and that's not cool. It sort of plays like Rush 2049, what with the "cars with wings", so I get it. But it still looks and feels like Tron, so it's nowhere near as cool as a new Rush would be. I WISH it aspired to be a spiritual successor to Rush 2049; I just don't dig the Tron aesthetic...

Maybe you should mention the Pier Solar HD Kickstarter next week too. It's an HD remake of a Genesis game that came out LAST YEAR (like Battle Kid for the NES, or Gun Lord for the Neo Geo). Now they're remaking it for Xbox Live Arcade, PC, Mac and Dreamcast. With a Wii U version after those, so sayeth Nintendolife.

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spicy_jasonator

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Edited By spicy_jasonator

@fmprodguy said:

@Vampir said:

@fmprodguy said:

How could you fall for leading more hits to an internet Troll?!

Hate, Love, or indifferent to the Halo franchise, or Halo 4, he gave it a 20... yes 20 out of 100.

Carnival Games, Fn Carnival Games didn't get a lower score FROM anyone than a 49!!!!

Naughty Bears, a semi broken game didn't get lower than a 43!

Plus it's not a well articulated point, his complaints would fairly apply to all Call of Duties since 4, Gears of War, New Super Mario, Mario, Zelda (well a little bit at least), and God of War. Oh Nos, they didn't reinvent the wheel when changing developers... and it still feels like the game who's name is on the box... I'll give it a 20!

The only reason to score a Tripple A game, for being like the game it is a sequel to, and that IS NOT broken, below the score of broken games and far far below the average is to get attention, hits, and start a flame war with the only goal to get more attention or hits to your site.

I own and love all three consoles, this is not about Halo, xbox360, PS3, Wii, fanboy-ism.... It's about calling out BS

Bummed you fell for the BS Patrick.

Or maybe he's just using a 100 point rating system in a way that makes some amount of sense. What purpose is there to having a range of 100 points if even universally reviled games like Carnival Games and Naughty Bears get scores in the 40s. What does being AAA matter if you don't like the game?

You wouldn't expect a movie to get a decent rating just because it was big-budget, and I see no reason that should be true about video games either.

Hmmm, out of context rationalization.

The fact that a game is a "Tripple A" doesn't get it a good score. The point was that scoring a super high profile game lower than broken games and phoned in minigames collections, is opportunistic at best.

For example, plenty of people can say they thought The Avengers was not a good movie. Everyone is more than allowed an opinion, and their own view on what is good and bad. A published "Review" though is placing yourself up on the pedestal and saying that this is MORE than opinion.

Just check the Dictionary:

re·view

[ri-vyoo] Show IPA

noun1.

acriticalarticleorreport, asinaperiodical,onabook,play,recital,orthelike;critique;evaluation.

He didn't score Halo 4 lower than those games, because he did not give those games those scores. If reviewers are expected to base their scores for a game off of what other people scored another game, than game reviewing has gone to a scary, broken place. Were all of those Resident Evil 6 bad reviews opportunistic? If it was some cheap, opportunistic grab a publicity, he probably would not have put it at the bottom where you have to read the whole text to get to. Speaking of which, just noticed that it was a 1 out of 5, not a 20 out of 100. Game scores are not math, and conversions like that don't work. By that logic, carnival games would would get a 2 or 3, depending on the outlet.

Also, I'm not really sure what you are pointing out with the definition. The review was certainly a critical evaluation.

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NTM

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Edited By NTM

That remake looks cool.

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byrjun

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Edited By byrjun

As always, thanks a lot Patrick!

Calling you out here, , can I ask you to post the specs and/or parts that you are buying for your new PC?

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TheSouthernDandy

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Edited By TheSouthernDandy

C'maaaaan Scoops, I understand why you brought up that Tom Chick review, everything surrounding that deal is interesting but well articulated and well written that review ain't, not to mention factually inaccurate. His whole opening rant about the Mammoth and how it never fires its big gun for example is pretty dumb cause it totally does. Multiple times. And it's awesome. Aside from that great Worth Reading as usual.

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Alkaiser

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Edited By Alkaiser

Oh Tom Chick. You were too beautiful for this world. You should've just said that the graphics were really graphical and that the story was whiz-bam-pow and oh my god there was a sad part video games are finally art and given it an 8.5-10.

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yeah_write

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Edited By yeah_write

@downtime58 said:

@Beb said:

The AC3 articles feel spot on. It's not a terrible game, but it feels worse than Brotherhood. I guess if I was a monster I'd give it 1/5.

I second this...about 15 hours in...the game is fine but feels overstuffed and undercooked at the same time...suffers from having too many tasks and not enough purpose

Agreed, though the Kotaku article drifted away from criticism and into straight ranting toward the end (it's obvious he doesn't like the game). I liked it, but I couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment. It's very apparent that a bazillion people worked on that game. There are just so many parts that don't click together.

Also, the end of the story? Terrible. Both on the Connor and Desmond side. It's like they ran out of time or something. The first 10 hours is a slow and steady crawl through the lives of Connor and Haytham and the events they participate in. It's a little grindy, but still feels like it's setting up some deep and meaningful conflicts. Then after about sequence 10, they hit the gas and throw all that stuff out the window. It's like "Oops, we ran out of cool historical events, let's wrap this up."

I still think the core gameplay is a blast, but they've got to reign in all that crap on the periphery. I went the entire game without using the stupid and poorly designed crafting stuff--there was just no reason to do it. Also, that second article really nailed it when he said it felt like they gameified a game. Just because you make us aware that every basic/mundane thing we do gets crossed off on some master list doesn't suddenly make us want to do them more.

I've purchased every AC game on day one. I think this one will be my last. Let's hope they turn it around next time.

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deactivated-5ba16609964d9

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I wish more people had the balls to write reviews like that Halo 4 one.

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Edited By klingers

AC3 and Halo 4 seem to be the biggest things talked about in these comments. Makes me think I might be the only one interested in that Spec Ops: The Line book...

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dswonpu

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darkcargio

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Edited By darkcargio

Good reading Patrick.

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antime

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Edited By antime

Tom Chick's review said many of the things other reviews have also said were disappointing about the game. The difference is that in his opinion it makes for a bad game, while everyone else followed up with "but it's still a good game".

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Gruff182

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Edited By Gruff182

Not sure if he score is fair in Tom Chicks review, but the written piece is spot on.

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Humanity

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Edited By Humanity

@Efesell said:

That Kotaku article on AC3 seems to point out a lot of things that have always existed with AC but are only now considered problems.

Couldn't agree more. Seems as if a lot of people have been playing the AC games with one eye closed for the past several years. AC1 while flawed had some great ideas and good writing. The Bomb crew keep making out Altair as blindly idealistic while Ezio was this amazing fountain of personality, but in truth Altair was a complex character that undergoes a complete personality transformation from an arrogant know it all to a thoughtful and wise protagonist. Ezio is this kid that doesn't seem to grow up throughout any of the games and does whatever anyone tells him to do. The controls were always an issue - in Revelations I was still jumping off in the wrong direction once in a while and targetting was also a chore. This is all because after AC2 the series stopped evolving. Brotherhood added the guild element which was completely unnecessary in my opinion. In Revelations it was like a get out of jail free card - I'd get swarmed by dozens of troops and within one button press they'd all be dead by arrows. I was also extremely bothered by Leonardo DaVinci being this goofy guy that makes gliders and other ridiculous things for Ezio. There was a certain alluring mysticism to the fact that you did have to cut off a finger to use this hidden blade. Ezio just takes everything, he doesn't earn any of it. I actively disliked Ezio till the very end although at least in Revelations he was somewhat alright.

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WVUEers

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Edited By WVUEers

I know earlier this week Kotaku said they didn't like the "Gump" effect that AC3 had (as in Forrest Gump) and Patrick some what shared these feelings on the Bombcast. What I find humorous though is that there is a real figure by the name of George Hewes who often has been referred to as the Forrest Gump of the revolution because even though he was just a plain old guy he was present for numerous monumental moments. So it's not ridiculously far fetched especially if you factor in the fiction that in AC you have secret organizations in play with presumably inside info.

Secondly it's a videogame, it's pretty dumb to be playing a game where 2 secret factions have been warring for centuries and you go back in time through your ancestors memories (or some shit) and the thing that takes you out of it is going "Wait a minute.... he was at both of these historical moments? Hurmph, I think not. "

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jaks

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Edited By jaks

@CornBREDX: You can dissent from popular opinion all you want. Halo 4 isn't a 1 star game. Tom Chick can go on all he wants about how their scoring system is unique. It's not that unique and 1 star is still a piss poor score. I tend to value Chick's opinion highly and have since the 90s, but he does score games purposely like this to get attention. The thing is, if he scored it a 3 like it probably deserves, people wouldn't give a shit.

Every game should be weighed on it's own merits. If it's a good game that might lean to heavily on previous games in it's own franchise, that's definitely a Thing That Should Lower the Score, but to take a perfectly well made game and call it a one just because it does not blaze new trails in game design is silly.

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ghostNPC

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Edited By ghostNPC

Oh wow, Distance looks AMAZING.

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lanterngreen

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Edited By lanterngreen

Patently obvious the guy just wrote the review to get hits, he's done it in the past, and he'll continue to do it in the future. Yellow journalism at its finest, and it's fun to watch all the anti halo people come out of the woodwork to defend woodward and nobody like his site's some be all end all of gaming...

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blurienh

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Edited By blurienh

The Assasins Creed 3 twist is actually spoiled in game by the animus entry for Conner's mum which you get before it's revealed which kind of defeats all the effort they went to. It's a shame because it would have been a cool moment otherwise.

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kamylow

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Edited By kamylow

The only thing you need to not forget is to put standoffs (not sure that it's the good word, wikipeida told me that) between the motherboard and the case and there is small chances for your to ruin anything. DO NOT FORGET THE STANDOFFS PATRICK §

This is what i'm talking about by the way.

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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I watched that AvP thing. He does the melee attack. Then it says "melee attack is useless against enemies."

THEN WHY EVEN HAVE IT IN THE FUCKING GAME

Also... why am I not surprised that Patrick doesn't like the two big popular games that are out, and is now reposting any negative review of them? I wonder what happens when Black Ops 2 comes out.

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Orbitz89

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Edited By Orbitz89

That Assassins Creed 3 review by John Teti was really well written! I also appreciate the fact that it didn't have any numerical score on it.. It encourages the reader to actually read the review and take in what the reviewer is trying to say.

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chilipeppersman

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Edited By chilipeppersman

thanks for another great read patrick

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biggiedubs

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Edited By biggiedubs

@AssInAss said:

A WHOLE book about Spec Ops: The Line? Oh, I'm all over that!

Hell yeah.

Fuck everything to do about Halo 4. It's boring and tired and generic. Sure, it plays well, but c'mon, let's get behind, or at least take notice of, something original and daring for a change.

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Oni

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Edited By Oni

As someone who thinks Spec Ops is easily the biggest triumph in using a videogame as a narrative, I'm gonna be very interested in that book. Holy hot damn I love what Spec Ops did, and I love that it's a big-budget game by a big publisher. Brass fucking balls.

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ZombiePie

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Edited By ZombiePie
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Ronald

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Edited By Ronald

I remember rampancy being a major part of the ilovebees ARG for Halo 2. But seriously, is everyone arguing about a Tom Chick review? Chick always rates the lowest score for a game and complains about normal things. Listen to some GameSpot podcasts when they read from the highest and lowest Metacritic review for a game. It's become a running joke that Chick's review is always the lowest.

On the first game that we can't name, I'll go back to it later. On the train one, I stopped perfect! And it said something about a 2 meter gap. So what if I flew into the station and injured everyone coming to a stop. I got there.

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Jtan21

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Edited By Jtan21

@HoboZero said:

If you are a 'trusted' review site on an aggregator like metacritic, do you think you have some responsibility to calibrate your scoring with other submitters? I'm of the ilk that would LOVE to see all review scores simply go away, to be sure, but shouldn't any site that submits to metacritic for the pageviews (and really, that is the ONLY reason a review site participates in metacritic aggregation, for the linkbacks) have a responsibility to score even remotely similar to other sites?

For example, what if my scoring range is 1-5. 1 for every game that runs without exploding, 2-4 for revolutionary, life-altering experiences, and 5 for Resident Evil games, regardless of quality. I mean, just like Tom Chick, these are my Honest Opinions, and I am being up front about them - but they're also not what ANYONE ELSE on the aggregtor uses when scoring, and adding my data will just muddle and already obfuscated system.

I guess what I'm saying is: when you submit to an aggregator you're really saying "My score is as accurate as everyone elses"... well, maybe not 'saying'... 'inferring'? Seems like there's an ethical responsibility to calibrate with the consesus. Or not, that's just, like, my opinion, man.

Score Halo 4 One Potato out of Five Watermelon Starbursts for all I care, but don't submit it to metacritic. Problem solved. Whole issue feels like a case of 1st Degree Sh*t-Stirring.

I give this comment 1/5 stars

No, I don't think you have that sort of responsibility to calibrate with others. I think it's valid for reviewers to use different criteria from each other to review games; I think their only responsibility is to stay calibrated within what they have stated as their own criteria for reviewing games, so you have a good idea that each score means for that reviewer. If reviewers submitting to Metacritic are obligated to calibrate their scores with other sites, that would be promoting groupthink, which is definitely not desired in a field that primarily relies on opinion. Reviewers' review scores should be evaluated in the context of the content of the review as well as the context of the general tendencies of each reviewer, which of course, makes the overall Metacritic score not very informative beyond a very general sense of a game (which is all it should be used for).

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Carc

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Edited By Carc

The needlessly over-the-top motions, flips and jumps of the AC3 parkour video makes me think of this:

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two_socks

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Edited By two_socks

Cool Halo 4 review, would not have known about the site, nor Tom Chick without this. Thanks, scoops.

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sharpenedspoon

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Edited By sharpenedspoon

The problem with making a remake or reboot of the original AvP is that when we watch your tech demo, we can't tell if you haven't programmed aliens in yet, or if the lack of aliens is simply being faithful to the first (marine) level of the game!

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flufflogic

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Edited By flufflogic

That review is awful, for one major reason:

That central tenet, that you never fire the Mammoth's gun? You do. You point the laser designator, and it fires on what you pointed it at. It's no different Halo Reach's airstrike in that regard. He spends a fifth of a review telling you that you never a fire a weapon you use several times in that level. He then goes on to act as if Bungie never talked about rampancy before, despite it being as old a concept as Marathon, a game that came out in 1994, the same year as the game he lauds for coming up with the idea (System Shock). Basically, he knows sod all, and pretends like his ignorance is knowledge.

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Oddy4000

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Edited By Oddy4000

, while I agree with you that a contrarian opinion is not wrong, I agree with others here that not every opinion (specifically, Tom Chick's) is worth consideration. His review reads like the semi-literate ramblings I rubber necked on the Fox Nation website where the poster throws together half baked, ill-considered arguments to support their conclusion that isn't based in reality, but they feel in their hearts. He should be removed from Metacritic if he's just going to be a crank.

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MrXakaRebel

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Edited By MrXakaRebel

scooped...

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Elwoodan

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Edited By Elwoodan

Totilo always seems like an interesting guy, but with the amount of blatant hit-baiting and whatnot that Gawker group sites are involved in really turns me off to his- and Kotaku's- articles.

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Scotto

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Edited By Scotto

RE: Tom Chick's review: There's a difference between honest, well explained criticism, and just being a shitty contrarian. And frankly, I completely disagree that his problems with the game are "well articulated". The guy even contradicts himself a couple of times in the review.

If you want to write editorials, then write editorials. If you want to write reviews (with a final score), then I think it behooves you to actually evaluate the overall game, instead of making a statement by giving a game that is pretty plainly NOT a 1/5, a 1/5. Jeff hates Dark Souls, but he wouldn't give it a 1/5, because he has the integrity to step back and acknowledge that it's not a "1/5 experience", even if he doesn't personally like it.

I'm all for challenging preconceived notions, but that doesn't somehow make his criticism valid.

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unholyone123

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Edited By unholyone123

@lanterngreen said:

Patently obvious the guy just wrote the review to get hits, he's done it in the past, and he'll continue to do it in the future. Yellow journalism at its finest, and it's fun to watch all the anti halo people come out of the woodwork to defend woodward and nobody like his site's some be all end all of gaming...

That's one of the first things I thought of after reading his review.

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2kings

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Edited By 2kings

Tom Chick is to video games in 2012, what clerks in record stores were in the 90's. Pedantic, arrogant contrarians with delusions of superiority. Or, everyday in his world is opposite day. I prefer to believe that.

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ch3burashka

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@bartok said:

I wish more people had the balls to write reviews like that Halo 4 one.

There needs to be a clear and definite division between what qualifies as a "review" and what qualifies as an op-ed piece. While I enjoy and appreciate interesting, off-the-wall opinions, the purpose of a review is very tangential and measurable - whether or not to invest money in a product. People like Chick and Sterling are entertaining to read, whether because you agree with them or they ruffle your feathers, but they do a greater disservice than a, well, service to the review "industry". In the days of Metacritic, a 4 for Assassin's Creed 2 makes much less sense when every single other fucking outlet gives it a 9 or 10, not because they have the wool pulled over their eyes but because it's a quality product. I don't give a shit if some internet asshole wasn't completely satisfied with what they imagined they were getting into.

It doesn't take balls to write an inflammatory "review" and rile up gamers. It takes balls to put your ego in its fucking place and do your fucking job. The GB crew have more "balls" than Chick or Sterling can ever hope to have.

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torafuma

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Edited By torafuma

Save the day is awesome! Should be going to sleep, but... I... must... keep... saving... stupid...kids!!! :)

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superfriend

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Edited By superfriend

Hey Patrick (and some of the guys over at GB), you should play more games. At least play em before you blurt out opinions on em. That´s sort of like your job, you know. I know a lot of you are probably burnt out on games and especially shooters, but come ON. It´s Halo 4. You have to play this if you´re in this industry.

This is almost as ridiculous as Brads weird Assassins Creed Deal. How can you even talk about Game of the Year when you didn´t play half the stuff that has come out? And for what reasons? Because you´re a fucking compulsive feather collector? Fuck that.

In this case I sense Patrick has pretty much already made up his mind about some of the blockbuster titles coming out this fall/winter and is trying to reinforce his weird stance by going to articles from Tom Chick. Of all the guys on the internet. Tom Chick.

Look, I´m a big Halo fan and even I´m gonna say that Halo 4 is not as good as it could be. The campaign is too short and it has other pretty serious issues. But is it anything as bad as this "review" (it should be called "site-view-gatherer") makes it sound like? No, no way in hell. This guy is just attention grabbing. And you´re more than happy to spread the word. So, would playing the game actually increase your knowledge and ability to talk about it without quoting fucking Tom Chick? Hint: Yes, it would.

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downandmean

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Edited By downandmean

I'm not sure why so many people enjoy Tom Chick's writing. I've always felt like he's only writing in this way because he loves all the attention that he gets from being contradictory on EVERYTHING. I just choose to skip a step and not follow him at all. Hmmmm.

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Davvyk

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Edited By Davvyk

You can guarantee when Patrick comes round to playing Halo 4, he wont like it. He's like movie critics, rating games on how many intelligent things he can think to say about the game rather than the game itself.

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SpartyOn

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Edited By SpartyOn

@CH3BURASHKA said:

@bartok said:

I wish more people had the balls to write reviews like that Halo 4 one.

There needs to be a clear and definite division between what qualifies as a "review" and what qualifies as an op-ed piece. While I enjoy and appreciate interesting, off-the-wall opinions, the purpose of a review is very tangential and measurable - whether or not to invest money in a product. People like Chick and Sterling are entertaining to read, whether because you agree with them or they ruffle your feathers, but they do a greater disservice than a, well, service to the review "industry". In the days of Metacritic, a 4 for Assassin's Creed 2 makes much less sense when every single other fucking outlet gives it a 9 or 10, not because they have the wool pulled over their eyes but because it's a quality product. I don't give a shit if some internet asshole wasn't completely satisfied with what they imagined they were getting into.

It doesn't take balls to write an inflammatory "review" and rile up gamers. It takes balls to put your ego in its fucking place and do your fucking job. The GB crew have more "balls" than Chick or Sterling can ever hope to have.

Correct. The entire point of a review is to allow a consumer to make an educated judgement of whether or not they will enjoy a particular game, and this article here made me doubt if Patrick gets that....particularly this line: "What do you want from your reviews? Do you want someone to reaffirm your preconceived notions about a game, or do you want to be challenged, and look at a game in a new light?"

I don't like the fact that a journalist defines reviews this way, because it isn't at all what I want from them. Patrick seems to get a hard-on for this type of journalism, which is fine, but it IS NOT what reviews are meant for. Hate to say it, but Patrick doesn't really have much credibility from me as far as objective analysis goes...I don't think he's capable of it. I tried reaching out to Patrick through a PM to see how exactly he defines a review, and what he believes their purpose to be, but as of yet I haven't received a response.

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Edited By TheVampireBoy

I disagree with Toms review, it just sounds like the ramblings of Yahtzee from escapist magazine; and come on people, do you really take in to consideration the ranting of a cynical English dude when you're weighing the option of buying games? His review is what I call half baked; he's only touching the small parts of what I thought was a much deeper story line then any other halo game which has came before it. It was more philosophical then its predecessors in certain points and it had some great plot points through out the narrative. Sure, there were points when the story did get a little tiresome, but that happens in all forms of media; whether it's books or films, lulls in plots are bound to happen. They're a device which is supposed to build any sense of tension or anxiety whilst giving people the right amount of exposition, they break up the action and help set a sense of pacing for transitioning from one engagement to the next.

Another thing I like about halo 4' campaign was the interplay between characters, I have always loved the banter between chief and Cortana; but this time it felt a little more grounded and serious in places. I liked the sense of roll reversal, that something synthetic and artificial was worrying about its own mortality whilst chief came across as even more machine like and distant from the rest of humanity. Chief gave me the impression that he didn't want to help out humanity this time, a part of me thinks he doesn't really care anymore. He's like John Mc'clain, the wrong place at the wrong time; he saves humanity not because he wants to, but because he has to. And there is a difference between wanting to and having to.

I think Tom isn't really a deep thinking kind of gamer. His comments come across as a call of duty player bashing halo for what it doesn't have but call of duty has, like "Halo sucks because you can't get air strikes and stuff like that." No, we just prefer to do our own killing and not throw it down to a 'be all and end all' predator strike. But I'm getting side tracked there, Tom has missed the point big time; he refuses to see the bigger picture and dive deeper in to the story. He also doesn't seem to realize that the campaign doesn't stop after the credits, there is spartan ops; which is pretty damn good so far.

Anyways, halo 4 is probably the best game of 2012. It's design is fantastic, it sounds amazing and its vision to strive to become more is just breathtaking. I gave the game a good 9.5/10 (because I think competitive multi-player is pretty crappy and nothing more then a soul grind.) But Toms review, 0/10. It's just an asinine rant with no constructive criticism or anything worthwhile. Reviewers like that come across as pretty dull people, and granted, I can be like that from time to time with certain games ( I love tearing call of duty games apart.). But we all have out tastes, at least write something worthwhile about them.