SagaciousJones

@TruthTellah said:

I don't like that Schreier felt he had to chime in, but I think you're missing his point. He linked to an article explaining how Forbes went from a straight news site to an open contributor site structure, aka. a "content farm". http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/173743/what-the-forbes-model-of-contributed-content-means-for-journalism/ Kotaku and the Gawker Network do thrive on finding content around the Internet, but they don't have an open article structure. They have established writers accumulating content. That's different than setting up a site to primarily accept submitted content.

A content farm is designed around generating pageviews via key-word recognition by search engines. Stating that Forbes is similar is a baseless insult made ironic when Kotaku uses its dedicated editorial staff to post youtube videos on their site so they'll pop up when you google trending video games.

@PHenry1991 said:

@SagaciousJones: Oh boy. Schrier is trying to fan the flames and get himself a higher profile. "The other guy trying to ruin Kains career." Stay classy journalism.

The best part is him trying call Kain out on "not researching" for the article when Kotaku is the guilty one there. They ran a story about Nightmare Busters claiming that "a new Super Nintendo game" was being created, completely failing to mention it was actually just vaporware. Kain's article is a direct response to this inaccuracy, pointing out the reality behind the game's availability--look at the title. His link to the emulator (NOT the rom) was to demonstrate how he actually bothered to research the game before writing about it, unlike Kotaku.

More fuel for the fire: Jason Schreier, a Kotaku writer, has been joining in against Kain by trying to write Forbes off as a "content farm" (hilarious given the site he works for is responsible for such quality content as "check out this youtube video I saw").

Keep in mind that Kotaku has published previously published an article providing you meticulous instructions on how to emulate Wii games.

@ReaganStein said:

@Milkman: Yea, this is actually something I've been wondering. I remember on a podcast jeff going on and on about basically his own roms off of carts, but I can't remember what system it was for or anything. I feel like it had multiple hookups for a variety of carts though.

Was he talking about the Retrode?

@Rappelsiini said:

it's okay to block dicks on twitter

I think everyone can agree on that. It's just that obnoxious "Blocked! ;)" attitude that people use to shut down dissenting opinions that I have trouble with.

@Rappelsiini said:

It's just hard to believe that someone would seriously summarize game critics and journalist as fanboys. That's just ignorant.

Not fanboys. Fans. The first implies a certain level of irrationality and immaturity. The latter just implies a degree of positive bias. Much more eloquent discussions on this issue have been written by...guess who? Forbes!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/03/22/mass-effect-3-gears-of-war-3-and-why-reviewers-fail/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/23/do-positive-mass-effect-3-reviews-reveal-a-conflict-of-interest-in-gaming-journalism/

@StarFoxA said:

@SagaciousJones: Oh, I wasn't saying it is a lack of integrity, just that I can understand how it comes across that way. I missed the site that Kain linked to, but I'm sure it was one of many browser based emulators that contain hundreds of games, so I don't understand how he could have confused it for an official source. I guess it was just a really dumb mistake, which is forgiveable.

Fair enough, but Kain's rationale was that since the game was never commercially released, then the fact that the game is available at all, regardless of where you get it, suggests that the creators must have put it out there for people to play. Under that reasoning, any copy, even a scummy emulator site copy, would be a legal one.

@StarFoxA said:

I'll concede that it may have been an honest mistake on Kain's part, but he really shouldn't have linked to a site to play the game in an article about its upcoming release, it just comes across as a lack of integrity.

How is it a matter of integrity? Kain was linking to what he thought was a legitimate means to play the game released by the creators, something like those other games available for free online that also have physical carts for collectors.When someone informed him otherwise, he retracted his mistake and owned up to it (rather than block his critics like Ben).

Eric Kain, a gaming blogger at Forbes, wrote an article about an old never-released game getting made as a SNES cart for $60. In his discussion, he used the game's availability on emulators as evidence that the game was originally made many years ago. He incorrectly assumed that because the game was never released commercially, the ROMs available online weren't illegal and must have been released by the creators. Ben Kuchera, of the Penny Arcade Report, took this mistake as grounds to attack Kain's (and Forbe's) credibility and smear him as a piracy advocate.

Eric Kain has since edited the article and admitted to the mistaken assumption, citing his previous articles AGAINST piracy.

But this hasn't stopped Kuchera from attacking Kain.

The context of all this is that Kain has written a large number of articles calling out mainstream gaming journalism. He was one of few writers to approach the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy from the consumer's point of view and just recently he tried to understand the perspective of DmC critics instead of dismissing them.Kain is also an outspoken critic of the gaming review process.Somewhere along the line, Kain's reasonable journalistic perspective has outraged Kuchera enough to throw a fit on twitter. Maybe he doesn't like the image in the mirror when Kain criticizes his brand of journalism? It's highly entertaining to see Kain handle it with such professionalism.

*Edit: fixed wonky formatting

@Yummylee said:

Dante might as well be a mute (also where did the coin thing come from) and the way cutscenes just end makes the game feel unfinished. From the few bosses that I fought, some don't even have any kind of introduction! It's like literally entering a room and, oh, I guess I'm fighting this giant tentacle monster now for some reason. The bosses themselves are also poorly designed, like that aforementioned tentacle boss, where I didn't even know how to beat it exactly.
...

DMC2 feels like it has no identity. It's all so incredibly monotonous and boring that I can finally understand why so many people have gone so far as to essentially disallow the idea that this game even exists.

While I agree that the execution is terrible and the completely wrong direction for the series, I actually think there is something to be found in DMC2. A bit of something. This Something Awful post describes it fairly well:

DMC2 was from a very long time ago and I don't really intend to go back, so this might have some major holes in it:

I remember that the second game had this real sense of a world that's been beaten. Not just the destroyed city backgrounds and corporate control enforced by demonic helicopters, not post apocalyptic- everything was just sort of grimy, unpleasant, and, well, broken. DMC 3's architecture was samey and bland in a lot of ways but it always had an oppressive tone to its design, holding an implicit challenge to Dante, his brashness, and your playstyle. DMC 2 was just mugging your way through the dredge. Dante had a lot less energy, and he didn't talk much. The weapons, which are usually a burst of creativity, were a step backwards from even the original game. They create a Dante that is more concerned with a practical spread of weapons than flaming fists or electric bat guitars. I can't remember Lucia's deal other than being a robot, which, really, is as bereft of humanity as you can get. And the recurring image is Dante's double sided coin, not so much a "devil with a heart of gold" move, but a halfhearted attempt to make it look like he's detached from something he's inevitably going to do. It was another fight for a tired man in a tired world.

Just glancing at Accounting Nightmare's LP of the game, I see that the game opens in a museum fighting for a literal relic of the past and ends with Dante fighting the most ridiculous amalgamation of demons, the metaphorical sludge of impersonal, aimless evil that Dante's been fighting the whole game.

Edit: I know other games have gone for the tired, beaten protagonist more recently. MGS4 did a fantastic job, I think, and from what I've heard Splinter Cell and Max Payne have gone in similar directions. Does that sound accurate? How did fans react to that?