Update on updates
Since I’ve decided to start doing things again, I should be making more blog posts soon.
For now:
Reading Kotaku is a great way to start hating both the game industry and games journalism. They’re pretty much fanboys of the worst sort (the ones who don’t think they’re fanboys) and the only thing worthwhile about their site is the comments section (sometimes good, other times filled with retarded console warriors) and their frequency of updates. As the antidote to IGN, GameSpot and whatever else they are nearly as bad as the poison. The Escapist is sometimes good, RockPaperShotgun I should read more of, but overall I don’t think a good “games are art” journalism rag has sprung up, partly because there isn’t demand for one. Let me just throw in a little Metacritic hate here because apparently thats the standard by which publishers/developers judge their critical success. Obviously review scores are important, but the reliance on them as a way of measuring your game is silly. Game reviewers judge against the industry standard which is generally crap. I’m not saying that game reviewers should start calling all games crap and comparing their stories to Hollywood movies or novels (rather unfavorably, of course), but that critics could be a little harsher, expect a little more than just a change of art style or a new level of polish of gameplay that’s been done to death. Strike a balance between pretension and the industry’s low standards for itself (or its economic realities, mostly). The reason to be slightly mean is that despite those economic realities the industry could still be making games at a creative level leaps and bounds above what it is. In discovering the casual user and his $$$ the industry still hasn’t made a game for everyman that’s truly good, and the Wii gathers dust in the corner. Pleasing both the hardcore and casual users while making a true next-gen experience is a great pitch to a publisher but doesn’t tickles the senses in reality. [/endrant]