PoB

I like many of the rest of you am a knowledge minion, constantly seeking little tidbits and  facts.  I’d like to bring your attention to a little sub category called game previews, Today’s gaming journalism consists of a lot of previews specifically during these summer months.  I feel a need to address some of the faults in these articles.

These previews should always contain a dash of mercy since the game is still being developed, but I believe it has all gone to far.  When a preview today is read the writer points how a game has bad controls or a repetitive and overused fighting system, saying the developer can fix this before launch.  About five months later the game is reviewed and it has the same bugs as oh so long ago.  An example would be game Advent Rising.  In a preview by GameSpot they state

“The game uses the latest Unreal technology on both the PC and Xbox to power its visuals, and the environments and character models have a solid and cohesive look that’s characteristic of that engine. The environments we saw–which [was] situated aboard a space station and on some lush alien world had a detailed look, and there were some pretty impressive lighting effects on offer as well.”

In the review of the game it’s stated that, “Advent Rising doesn’t have much going on from an aesthetical perspective, either. The art design is boring and terribly derivative,” and that “The human characters are bizarrely designed, with legs that take up two-thirds of their bodies, and they feature altogether bland costume designs.”  Now that sounds like the exact opposite of the preview. (yes I did single out opposing quotes but still)

I’m saying not all journalists should become super jaded and cry out “crap game” at every booth in E3.  But it’s the “they’re trying their best” behavior that’s journalists take upon themselves with previews.  If I may find my inner Yahtzee with a description, “it’s like saying the kid who still uses diapers in kindergarten is a ‘little slow’.”  Furthering my usage of examples I’ll bring up the über Japanese game Blue Dragon.  In a preview by 1up.com they state that “The story follows Shu, Jiro, and Kluke, three kids from the village of Talta… Marumaro, a squat little creature from the Devee tribe, and Zola, an older female mercenary.”  That’s the kind of Japanese crap that reminds why I never want to go there.  The review makes a statement similar to my criticism:

“You’ve got Shu, who looks like an emaciated Saiyan who somehow escaped from Dragon Ball Z, Kluke, a little girl who seems about 10 years old but sports a disturbingly considerable bustline, Jiro, a boy (seriously, this guy’s so nondescript that that’s his defining feature), and Marumaro, a perpetually squinting, constantly screeching cat/bat creature who’s made of annoying and harbors a disturbing cross-species fetish for your final companion: Zola, an icy female mercenary. She’s definitely the coolest of the bunch — not coincidentally, she’s also the only one who appears to be over the age of 12.”

Harsh words, harsh words for a strange game.

So, yeah that sums it up.  Journalists are making statements about games that are later retracted or are given a Mercy point for earliness of development.

Next week I chastise games based off TV shows!