Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism: Fallout 3

Strap your arms to your sides before you read this, or you may gouge your eyes from your skull before the paragraph’s out:

“It’s hard to pin down the problem, but there is a reason why, however intelligent we may be, we mostly read Henning Mankell ahead of Tolstoy and watch Woody Allen instead of Bergman. There comes a point in the evolution of any art form – and releases like this make any quibbling over games’ claims to such status laughable – when the supposed masters of it leave the mass audience behind. It’s probably inevitable, by no means a bad thing and mostly explainable in terms of mostly finite consumer qualities. In other words, the amount of effort, time or brains that you can bring to the table will play a large part in determining how deeply you can appreciate an artwork’s quality. If you’re not convinced by the thesis, have a look at Ulysses.”

The Daily Mail’s James O’Brien’s Fallout 3 review… sorry, thesis.

RR Most Ridiculous Statement Masquerading As Games Journalism 2008: IGN Australia

Our personal favourite award threw up some gems, but fuck knows, there’s plenty out there to choose from. The winner has dropped straight from the encrusted slit of a game that’s proven to be an efficient shit magnet in its effectiveness at drawing together the assorted things cunts say – none other than the RR Most Overrated Pile Of Shite 2008 winner, Little Shit Planet. Here’s IGN Australia’s take on it:

‘On the surface, LittleBigPlanet is all about jumping and stickers and rainbows and ponies and having a good time with friends. But if you delve deeper and look past the infectiously approachable presentation, there’s something far more curious at play. LittleBigPlanet is actually all about the fundamentals of cause and effect relationships, man in his environment and how we relate to the world around us.’

“No, it isn’t. It’s a game about sackboys.”

Dan de la peche, via Facebook


The notable nominations list sees another nod to IGN, this time featuring shit-speak about GTA4:

“IGN’s GTAIV review includes such eyebrow-raising lines as:”

‘Helicopters are also very tough to control in this fashion – it’s as if Rockstar thought they were making a game about dragons.’

“What?”

‘Go to location, kill people to get to target, chase target, kill target -- it never feels repetitive.’

“Not at all! Even if it is simply the same formula repeated from its predecessors.”

Melaisis, via website


And finally, it’s only right and proper that our favourite award should include a mention of our favourite magazine:

‘Gaming magazine and website, Edge, announced at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival that it has awarded its fourth Award for Innovation to Bungie’s popular Halo 3.

‘Halo 3, just as Halo 2 did before it, presents a roadmap for the way online will be integrated into videogames in the coming year,’ said Alex Wiltshire, Deputy Editor of Edge.’

“What a pile of fucking horseshit.”

Anonymous Knight, via email

Why Mainstream Press Shouldn’t Cover Games: A Ridiculous Statements Special

If you follow the blog, you might have seen some Anonymous Knights commenting on a BBC “news” story allegedly about games. The piece was apparently written by Daniel Emery (us!) and Andrew Webb, although why they felt the need to share out the literal four sentences that introduce two paragraphs of straight-up quotes is a mystery.

The quotes are from Future’s John Houlihan (we know him – he’s better than this shit) and Shiny Media’s Zara Ravinowicz (note to self: never read anything from Shiny Media, or by Zara Ravinowicz).

If you can’t be arsed to click through, an Anonymous Knight pulled out the best quote:

“You need to get a game that lasts more than an hour. With the credit crunch, people are going out less, so you need to get a decent bang for your buck. Platform or fighting games are good; just make sure it’s properly interactive.”

It’s not even worth beginning to dissect all the cuntiness crammed into that paragraph because it should all be obvious to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together what’s wrong with it. I’m choking on my own fucking rage here just reading it back again.

Here’s the vid that goes with it, so you too can choke on your own fucking rage from the comfort of your home/office:



In other news, let’s all laugh at the man’s funny name:

“Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- PartyGaming Plc’s founder and former director, Anurag Dikshit, pleaded guilty to illegal Internet gambling.”

Ridiculous Statements: A Sequel

Why should only games (and films, and books, etc etc) have sequels when there’s just as much fun to be had with Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism? As an early Christmas present just for you, dear readers, Tim Edwards has busted out his stash of uncomfortably short sentences for a second time. So that he. Can carry on. Talking about. Far. Cry 2:

“I was crouched in waving grass, scouting a guard-post. It was dark and I felt safe. I watched a truck winding along a dirt track. I waited. A zebra wandered past. I started to sneak toward the camp. As the guards turned, I hid behind a tree. But then I got bored.”

PC Gamer’s Tim Edwards on why he likes Far Cry 2. Still.

>Run Shit-Filter v.2.0

**BEEP**BEEP**BUZZ**

THANK YOU FOR ACTIVATING THE GAMES REVIEW SHIT-FILTER TRANSLATOR PROGRAMME

PLEASE INPUT SHIT:

“Attempting to persuade catatonic big rigs around an anfractuous Gordian knot of narrow dirt roads remains a torturous exercise in futility.”

**BEEP**BEEP**WHIRR**BUZZ**

TRANSLATION:

“Driving the big vehicles is hard.”

THANK YOU FOR USING THE GAMES REVIEW SHIT-FILTER TRANSLATOR PROGRAMME SPONSORED BY EDGE

END OF LINE


***
Suggested by an Anonymous Knight regarding a dribble of semen running down the leg of Edge’s anfractuous review of Motorstorm: Pacific Rift.

Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism: The Daily Mail

In case you’re still pondering what to nominate for the RR Award for the Most Ridiculous Statement Masquerading As Games Journalism (as if), here’s another couple of entries to add to the list:


“If you were to imagine playing a Sims character within a fantasy adventure full of side missions and surprises you would be heading in the right direction.”

The Daily Mail’s James O’Brien reinvents the action-RPG genre in his review of Fable 2. A game which, frankly, is second only to Braid in terms of attracting reviews consisting of two thousand words of waffling bollocks that abjectly fails to tell the reader about the game in anything approaching an entertaining or informative way. COUGH*EUROGAMER*COUGH*EDGE*COUGH


“Bikes, when you think about it, should lend themselves to video games more readily than cars – they are smaller and accelerate faster.”

The Daily Mail’s James O’Brien barely manages to stop short of adding “and they go brrrroooom” to his review of MotoGP 08.

***

We’ll be announcing the first RR Award winners soon. The voting will stay open for all categories until they’re individually announced, but we’re going to leave the Most Overrated Pile Of Shite Award until last so you have chance to vote for November’s releases. Like, say, Mirror’s Edge.

Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism: Far Cry 2

“You have two options. You can leave her to die in pain. Or you can euthanize her. You put a gun to her mouth. She’s in so much pain she practically swallows it whole. She wants you to kill her. So you do.”

PC Gamer’s Tim Edwards describes the fate of the sub-ed who was the first to read his review of Far Cry 2. In very short. Sentences.

Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism: Braid Special

You must have heard of Braid. It’s an above-average but overpriced puzzle-platformer out for Xbox Live Arcade. Because it’s August and there’s not much about, and because Braid’s story was written by sixth-form philosophy students taking the piss, some people have got a little too excited about it. As a service to you, dear reader, we’re going to spare you from having to plough through the very worst efforts of a couple of reviewers by calling them up right here, right now.

First up, the Unreliable Eurogamer’s 10/10 review by Dan Whitehead:

“Its creative importance reminds me most of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal graphic novel, Watchmen. Both are works of homage and deconstruction, commentaries on the way we interact with their respective media.”

Or maybe it’s just a puzzle-platform game, and has fuck all to do with a graphic novel.

“His mission is to find a princess. She's not a literal princess though, but a metaphor - the romantic cliché of that perfect soul mate as filtered through popular videogame motifs. In the context of Braid's melancholy mood, it becomes a bona fide commentary on the human condition.”

Still on the subject of the story (which really is awful), Whitehead goes on to recite straight from the pages of Things Cunts Say. We’ve italicised the offending portion:

“You can sprint past these sections, should you wish, but to do so means missing the point quite spectacularly. Surrender to the game's reflective intentions and it can be quite profound. I have no problem admitting that I found myself thinking about people and places that I'd not considered for years. Relationships that ended too soon. Some that went on far too long. Memories that no longer seem reliable. Others that are still painfully vivid.”

So see a fucking shrink. And stop fiddling with yourself.

Anyway, the music – it’s quite basic, but fits the style of the game nicely. Or, if you’re a twat:

“Music box nursery rhymes play off against levels that explore the friction between childhood and adult freedoms.”

Brace yourselves now, readers, for you’re about to experience the holy grail of games reviewing. It’s… THE SENTENCE FROM HELL:

“You could argue that by using the doomed romanticism of an introspective male as its core that the game is treading clichéd creative soil but in a medium as emotionally stunted as videogames it still represents an enormous leap towards realising the potential of the form.”

And to round it all off, Whitehead rewards anyone who’s miraculously got to the end of the review without emptying both barrels of a shotgun into their own skull by throwing in one of the cuntiest entries from the Things Cunts Say canon:

“Still wondering if games can be art? Here's your answer.”

According to Whitehead, the answer is “10”. For anyone who isn’t a cunt, the answer is “no”.

Just so the usual crowd of green tea sipping hippies don’t start whinging to us that we’re picking on Whitehead / EG, here’s a cheeky little something from Xbox World 360’s Michael Gapper:

“In a world without Mario and Valve and the Bethesda hit factory Braid is indeed the best game ever made.”

That’s right, Gapper – and if your aunt had a big hairy pair of bollocks swinging between her legs, she’d be your uncle.

We were going to work our way down the list in MetaCritic to bring you more, but we’ve just given in to the compulsion to rip the sound card from our PC and flagellate our own faces with it.