Ironic Comment Of The Day

An interview linked to by videogaming247.com caught our eye today. Dan Houser, Rockstar’s co-founder and “creative VP”, had this to say:

“The intellectual property is the main asset in the company. That’s why “GTA” is still relevant 10 years later. We haven’t put one out every year. We haven’t fleeced it. And we haven’t put it on 50 different formats.”

We’d like to personally congratulate Rockstar for not being tempted to fleece GTA by putting one out every year on 50 different formats, as it must have taken a gargantuan level of restraint to settle for only releasing GTA, GTA: London, GTA 2, GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: Vice City Stories, GTA: San Andreas, GTA: San Andreas Stories, and GTA IV, on the PC, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation, Dreamcast, PS2, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, and PS3 in less than a decade.

We’d also like to say “well done!” in a hearty fashion for their treatment of several review outlets, as only the very finest companies pick and choose who they let in for their love-ins based on whether they’ve given them good review scores in the past. Good going, guys, and you just keep on bribing those reviewers with freebies, because it’s not like the readers will ever find out.

N’Gai Croal: An Academic Responds

We’ve never been accused of being the home of reasoned debate, but we received this response to N’Gai Croal’s Racist Evil 5 rant from an Anonymous Knight. It makes us sad to see that the internet’s so full of ignorance that anyone trying to argue that there’s not only another side to the argument, but that the other side doesn’t have to be racist, is instantly vilified. So we’ve put the whole piece here for you to make up your own mind:


“I never thought I’d live to see the day when the faux-intelligentsia of games journalism declared all out war on the common gamer. By the faux-intelligentsia, I am of course referring to all of those who have sat through a sixth-form philosophy class, or once read a whole book on politics, and like to drop what they remember into any discussion about gaming like bricks into a playpen. The kind of second-rate hack that’s so insecure about the legitimacy of gaming, they have to start flinging in giveaway words like “lifestyle”, “culture”, and “motif” to persuade fellow members of the faux-intelligentsia that the videogame they’re talking about is actually an allegory of a subject that’s of world importance. Dare to question the mutual respect of the faux-intelligentsia, and risk getting shouted down as an unenlightened halfwit.

So, N’Gai Croal, then. A games journalist of no great relevance nets himself an enormous amount of attention by accusing a large development team of being racist. The trailer in question is for the trashiest of big-name franchises, Resident Evil. The teaser in question is overblown and cheesy, even slightly embarrassing as it depicts the tight-topped Chris Redfield pacing into town and becoming embroiled in a host of clumsy firefights with zombies straight out of any Romero movie, replete with a dopey voice-over.

Everybody who has half a brain is aware of the world’s shameful history when it comes to matters of slavery, disregard of basic human rights and terrible treatment of black persons, amongst others. In a world where this kind of treatment was both commonplace and not considered at the time to be utterly wrong lends support to the argument that we should be reminded frequently about just how bad this situation used to be in order to avoid it happening again.

Modern day society has little time for outmoded and flawed theories of the black man being inferior to the white; the positivistic studies which pushed entire nations towards thinking that, in criminological terms, races can be cleansed by the genetically superior super-beings to eradicate the pollution of their own race and discard the criminal element in a Darwinistic fight for the survival of the fittest. Yet Charles Murray, the US right-wing social theorist, still argues that the “underclasses”, particularly black persons, are of lower than average intelligence. Until the 1970s, the state of Virginia was actively sterilising those found to be “feebleminded”. Whilst it’s easy to point the finger at Hitler’s Germany taking ethnic cleansing to tragic levels, it is uncomfortable to recall that Churchill’s pre-war view and social policies took on a lower level support for such theories.

A thankfully low minority (although any number is still too many) will fail to acknowledge that the historical episodes Croal refers to, amongst many others, were far from the finest hours of the nations involved, whether the United States, the British Empire, or otherwise.

I wonder, then, how many of this majority – the decent gamer who despises racism – were amongst those who disagreed with Croal’s comments, only to be shouted down in an abusive manner by other commentators. Many of the issues that have been raised by these gamers have been absolutely valid, yet have not been greeted with the courtesy of a reasoned response.

Croal has made a serious allegation. Whilst it is likely that the development team at Capcom responsible for producing and designing Resident Evil 5 predominantly (if not entirely) consists of Japanese males, one still has to feel sorry for them as the sudden accusation of racism is thrust at them. As far as can be seen from the brief trailer (and that is all that these comments are based upon), Capcom have done no more or no less than any number of developers. Whether pitching the gamer against a glut of Germans, mowing them down indiscriminately without stopping to question their views on the party some have been made to fight for, or even asking the gamer to become the Nazis fighting against the Allied forces – the practice is commonplace.

Some argue that intention is not a relevant factor, but this is quite simply not true. There wasn’t an eyelid batted when GTA: San Andreas arrived, despite the potential for its black central protagonist to be mistaken for the stereotypical rap-loving, gang-raping, drug-dealing “gangsta” worrying the good multicultural folk going about their daily business. That’s because that character was merely that: a character, placed in a scenario for the purpose of narrative in an open-ended games world, where you could indiscriminately murder any nationality you wish.

To take a game where the zombies are black and the protagonist is white for reasons of narrative and accuse it of being a racist premise is to do a great many injustices. It cheapens the issue of racism, which is dangerous. It alienates the audience you’re supposed to be writing for, to be supporting, by telling them that their right to enjoy a simple videogame is contested. Any commentator who has pig-ignorantly attacked these people for stating their views on the matter, to question their moral fortitude for simply arguing that they don’t see the game as racist, is beyond contempt.

And worst of all from Croal’s perspective, he’s shown himself up as a charlatan. By throwing around serious allegations in the same casual manner that MP Keith Vaz wrongly associates videogames with the murder of one of his constituents, and that Jack Thompson wrongly associates videogames with just about everything that’s broken in the world, he’s destroyed his own credibility. The real tragedy is that he’s taken down with him the thin veneer of maturity the games industry has been trying to build up for itself for so long.

For the sake of some cheap column inches, N’Gai Croal has hurt much of what he purports to love. I hope his new-found notoriety was worth it.”

Officially Corrupt “World Exclusive” GTA IV “Review” From The Officially Corrupt Xbox 360 Magazine

If you’re sick of that embargo-busting dogshit review we posted last week of Grand Theft Auto 4, you’ll be jumping up and down with apathy at the news that a good citizen has scanned in the Officially Corrupt “World Exclusive” GTA IV “review” from the Officially Corrupt Xbox 360 Magazine. Y’know, the one they’ve been banging on about in full-page ads for the last three months.

The game predictably receives 10/10 which, by the Officially Corrupt Xbox 360 Magazine’s standards, makes it just as good as Perfect Dark Zero. For us, the stand-out quote from the review is this:

“Rockstar was still making the final tweaks as I played, so I can’t say whether my minor grumbles – the cover system stumbling in box-filled environments, slightly over-enthusiastic target lock-on, the occasional pop-up – will be present in the box you buy in two weeks’ time.”

Now hang on – surely you’re not saying you reviewed unfinished code? Surely you’re not admitting that this 9-page Rockstar love-in is actually a preview, what with it not being based on finished code?

We’re curious whether Jon Hicks (who’s a decent fellow, so we’re not giving him any shit) would have still awarded a score of 10/10 if the finished game was riddled with pop-up and had an unreliable cover and combat mechanism.

Whilst we’re asking him, you can read the (p)review here so you don’t have to do anything silly like buying a magazine that’s not satisfied with being merely corrupt, but is no less than Officially Corrupt. Go, Team Future!

[EDIT] Jon Hicks very politely declined to comment specifically when we asked him if he would have given the game a 10 if the unfinished code was sold in that state, and he also passed up the opportunity to settle the big question on everybody's lips: is GTA 4 better than Perfect Dark Zero? He did point out that he stands by his review, though. Thanks, Jon Hicks!

A Good Question

Amongst the many and varied emails we received during our brief hiatus was this tale from an Anonymous Knight. He’s a freelancer who apparently has some experience in the business, and poses a question to editors that we think they’ll find quite tricky to answer. Take it away, Anonymous Knight:


“I sent out personally addressed emails to carefully selected editors of a variety of periodicals, big and small. If I didn’t get a reply, I followed up with a conventional letter. In each case, I always offered a couple of ideas for articles.

The only responses I got were from people I knew already. The majority did not bother even to reply.

It seems that most journalists in high positions are not interested in authors they do not already know, or ideas which challenge them to think. Either that or they’re not interested in communicating with would-be contributors outside their social circle.

When I used to write mailed letters offering articles I got an answer to every single one and many of them resulted in mutually rewarding work. Perhaps email enables us to not communicate more effectively than ever before.

The Guardian’s George Monbiot, for instance, invites feedback from his website, but replies to emails with an automatically generated message saying that he is too busy to answer them.

I’m busy too and I have been in the commissioning seat. And it would never occur to me not to acknowledge an email, let alone a letter, which is written to me personally. At least, “thanks, but no thanks,” which takes ten seconds to type and send; it’s just courtesy.

My intention here is not to moan but to solicit information. I’d love to hear from any fellow journalists, especially editors, how they like to receive information and what their policy is on responding to ideas they receive.”


Editors – you can send your answers to the usual address. After all, you’re not all a bunch of jobs-for-the-boys nepotistic tits who ignore stuff that’s from people you don’t know, or aren’t from eager readers doing your job for you for free at the right time. Are you…?

RR Corruption Or Lie Of 2007: Sony

Despite a late flurry of votes for the shameful Gamespot Jeff Gerstmann corruption, Sony still managed to stay comfortably ahead with yet another year packed full of lies, back-pedalling, and shameless bullshitting about the PS3.

Despite years of heckling as press release after never ending press release packed full of lies are issued to the games industry, Sony has still somehow failed to turn the PS3 around into something that isn’t entirely shit.

Read UK:R for some hardcore Sony-baiting, as Cutlack has more time on his hands than we do. We’ll just conclude the mighty RAM Raider Awards 2007 with this video which, despite starting out fairly amusingly, turns into sheer hilarity when Phil Harrison quotes are layered into the soundtrack:

Congratulations, Sony – The RAM Raider salutes you.

RR Most Ridiculous Statement Masquerading As Games Journalism 2007: BioShock Review For PC Gamer By Tom Francis

A new category for this year’s awards, the “Most Ridiculous Statement” entries had us torn between screaming with laughter and sobbing with despair. We were surprised at first that there weren’t more entries from Edge, considering you could drop it into a turd and the chances are it would fall open onto a page full of eligible prose, but that would mean admitting to reading the bollock cloth.

PC Gamer’s very own Tom Francis, a man accustomed to thinking he’s writing his sixth-form philosophy and politics homework when typing out games reviews, lifts the trophy for his raping of BioShock. Take it away, Anonymous Knight:

“Tom Francis, for his review of Bioshock, in which we discover the man - who obviously suffers from a form of mental premature ejaculation - celebrating how much the game was like System Shock 2, while exaggerating like an utter cunt about how good it was. In his review he wrote:

‘BioShock had already made me physically gape several times by this stage, but here my mouth fell open and stayed open, only widening further as the scene became more extraordinary with every passing second.’

After which Ken Levine probably thrust his erect member into the mouth of young Tom Francis.”

Anonymous Knight, via comments


Although the entry was for the RR Games Writer Twat Of 2007 award, the inclusion of the statement (and the huge amount of entries we had for that award) saw it getting moved to a more suitable category.

The number two spot also goes to a PC Gamer writer nominated for the Games Writer Twat award:

“Alec Meer (PCGamer)Purely for his The Witcher "review".

A small excerpt for you:

‘It goes something like this: wave the little sword icon over an enemy, click and hold the button down. Realise it's not worked, try again. Eventually a circle appears around the icon and Albino Viggo will start swording. Keep holding until the icon turns orange. Click nownownow to activate a stronger attack, unless the enemy has moved slightly. Repeat.’

Here's a clue for you; if you are going to earn a living reviewing games, at the very least learn how to play the fucking things first. The whole point of the combat is the timing between the clicks, complaining that holding down the button and then clicking frantically like some kind of arthritis ridden spastic doesn’t work; is akin to repeated jamming your car keys into your eyes and then complaining that your car won’t start.

Cunt.”

Ross, via comments


Finally, a dishonourable mention goes to GameSpot for this truly unforgivable sin spotted by a reader:

“‘Ultimately, if you take a step back and look at the big picture, you'll see that real life is an impressive and exciting experience, despite its occasional and sometimes noticeable problems.’

This cunt at Gamespot reviewed "Real life" ROFL ROFL ROFL. Cunt.”

Anonymous Knight, via email


Congratulations, Tom Francis from PC Gamer – The RAM Raider salutes you.

Proud To Be British

The US has E For All. Germany has the Leipzig Games Convention. Japan has the Tokyo Game Show.

And Britain has the London Games Festival…

Top 5 Misconceptions About Games Reviewers

Having a chat with an Anonymous Knight the other day, we smiled wistfully as he said he wouldn’t make a good games reviewer as he didn’t read many magazines. After we’d finished weeping face down into the rug we like to roll around naked on at remembering days when we were that innocent and naïve, it dawned on us that the comment reminded us about something we started on a while ago but never finished – the Top 5 Misconceptions About Games Reviewers. If it educates just one reader or wannabe reviewer, that’s good enough for us.


1 – Games Reviewers Can Write

Games reviewers being a form of journalist, and journalists being a form of writer, it wouldn’t be massively unreasonable to assume they could string together a sentence without fucking something up. It would also be massively wrong. Like all the misconceptions listed here, we’re not saying that it applies to every working games journalist out there. Just a surprisingly large proportion of them.

Most of the time when you read a review, it’s been tidied up by a sub-ed. It’s their job to take the mangled, ridiculous musings of half-cut lunatics and turn them into something readable. One way of cutting through who can write and who can’t is by reading their blogs or forum posts. They’re not edited, so you know that the authors of the decent ones are worthy of their job title. The rest aren’t just being lazy or ironic – they really are shit at writing.

Yes, they can put ideas and comments about games into a paragraph. No, they have no grasp of how to communicate them grammatically correctly or even colloquially.

(Quick note to the person who’ll spend hours trawling the blog for a typo before posting it in the comments box – well done, ten points to you)


2 – Games Reviewers Know About Games

It used to be said by reviews editors that finding an employable games reviewer is incredibly difficult as plenty of people know about games and plenty of people know how to write, but very few people can boast about possessing both accolades. As Misconception 1 decrees, we already know most of them can’t write without letting their dicks get in the way. Not knowing about games, though – isn’t that slightly disappointing?

Most get away with it with their saviour Google, but it’s the over reliance on press releases and PR trips that poses the biggest danger. Walk through a mag office, and you’ll see mountains of games still in their shrinkwrap. Have a conversation with a reviewer about games, and we mean the big releases, and a look of fear darts into their eyes as they realise one wrong move could expose them for the idle, blagging charlatans they often are.

Some of the funniest (in the unintentional sense) days and evenings we’ve had have been with the staff of mags discussing those little compilations of games they like so much, like group tests or top 100 games lists. Major games come up, and three-quarters of the room are shaking their heads having not even heard of them, never mind played them.

In conversation away from the safety of the old boys’ networks, the biggest giveaways are “I haven’t had chance to play that one yet,” or, if you’re a reader, they’ll always pull the “I can’t talk about that yet because of the NDA” cracker (an NDA being a non-disclosure agreement, which reviewers have to sometimes sign when they’ve played unfinished code and the review they’ve cobbled together off the back of it can’t be published until a date commanded by the publisher or PR).

Mag style guides (the instructions telling reviewers the house rules of the mag) invariably instruct reviewers to lie about gaps in their gaming knowledge so you’ll never find out about it. Yep, the mags tell their reviewers to lie – bet you never saw that one coming.


3 – Games Are Given To Reviewers Based On Their Specialist Knowledge

Another promise the mags are printing every month in the header page of their reviews section is the empty pledge that games are matched up to reviewers who are specialists in certain genres. Bollocks.

Most mags have something like a little white board with all their reviewers’ names written on them, and next to the names go the games they’ve been assigned to review. The big games (6-8 pages) will usually go to the staff writer regardless of the genre, because freelancers get paid by the word and will get assigned whatever small time shit that’s left over randomly, and that includes pickings for staffers from mags completely unrelated to gaming as an old boy favour. As well as avoiding a payout, this also sidesteps the problem of sending the reviewer to the PR/publisher’s office for a day or two to play it, as only freelancers who have their dicks very firmly wedged up an editor’s arse (i.e. ex-staffers) will get an expenses-bonanza like that.

For lesser games, you’ll find that shit which nobody else wants like the flight sims and the hardcore strategy dross does sometimes go to the peculiar specimen in the freelance pool who really does like those kinds of game. The trouble there though is they almost always overrate games from their specialist genre. Got a hardcore racing sim that nobody who plays games for fun will enjoy? Then it'll get 85%, because they like hardcore racing sims that nobody who plays games for fun will enjoy.

We’re tempted to launch into our argument about why more than one reviewer should play every game reviewed here, but that’s for another post.


4 – Games Reviewers Always Complete Their Games

This one is excusable for several reasons. First up, it’s rarely necessary to complete a game to get a decent write up from it. A day or two, or a few respectably sized evening sessions, gives you everything you need to know about whether the code is worth spending money on.

Second up, when a reviewer has only spent an hour or two on a game, it isn’t always their fault. It may be so unfinished that it’s barely playable. It may have a high reliance on multiplayer action, which means there’s artificiality to playing against beta testers or against other mag staff over a LAN. They may be sat in a developer/publisher/PR’s office with a husk on their shoulder telling them what to do and where to go before showing them the door. There may be a stupidly unrealistic deadline of less than 24 hours. The review might be only taking up a quarter or an eighth of a page, in which case other stuff has to take priority, or a freelancer’s only getting £20 for it so can’t be arsed.

Despite the rain of shit flying in reviewers’ faces when it comes to playing decent chunks of games, they’re still often not spending enough time with them. Look at something like Teletext’s GameCentral – when two reviewers are producing reviews daily along with news and letters, how much time are they actually getting to play the things?

If you’re familiar with a game that’s been reviewed you can play a game of “spot the screenshots from the first level”, but the beta code we get to review often comes with codes to skip to later parts of the game, for shame.


5 – Games Reviewers Read Games Magazines

And that’s what takes us back to the comment that re-inspired us to write this post. Most of them don’t even read the mags they write for, although that’s as much to do with cunts like Future being too tight to bother sending copies to their own contributors as it is with laziness.


We could have made this a top 10, but there’s already enough on here about games reviewing being a job that stopped being good many moons ago, and being too commercialised now, and the old boys’ network who still hilariously deny they exist, and the shit pay, and review scores being adjusted in exchange for advertising/covers, and the frequent fuck ups stemming from all of this which you can find out about by sidling up to a reviewer and mentioning Headhunter: Redemption, DRIV3R, Unreal 2 or Doom 3.

The most depressing thing about this list is, really, all 5 of the misconceptions should be standard industry practice. Of course reviewers should be able to string together sentences without getting lost up their own sphincters and ejaculating along the way. Of course they should know about the games industry without having to crib from Metacritic.

Are these unreasonable expectations to have of the people who review games in exchange for your money?

Sadly, yes.

Sony = Liars, EA = Hypocrites, RR = Obsolete

Assuming we don’t have that mental disorder where you think things happen but they don’t, people keep emailing us asking why we don’t update very often any more. It’s because this industry has become such a self-parodying joke, it doesn’t need people like us to deride it.


Par example:

Friday 6th July 2007, Sony Corporation President Ryoji Chubachi announces there are “no immediate plans” for a PS3 price drop.

Monday 9th July 2007, SCEA drop price of PS3 by $100 with immediate effect.

What is there is to say, other than to rub in the knowledge that the PS3 costs £200 in North America, and £425 in the UK?


Par example (deux):

EA CEO John Riccitiello slagging off the industry:

“For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There’s been lots of product that looked like last year’s product, that looked a lot like the year before.”

That’s EA. As in Electronic Arts. Words fail us, because they’ve all been said.


What’s next? The PR departments of the world unite and announce games aren’t selling well because they can’t do their fucking jobs properly? Future Publishing announces the credibility of games journalism is being damaged by the magazine industry reviewing unfinished games? Microsoft announces the Xbox 360 has an inherent design flaw after 18 months of denying it?

It’s actually happened – we’ve become obsolete. There’s nothing for us to do but just sit back here and let the games industry take the piss out of itself until it implodes.

EDIT: We’re so fucking incompetent, we can’t even tell the difference between the “save” and “publish” buttons. Sorry. We’re officially out of date as well as obsolete.

Sony: Edgy & Fresh, Or Cunts?

A few posts ago, we weighed into the flash in the pan debate about Sony’s idiotic God Of War 2 press event and mentioned this:

“We remember a friend who had been into hospital and had a head x-ray about 10 years ago. A week or two later, a mailing marked “urgent” arrived, and in it were plastic reproductions of head x-rays with a letter worded as though he had a serious illness. He realised as he read further down the letter that it was some bullshit Sony “game brain” crap, but not until he’d almost had a nervous breakdown at the thought of being notified to see his doctor urgently after having a head x-ray. Complaining to Sony, they just sent back a letter saying how they were being “fresh”. No Sony – you were being fucking arseholes.”


Courtesy of an Anonymous Knight, we can bring you a fully illustrated account of Sony’s idiocy.

Imagine you’ve just had your head x-rayed. A week later, this envelope arrives:

Inside is this image, printed on the same transparent plastic material x-rays are printed on:

And with it is this letter (address and name removed):

"Matter of urgency... progressive condition... marked deterioration... potentially serious... please make an immediate appointment with your local consultant". It only took a minute or so for our Anonymous Knight to realise that it was Sony advertising, but in the minute leading up to his realisation, he thought he was being told that he had something seriously wrong in his head. Yes, doctors tend to call you in to tell you bad news, but in the heat of the moment and with the NHS being how they are, anything’s possible.

When he wrote to Sony to complain how this had scared the pulsating shit out of him, they wrote back telling him that he was overreacting to their “edgy” and “fresh” marketing. Presumably in the sense of them existing on the “edge of humanity”, and being “fresh out of ideas that won’t make us come across as complete cunts”. And it was for fucking Medievil, of all things.

Needless to say, being privileged enough to be on the receiving end of Sony’s “edgy” and “fresh” advertising made him feel much better about thinking he was dying. Well done, Sony. Be proud.