The Stupid Gamer

I’m not too particular, but there are a handful of words that people toss around frequently to describe games that irritates me to no end. It’s fine to use any word for descriptive purposes, but only if it’s the proper word for the situation. Far too often forum members, game reviewers, and the general member of the public just picks up on a term and runs with it in the description of just about every game they enjoy. Here are some of the ones that need to be scaled back or abandoned completely.

Sleek - Lately, just about any time a game has a nice, unobtrusive interface, reviewers use the word ’sleek’ to describe it. The word has lost all its original meaning with the gaming public, and now is just a substitute for ’simple and easy to navigate’. Go read an IGN review by any high quality title, you’ll find this word in probably 3/4 of the reviews.

Epic - This might the most widely abused term as of late, and it’s still on the rise. As every major game release nears, fans are claiming that the experience is going to be epic. As first impressions of games come in, everybody claims that the opening was epic. As the final impressions start to make their way to message boards, we all get to hear just how epic that last boss fight was. Enough already!

Mixed Bag - People say mixed bag when they don’t want to get into the details of their criticism or they don’t know how to express their thoughts. Instead of putting forth the effort to describe what was good and what was less than admirable, reviewers often toss out the “well, graphics are sort of a mixed bag” comment. The term has been used countless times in the past couple of years, I think we can safely let it die now.

System Seller - Games do exist that will sell systems, but no single title is usually justification enough to drop anywhere from $250-$600 on a console each generation. Yes, there are some extreme cases of it happening, such as Wii Sports, but normally a console is sold by the strength of its library and upcoming lineups. This is especially true now that there are fewer exclusive titles than there were in the past. Gears of War isn’t a system seller. GTA IV isn’t a system seller. Ninja Gaiden II isn’t a system seller. All three games together, well yeah, they’ll sell systems.

Paradigm Shift - Much like mixed bag, this is a lazy term that reviewers will use when they don’t know how to say something in simple and easy to understand terms. If a game is great, they should tell us why it’s great, not simply say “it’s a paradigm shift in gaming” to sum things up. This term is also used in conjunction with “a new pinnacle”, “raised the bar”, “precedent setting”, or “…of the likes we’ve never seen before”. Call me cynical, but it’s very rare that these terms need to be used, let alone several times per year from the same reviewer.

Hardcore/Casual - Ok, I’m guilty of using these terms from time to time, but only because were not smart enough to come up with better terms. I agree in saying that there are hardcore gamers and casual gamers, but I don’t like labeling games as “a hardcore/casual experience”. If I’m a hardcore gamer, I’ll be open to playing any type of game to see for myself whether or not I’ll enjoy it. I don’t need somebody differentiating between what games are fit for the hardcore and what is better left to the casual crowd.

Mature/Kiddie - This one really drives me crazy. There’s nothing truly mature about any video game. Yes, a game might contain mature content, but the experience itself shouldn’t be identified as being any more mature than a game with a colorful scheme and a more lighthearted feel. Games are games. If you’re so insecure with your level of manliness that you need to brush aside games for being “kiddie” in favor of the next head-blasting shooter, you need to re-evaluate why you play games in the first place. I’ll say it again, games are games.

There are plenty more terms out there, but these are the ones that have been making their way under my skin most often as of late. I’m sure I’ll be back here in five minutes editing something I forgot into this list, so feel free to check back once in a while to see how the list grows and evolves along with new trends. Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’ll forget all about this post and never revisit it after it falls off the front page. It’s a total mixed bag of results, but either way, it should be epic.

If you’re wondering why the latest issue of EGM is lacking the Metal Gear Solid review, you don’t have to look any further than 1up.com. The site published a statement saying why they’re holding off on publishing the review for another month. They said:

“Metal Gear Solid 4 will hit store shelves shortly after this issue of EGM lands in your hot little hands. And four EGM editors — Matt Leone, Jeremy Parish, Andrew Pfister, and Shane Bettenhausen — have already invested plenty of time in the game. So why don’t we have a full review in this issue? Simply put: We weren’t happy with the limitations Konami wanted to impose on our comments, and rather than publish compromised reviews in the interest of being the first to rate the game, we’d rather wait until next issue, where we can be completely open and thorough with our thoughts. In the meantime, our MGS4 vets sat down for an informal chat about the game (and remember — [once the limitations are lifted] you can find the full review on 1UP.com!).”

Good on EGM and the 1up Network. In my honest opinion, any review coming out before the release date is in part tainted. Maybe the score wouldn’t have changed, but the limitations placed on the reviewers definitely will have shaped the written content.

Originally reported by Stephen Totilo over at MTV’s Multiplayer blog, it seems that Konami has been asking print reviewers not to talk about either the length of the cut scenes in the game or how big the mandatory install will be on the PS3 hard drive. It seems that Konami is worried that either of these “issues” could be viewed as negatives for the title, so they’re hoping that reviewers will keep their mouths shut. Even with this request, reports have come in saying that the game’s install requirement is 4.5GB (mandatory) and that cut scenes can reach up to 90 minutes each.

So what’s the big deal? Shouldn’t Konami be able to make these sort of requests? Well, I guess they can, but it’s a bit shady. With recent examples of the review process being influenced (Gerstmann-gate, Rockstar’s handling of reviewers with GTA IV), this is just another blow to gaming journalism’s credibility. A reviewer shouldn’t need a list of things that they should emphasize or avoid. A publisher should simply put their product into a reviewer’s hands and accept whatever opinion the journalist comes up with. Now, if a publisher wants to point out factual errors in a review, that’s fine, but I’m getting sick and tired of the pressure that publishers and developers are putting on the media when it comes to review coverage.

Personally I’ve had to turn down the rights to an exclusive review because the publisher said that I could only have it if I promised an 8.0 or above. They wanted a commitment from me that same day, despite the fact that I had only spent about 3 hours with the game. I declined their offer, and the next day the game’s first review popped up online with a 9.0 (from a rather humble site). I won’t name that game, but it happened to be for the DS and was a semi-major release for its time. I know this stuff is happening, but I have no idea who is getting caught up in the dirty play and succumbing to the publisher BS tactics.

Thanks to Stephen Totilo for exposing this issue. Even if this looks minor, the implications of this sort of behavior are quite serious.

Nintendomain, in response to Cracked.com’s list of ways gamers are getting screwed, decided to put together a much better and accurate list. The list highlights things that have cropped up this generation and gives some insight to where these issues might be heading.

The list can be found here: The REAL Top Five Ways The Industry is Screwing You.

I’ve said on numerous occasions off the blog that I feel that GTA IV just might go down in history as the most overrated (in regards to review scores) game of all time. Currently the Xbox 360 version of the game is the highest reviewed game ever, with an average review score of 97.632%. Now, I don’t ever have a problem with a game getting high praise, but I really need to feel that the game deserves it. I need to feel like the review process was thorough, objective, and free from tampering.

Does GTA IV deserve the title of “highest reviewed game of all time”?

When the GTA IV reviews starting rolling in (starting with the first exclusive handing out a 10/10), I figured reviewers were either caught up in a whirlwind of hype, or the game might really be that good. After playing it for 20+ hours, however, I’m baffled how even the most hype-driven reviewer could be handing down perfect scores. Well, Simon Parkin, a British journalist, offers a few ideas why early reviews for GTA IV were so overwhelmingly positive (including his own), despite the game’s obvious flaws. In his article, found at Gamasutra, many reasons are offered up. Here are a few choice snippets:

Judgments cast before they’d been adequately weighed; words sold before they’d been properly valued; shallow opinions that should have been presented as the first word in a conversation but were dropped with the clacking gavel pound of a conclusion. Yeah, every writer has regrets.

But what’s really nagged and irritated me over the following weeks is that, with a little distance and perspective, the bold proclamation was so obviously made, like so many from within our industry, with the aim of elevating video games to the respectability of more established media via bald association.

The opinion piece [speaking of his own review] was written following a short weekend’s playing of the game just prior to its release and, as I’ve played on through the rest of the story, the fault lines in that specific claim have become ever more apparent. While I adore the slow pacing of the first few hours, the way Nico starts off on the straight and narrow and is dragged into the shadows of the American Dream by forces of poverty and necessity, the game soon enough swings into full adolescent-posing-as-adult narrative fizz.

In the weeks prior to GTA IV’s release, Rockstar made promises that print and online publications would receive early review code so that they might fully ingest and digest Liberty City in order to deliver mature and balanced opinions on its day of launch.

In reality, this was not the case, with precious few publications getting to spend prolonged time with the game ahead of release. The first review of the game came from the UK’s Official Xbox magazine bearing the worrying caveat “based on unfinished code”.

At best then, by the time the game had been played, copy written and subbed ready for the Tuesday morning, most journalists (both in the UK and the US) had played for only a few hours, experiencing just a fraction of the game’s content, a situation testified to by various admissions in professional reviews.

Time Magazine dubbed their piece Grand Theft Auto IV: The 6.24% Review while the Associated Press reviewer, Lou Kesten, admitted to having spent only spent eight hours with the game.

Slate Magazine’s excellent Chris Baker admitted he only had chance to ‘scratch the surface of the game’ going on to say in a comment on N’Gai Croal’s Level Up blog: “I couldn’t even attempt to be definitive…it was kinda liberating”.

The BBC noted the phenomenon saying: “Most reviewers were not sent advance copies of the game, and instead had to attend Rockstar offices or sit in booked hotel rooms to play the game,” where Rockstar could keep an eye and some pressure on them. While these few admitted the partial and necessarily subjective nature of their reviews, how many passed off their impressions as being definitive of the whole?

The piece goes on to offer some suggestions of what can be done with big title reviews, and it offers a little more detail into what went on with the GTA IV review process. Personally I feel that the writer hits home with several points. Here’s the link to the full story: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18761

My own review for GTA IV is still on its way. While I’m not completely down on the game, it’s safe to say that I’m not about to gush over it. I’ve spent careful time with the game, and I feel that I’m in a position to give an honest and straightforward opinion on the game. Look for the review later this week.

Barack Obama mentioned GTA IV in a recent speech. He acknowledged that the game isn’t intended for kids, but his greatest concern isn’t with the game’s content, but rather that kids left to be raised by video games rather than spend time outside or doing more uplifting activities. Here’s a snippet of his speech:

“I was just catching the news this morning about Grand Theft Auto, this video game, which is gonna break all records and make goo-gobs of money for whoever designed it.

“Now, this isn’t intended for kids, although I promise you there are kids who are playing it, but these video games are raising our kids…

“Across the board, middle-class, upper-class, working-class kids, they’re spending a huge amount of their time not on their studies, but on entertainment.

“And so part of our job is going to have to be to inspire the entire country to say, ‘How are we giving our kids a thirst for knowledge?’

“And turning off the TV set, and getting them to be engaged and interested, like their future really does matter on how well they do in school.”

Rather than blaming the content of games, Obama is blaming parents for allowing their kids to live unbalanced lives. If you ask me, this is the correct stance to take. As I grew up, games were less violent, but violence still existed in gaming. As I grew up, however, I was also very involved in sports, was expected to do well in school, and my parents were good to keep an eye on the games I played. As long as they could see that the things I was playing weren’t having an effect on me in a negative way (be it school, physical fitness, or emotional health), they never had a problem with the gaming I did.

The problem isn’t with the games themselves, but rather with the parent that would rather let their 7 yr. old kid spend an extra two or three hours in front of the TV playing games rather than taking them out to the park and teaching them to hit a baseball or throw a football. Kids aren’t going to self-regulate, so parents have to learn to be a bit more proactive and, well, you know, be a parent.

Note: I’m not endorsing Obama for anything nor any other candidate.

The Patapon craze has died down, but if you hit up any random message board and ask for PSP recommendations, several people are going to proclaim it to be among the best games that the PSP has to offer. Well, after giving Patapon a more than fair chance, I’ve got to come clean with my feelings on the game. Patapon is a fraud. I don’t want to get into the argument of PSP fans overhyping mediocrity (it happens A LOT), but Patapon is their prime and shining example. The game isn’t worthless, but it’s full of crippling issues that would need to be addressed in order to make the game fully enjoyable. So, let’s dig into exactly why Patapon falls short.

Rhythm Games Should Encourage the Beat
I’ll start off with my biggest gripe. Patapon is a rhythm action game with a cool style. You control your army of Patapon by keeping beat and by using pre-determined button sequences. To advance, you do one series of buttons presses, to attack, you do another. Each time you successfully execute a series of presses, the Patapons will echo your beat and then do what you commanded them to do. The problem is that there isn’t any consistent and reliable beat in the soundtrack. Even when the Patapon echo your beat, it’s not always ON BEAT. In fact, many times your Patapon will echo back the words of the beat, but at the wrong tempo. Once you hit Fever mode (triggered by several consecutive on beat button sequences), the Patapon REALLY stat to echo the wrong tempo. It’s infuriating. A good rhythm game encourages you to stay on beat, not challenges you to push through the BS the devs thought would be cute to throw at you. The result is a game that never really lets you connect with the sounds of the game, but rather has you relying on your own foot tapping to keep going.

Fever Mode will piss you off. The Patapons go crazy and mess up your beat.

Rhythm Games Rely on Variety - Patapon Lacks It
Another serious issue I have with Patapon is that the game lacks variety. There are basically 3 major commands in the game: March, Attack, and Defend. There are some other tweaks here and there, but for the most part you just cycle through three button sequences over and over again. Sure, the levels change, but here’s the game in a nutshell. Do the March until you come upon an enemy, do the Attack sequence until enemies are gone, March until another enemy, and repeat. In a boss encounter, you March until you’re within range, and alternate between Attack and Defend. The occasional Fever Mode will kick in, but it doesn’t do anything more than just increase your attack power. There are some minigames in Patapon, but they’re pretty simple. However, despite the simplicity of these minigames, they can frustrate as well. Again, the game doesn’t always provide you the proper tempo to match with your own rhythmic button pressing. After a while you just tire of the minigames.

The minigames don’t hold your interest for too long.

Level Grinding in a Rhythm Game?
Patapon isn’t well balanced, and as a result you are forced to level grind to improve the strength of your Patapon. This is a huge design flaw, if you ask me. The action in Patapon should be a compliment to the rhythm foundation of the game. If you keep the beat, you should keep advancing. That is not the case. If you don’t spend time strengthening up your forces by replaying old levels repeatedly, you will not advance deep into the game no matter how perfectly you execute your button presses.

Wanna beat the bosses? Get to grinding, son!

It’s Not All Bad
Patapon has a certain charm and visual style that is very, very, appealing. The game is priced right ($19.99), but it’s definitely another overhyped and overpraised title by the Sony swarm of faithful fanboys. There are much better PSP titles to dedicate your time to that aren’t getting the same amount of praise; and I would encourage everybody to look into those games. I know this post is coming late after the release of the game, but SOMEBODY had to stop the endless hype.

Despite its frustrating aspects, the game looks amazingly cool.

NPD is like a monthly holiday for gaming geeks that can’t get enough of the console wars that have raged on for decades. This month Nintendo, once again, had a massive month, Guitar Hero III makes its debut, the 360 keeps rolling along, and the PS3 kind of limps along. As expected, Halo 3 still leads sales on the software front. Remember, next month will be interesting as it will include Black Friday, the PS3 price drop, the Xbox 360 Arcade bundle, and the Super Mario Galaxy effect. So, here are the numbers:

Hardware Results (rounded to the nearest 1,000):

• Wii - 519,000
• Nintendo DS - 458,000
• Xbox 360 - 366,000
• PSP - 286,000
• PlayStation 2 - 184,000
• PlayStation 3 - 121,000

Top 10 Software (ranked by number of units sold)

1. 360 Halo 3 - 433,800
2. 360 Guitar Hero III (w/ guitar) - 383,200
3. WII Guitar Hero III (w/ guitar) - 286,300
4. PS2 Guitar Hero III (w/ guitar) - 271,100
5. DS Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourlgass - 262,800
6. WII Wii Play - 239,700
7. 360 The Orange Box - 238,400
8. PS2 Guitar Hero III - 231,700
9. PS2 FIFA Soccer 08 - 129,700
10. DS Brain Age 2 - 116,900

For those interested, the PS3 version of GHIII moved 105,800 copies with Ratchet and Clank debuting with 74,500.

For the folks that ran out and picked up the Legendary Edition of Halo 3 that haven’t popped in the bonus discs yet, you’re in for a big surprise. The supposedly remastered discs look like garbage, especially the Halo 1 clips. Despite advertising that the package would contain re-mastered cutscenes in hi-def, the disc provides the cutscenes at a degraded level of quality. Complaints started popping up on message boards and some gaming site editors starting prodding Bungie for a response.

Hilary Goldstein of IGN Xbox asked forum users, “Anyone get the Legendary Edition and watch the second disc? The promised re-mastered cut-scenes are 4:3 and look like garbage. Anyone else seeing this?” After a little while he returned with this post: “The entire second disc is 4:3. First disc (that comes with special edition) is 16:9. But even the halo 1 cutscenes look worse than the original, like they were recorded on someone’s VCR.” In a final post, Hilary offers up an explanation of sorts. He said, “Just got the official response. Yes it’s going to look like ass. That really was the message. Will post one of the god-awful cut-scenes tonight in case you were contemplating the Legendary Edition.”

At this point everybody found out that the discs weren’t mistakenly bad, but that’s how they were approved and sent out. So gamers were left confused. What did the extra $70 go toward besides the MC helmet? Well, over at the NeoGAF forums we got the Bungie response:

“The cutscenes were remastered, the pop-in reduced and they were output as as high resolution TIFFs one frame at a time to improve the quality over the originals.

They were not, contrary to popular internets remastered in “HD” and this was always advertised as a DVD disc, which obviously can’t play HD content anyway.

Apologies to folks feeling ripped off, but the false advertising claims are well, false.

Watch the remastered ones side by side with the originals to see how much they’ve been improved.

And hopefully folks can see past our old school graphics and listen to the commentary, which is the important part of that content anyway.”

What a load of crap. Even Xbox.com was advertising these things as HD. Quote: “ …including remastered, high-res versions of the Halo and Halo 2 cinematics;”

So what’s going to happen? Nothing. We got shafted. Sure, the helmet is cool, but the real reason I went with the Legendary was to get the bonus content. I like the idea of being able to run through the Halo storyline quickly and easily as a refresher, but I can honestly get just as good quality by firing up YouTube. So what’s the point? The game is great, so I can eventually forget all of this, but I hate being taken for $70 due to false advertising.

Thanks for the blatant F*** you response, Bungie. Feels good to get screwed…

Every year at this time the kids are hitting up JC Penny, Wal-Mart, and local malls to get their back to school shopping completed. As the kids, teens, and college goers storm the retail outlets to pick up new shoes, shirts, pants, and supplies, they pass by the store windows of game stores scattered in strategic locations. These windows are full of adverts for Madden (which usually hails the return of great games), sequels to the biggest franchises in gaming, and what is being touted as the next big thing in gaming.

From now until the end of the year the release schedule is packed solid with AAA titles on each and every platform out there. It’s that time of year that each Saturday morning you have to make the touch choice: do I watch the early college football games before my team takes the field, or do I frag some baddies and delve deeper into my growing pile of games? It’s that time when your backlog replenishes itself and you scramble to finish off what remains from last year’s slew of releases. It’s that time when you justify dropping hundreds of dollars on game after game. So, what exactly do we have to look forward to this year? What’s going to drive Visa balances through to their limits?

BioShock - Releasing tomorrow, BioShock is a revolutionary take on the FPS genre. Coming out for both the 360 and PC, BioShock provides amazing visuals, creepy motifs, gorgeous art, and action-packed gameplay that varies every time you spin the disc.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - The largest title to hit the Wii since Twilight Princess, Prime 3 is Retro’s first release on Nintendo’s landmark console. Adding a new control scheme to the legendary series is proving to fuel hype and anticipation for next week when the game launches.

Blue Dragon - Also hitting store shelves next week is the newest RPG to hit the 360. Blue Dragon is best described as one part Dragon Quest (gameplay) and one part Dragon Ball Z (art style). While not the most revolutionary title, Blue Dragon is helping to diversify the 360 lineup and show gamers that Microsoft is committed to bringing a well-rounded library to the console.

Warhawk - Incognito’s final game is going to be made available on both retail shelves on via download through Sony’s PlayStation Network. The game boasts huge multiplayer battles and a great range of weapons and vehicles. Warhawk is going to give the PS3 this year’s first big online hit.

Heavenly Sword - This stunning action title from Ninja Theory is a great showcase for the PS3’s power and versatility. The game is sure to be a hit with action fans that are craving a good beat ‘em up experience.

Halo 3 - Not much needs to be said here. Halo 2 had the biggest first day ever in regards to revenue and Microsoft expects Halo 3 to surpass it. Either way, the game is going to be one of the most talked about games from the day it releases (late September) all the way through the holidays.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - Easily the most anticipated game on portables this year is Nintendo’s newest Zelda adventure. Phantom Hourglass is already raising eyebrows for its unique control scheme, stunning visuals, and depth of gameplay. It should be the perfect title to bring along during holiday travels.

Mass Effect - BioWare’s epic sci-fi action/RPG title features branching storylines, great graphics, and some of the most realistic AI interactions ever seen in a game. Ever since its first showing at E3 last year, Mass Effect has been on just about every 360 owner’s wish list.

Super Mario Galaxy - My personal favorite in the avalanche of holiday hits is none other than Super Mario Galaxy. Every screen, video, or bit of info just oozes with style and charm. If you can’t get excited for this game, you need to re-evaluate why you play games in the first place.

Rock Band - Threatening to talk away Guitar Hero’s title as king of the music genre is EA’s Rock Band. The game is playable by up to 4 people at one time (a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and lead singer). Also, EA is promising to support the game with weekly downloadable content.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - This game will probably end up being the Wii’s biggest title of the year, and it’s no mystery as to why. The Smash Bros. series has been a fan favorite for years, and Brawl is riding one of the biggest hype waves a Nintendo game has seen in quite some time.

Honorable Mentions - Lair, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Eternal Sonata, Sonic Rush Adventure, Lost Odyssey, Beautiful Katamari, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, Virtua Fighter 5, Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn, Assassin’s Creed, Army of Two, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

I’m sure I missed a few titles, so feel free to let me know what else you might be looking for. Obviously it’s going to be a financial impossibility to buy all of these games, so getting picky is going to be a necessity. If a major drought should ever hit gaming, however, there’s enough here to revisit for countless hours of gaming.