By Kieron Gillen on January 11th, 2009 at 11:36 am.
Sunday is a day for trying to make my gaming PC start booting again. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe I can procastinate, making a list of some smart and compulsive games reading I found this week for the RPS-readership’s delectation, and try my damn hardest not to include some pop song or another. Yes, I think I can.
- Crispy Gamer’s Critic In Exile columnist Scott Jones asks “Is It OK to Finally Admit That I Didn’t Really Like Fallout 3 All That Much?” Example quote: “I know of a least a half-dozen writers who included Fallout 3 in their top-10 lists who, I know for a fact, didn’t invest more than three or four hours in the game (if that), and still felt compelled to vote for Fallout 3 — let’s go ahead and say it — because it felt like the right thing to do.” Honestly, I’m astounded and really don’t know where to begin. Well, don’t know where to begin politely.
- At least some Critics know what they love. This is old, and not a PC Game, but so hilariously hyperbolic that I presumed that it was being sarcastic. The Sixth Axis on Metal Gear Solid 4: “To review such a game as Metal Gear Solid 4 is like commissioning a blind man to share his opinion on a beautiful oil painting painted by a true artist” (Via Elliot’s twiter)
- Hey – the games journalist union will be after CivIV/Spore designer Soren Johnson. You don’t understand how it work. Us lot ask questions, and you guys answer them. If you start asking questions too, it all falls apart. Anyway – he does a huge two part interview with the Civ4 ultramod Fall From Heaven guys. Part one here. Part two here.
- 1UP/EGM takeover by EGO Point/Counterpoint. Editorial Director Sam Kennedy explains what’s happened. Jeff Green takes Sam’s diplomatic statement to task. Probably the biggest games-related story we haven’t covered this week we didn’t cover. Really, it’s a case not having any specific insight or anything to say (bar – “good luck to everyone who lost their jobs and hope they land on their feet”), so we’ll leave it to EGM’s Jenn Franks to deliver a personal euology. Her “Companies make money on other people’s passion. Some people make a lot of money by overseeing entire sweatshops of passion. I am trying my fucking damnedest to not sound angry.” is terribly familiar to me.
- Tom Chick interviews Brendon Cheung, the man behind the much loved Gravity Bone. I’d have linked to it even if it hadn’t namechecked me, y’know?
- On a similar indie-stuff-we-covered-this-week note, here’s the Gamasutra postmortem of I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colours.
- Adventure Classic Gaming interview Ex-Lucasart chap Hal Barwood on his return to the Adventure with the forthcoming Mata Hari.
- And New Games Journalism dead. He was like a son to me.
- Alec crashed over last night, and opined that the Sound of Silver album would be about eight times better without New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down. Haven’t made my mind up myself.
Failed.
11/01/2009 at 11:46 Nick says:
Ugh, that Scott Jones thing was truely awful on so many levels, I don’t know where to begin myself. Just.. nrgh..brain..not..working. Gah. Sunday morning is not the time for me to think about it.
11/01/2009 at 11:52 MetalCircus says:
Hahaha. I love the fact there’s a game journalist union.
lawlz.
02/12/2010 at 07:14 ugg sale says:
i know too.
11/01/2009 at 11:53 Kieron Gillen says:
(That was a joke)
KG
11/01/2009 at 11:55 Scotte Jones is a pussy says:
I can’t believe someone can be such a pussy like Scott Jones. My god.
Anyway I didn’t like fallout3, because to me was so mediocre and polish-free. Fps combat was horrible thanks to strange aiming system, ridicolous low damage, and horrible, bad, terrible, unacceptable animation. Rpg combat was just “press pause to win”. And slow motion gets boring after a while (on a side note I’d like to mention also that the violence in fallout 3 is not on par with the awesome death sequences from the first)
The main plot was quite bad and everybody can agree here, also like most of the voice acting. There was a lots of dungeons to visit, but most of them were just corridors filled with repetitive, uninteresting combat.
There were some mildly interesting side quest. But all in all, fallout 3 is a mediocre, unpolished, unbrilliant game. I can’t say in all honesty that it is a piece of shit: simply, it’s not an excellent game. And I dont’ know about you, but after a few years of playing videogames I don’t want to bother with anything mediocre.
11/01/2009 at 12:00 The Hammer says:
Nice Sunday Papers this week! The interview about Gravity Bone was quite interesting, and the Easter Eggs discussed made me realize that I had just romped through the game, without paying attention to minor details.
That MGS4 review HAS to be a parody. The comment about Infinity/100, and how no one on earth is worthy to play it… it’s pretty hilarious to read, in the “Oh god, this is so OTT” kind of thing.
Mata Hari seems really, really interesting as well. That’s a hella nice story going on there.
11/01/2009 at 12:01 Muzman says:
Wow, that’s exactly how I feel when I shag a supermodel, I don’t know why I keep doing it. It’s like he was there man.
*ahem* I wonder if he’s seen yahtzee’s opinion on the subject.
11/01/2009 at 12:01 HypeAware says:
Regardless of his opinions of the game, Scott Jones raises an interesting point. It fascinates me how people, even presumably clever people such as his boss, are still falling for Marketing trickery. You’d think after all these years of ceaseless commercialism people would have learned, become savvy, killed their neighbours after becoming saturated by the tricks these sales-demons play…
…but no. People STILL buy it – in both senses of the phrase – time after time after time…ad nauseum. Simple rule of thumb: If it needs sold/marketed, then it’s not as good as the money-men are telling you it is. Quality speaks for itself, with a far more trustworthy voice.
As ever, thanks for the Sunday reading material, KG.
11/01/2009 at 12:05 A Disembodied Voice says:
With the Fallout3 thing, I’m not astounded unfortunately. You look at the coverage of these types of games in the games media and you have to know things like this are going on. There really just cannot be that much consensus among a group of people can there?
11/01/2009 at 12:05 cuc says:
The FfF2 interview has three parts. Third part:
http://www.designer-notes.com/?p=122
BTW, I still think you really, seriously should play and write about Eversion:
http://zarat.us/tra/offline-games/eversion.html
It’s made for the same [url=http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3286.0]TIGSource competition[/url] that inspired “I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colours”, and despite not winning the first prize, it’s actually the most accomplished game by far.
11/01/2009 at 12:05 Jim Rossignol says:
As someone who genuinely enjoyed Fallout 3 I’m pretty amazed he felt that *everyone* liked the game. It seemed one of the most contentious games of the year before it was even released, and then half the people who played it did the grumble-mumble about hype and the like.
Anyway.
11/01/2009 at 12:07 MetalCircus says:
uhhh, my humour detection is way off today.
I thought Fallout 3 was a delight. The story was pantaloons and the voice acting pretty rubbish, and the animation archaic, but I still clocked about 40 hours with it, and I came away from it feeling thoroughly entertained.
It can never touch my beloved Fallout 2, but then I never expected it to…
11/01/2009 at 12:07 Nick says:
Oh, just read the interview on Fall from Heaven 2, thanks for that I would never have stumbled upon it otherwise and it was really interesting reading.
11/01/2009 at 12:11 Gap Gen says:
Agreed, few big games are universally loved (at least on PC). I think marketing is important, because awareness is crucial in people buying a game, and hype is often due to word-of-mouth-frothing or preview excitement.
I’m not sure how many journos would rate a game highly even though they didn’t like it, though. Be interesting to see how much substance there is to that claim – if so, it’s a shame that these journalists feel they can’t have their own voice.
11/01/2009 at 12:45 Gabe W says:
I have always wondered what happened to Hal Barwood and other LucasArts artists after the mass exodus when the game company decided to abandon the adventure genre. The interview did not state any release date for his new game though…
11/01/2009 at 12:48 James G says:
His comments about the marketing of Fallout 3 surprised me, and made me realise quite how much I must be ignoring games marketing. Its not that I never saw the adverts, but that I already knew enough about Bethesda, Fallout, and FO3 in particular that it never even occurred to me that anyone may assume they were buying an FPS. Although frankly, giving his comments that FO3 was benefiting from the reputation of the series and the ardent Fallout community, I get the impression that his only prior experience of the game can have come from television adverts. Anyone with their ear to the ground would know that prior to its release at least, the Fallout community were the games biggest detractors.
Its not just clueless folks that seem to end up in this situation, I’ve noticed even well versed avid gamers being shocked that a game didn’t deliver in areas where I had never expected it to. A good example is Spore. I realised a while before release the areas in which I felt the game would be lacking, and from this I figured I ought to temper my interest. The various reviews (even the positive ones), and early user feedback, suggested I was correct in my assumptions, and thus I reasoned that the game wasn’t for me. (Perhaps I’m wrong on this of course, and would have loved it.)
Now I’m not trying to make myself out to be a very savvy gamer here, Its probably just a case of being more stingy, and less willing to take a risk. It means that I rarely feel like I’ve been mis-sold, but also am rarely pleasantly surprised. (Except when buying a game on which I know very little, other than it is supposed to be ‘good.’)
11/01/2009 at 12:51 Funky Badger says:
Has Scott Jones just spectacularly trumpetted his lack of integrity, talent and taste to the interwebs?
I’ll keep an eye out from now on as he seems to have nothing worthwhile to say. Thanks to him for saving me time, I guess…
11/01/2009 at 13:00 rob says:
“Alec crashed over last night, and opined that the Sound of Silver album would be about eight times better without New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.”
That song elevates the album to another level – to finish it off with something out of his (admittedly super-awesome) comfort zone, and with such lovely elegiac lyricism… “you’re still the one pool where I’d happily drown” – love it. that song excites me more to hear what he has in store on the next album – oh the possibilities!
11/01/2009 at 13:14 Nutterguy says:
I have to say…
Aisha…
He got out!
You guys made me listen to Death in Vegas for 3 hours… Yea.
11/01/2009 at 13:18 Xercies says:
If Journalist feel that they have to put Fallout 3 up there because of pressure, they should honestly quit… because what your doing is basically lying to everyone about your opinion. And that’s the worst thing you can do. I wouldn’t mind people hating Fallout 3, I personnaly love it but say reasons wy you hate it like this journalist did and you give yourself some respect. Just lying to yourself and other people saying its a great game because you just have to go on the bandwagon is giving yourself no self respect at all.
11/01/2009 at 13:23 Thiefsie says:
Anyone here given A Vampyre Story a try yet? Interested to hear the RPS take.
11/01/2009 at 13:32 subedii says:
I thought Fallout 3 was good for the atmosphere and setting. But they really need better writers at Bethesda something fierce.
And regardless or what the DLC may do for the game, I think we can all largely agree that the ending sucked.
11/01/2009 at 13:58 Lorc says:
Wow – thanks for the link to that MGS4 review. Hilarious!
11/01/2009 at 14:09 MC says:
Video game reviewing is bollocks, largely thanks to people like Scott Jones who don’t have the balls to say what they actually think about a game.
It seems like large swathes of games reviewers fall into this kind of groupthink at any sufficiently hyped game. I’ll wager that goes just as much for GTA4 or Halo or Oblivion, for example, as Fallout 3. Whenever I see discussions about these sorts of games amongst actual gamers, there’s always a much larger range of opinions than you ever see in a compilation of reviews on metacritic. This lead me to conclude that the games reviewers must fall into a sort of groupthink, and that article is an admission that my supposition was correct. And when games writers so easily slip into this kind of groupthink, reading their collective opinions is worthless.
When I want to know what a game is actually like, I read what actual gamers say about it in forums and the likes, because game writing is in a terrible state.
11/01/2009 at 14:12 Dr. Wily says:
I don’t know about New York either. On one hand it makes a nice mellow counterpoint to Sound of Silver, and it has a kind of thoughtful tone of finality which is nice way to finish out the album. On the other hand I just about always stop after Sound and Silver and don’t even bother listening to it, so how great of a song can it be?
11/01/2009 at 14:23 Muzman says:
Does the death of New Games Journalism mean Games Gonzo Journalism can get back at the table?
“I was supposed to review Tomb Raider XII by today so I took lots of meth but somehow ended up playing Wii Tennis for 17hrs straight with these two Kiwis I met in Tottenham Court Road at some point in the night.
Not New Zealanders. Actual Kiwis.
Did you know their wings are almost useless?
Five stars.”
(I don’t really get all this New Games Journalism fooferaugh one way or the other. But turning up dead after seeing the way it’s generally refered to; I’d suspect foul play meself)
11/01/2009 at 14:26 Yann Best says:
Aye, I’d agree with that view. I’m actually surprised at Jim’s comment (that “It seemed one of the most contentious games of the year before it was even released, and then half the people who played it did the grumble-mumble about hype and the like.”) – because while that’s broadly accurate, it seems to completely ignore the issue Jones was bringing up (and a part of) – that by and large the reviews were very much in agreement; a brief perusal of metacritic/gamerankings validating the observation that whilst on forums and amongst gamers there’s been a wide variety of responses to the game, the games press itself has deviated little in its marking.
Though I do wonder how much of this was to do with reviewers doing a Jones, and how much to do with editors handing the game to the resident Oblivion/Bethesda lovers, in much the same way that you’d hand a foot-to-ball title to a foot-to-ball gamer.
11/01/2009 at 14:46 Pags says:
It was only when reading the Gravity Bone interview that I realised the entire Cheers cast was staying at the Arrol Hofert hotel! Man! Love that game.
I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of Mata Hari, though the last Lucasarts offshoot (that Mona the Vampyre game) hasn’t given me much faith in former-Lucasarts employees who aren’t Tim Schafer or Ron Gilbert.
11/01/2009 at 14:47 PHeMoX says:
Oblivion, Fallout 3, SPORE, Far Cry2, perhaps even the latest GTA game really aren’t as great as hyped-up reviewers give them credit for.
I mean, SPORE… for God’s sake, it’s basically a great example of a direction I do not want to see games going. Too casual, too simplistic and yet it pretends to be all about complexity. It gives you a little of everything, for most people barely enough if they are honest and objective.
Fallout3 is a good example of a game that could have been a whole lot better. It’s not a bad game so much as that it’s simply disappointing with such a ‘big name’ developer. I mean, really, compare the game to Oblivion and the early critics are right, it does feel like ‘Oblivion with guns’.
11/01/2009 at 14:55 Yann Best says:
Actually, to follow up my previous comment, there’s another element to the seemingly unvaried reviews of Fallout, and that’s the unwillingness of most publications to use the lower-end of their marking schemes. It’s notable that one of the places that gave Fallout 3 it’s lowest mark (7/10) was EDGE, who, for all their flaws, do show a greater willingness to use their sub-6 scores for games that aren’t, in fact, abysmal. When most sites use 7′s (or equivalent) for mediocrity, and anything below is quite simply rubbish, it’s not too surprising that a game like Fallout reviews almost exclusively at 90% and above.
11/01/2009 at 14:56 Briosafreak says:
So he doesn’t like the game, but voted it for GOTY because of peer pressure and a teenage wish to fit in. And then confesses he didn’t like it because it wasn’t like Halo or Bioshock.
Fascinating.
11/01/2009 at 15:08 Briosafreak says:
Lol at the new games journalism dead thingy
11/01/2009 at 15:10 Old Jokes Ltd. says:
What about his “and N’Gai C-”
*dies*
11/01/2009 at 15:26 Pags says:
This, I agree with; that’s why I’ve always enjoyed Tim Stone’s reviews. Partially because he’s the only one who caters to sim games with manuals the size of phone books, but also because he rarely uses marks above 80% except for games exceedingly special. Recent example of a game he wasn’t afraid to mark down, despite recognising potential and having fun with it, was World War One La Grande Guerre which he gave 40% due to it being bugged and a memory-hog, as well as other minor but confusing problems.
Of course, I like to think this is more down to Tim Stone’s personality as a reviewer rather than because he plays games that aren’t as subject to hype (he gave Multiwinia a relatively low score, for example, despite it being a moderately hyped up indie effort).
I’m more than happy with someone using that argument though; I would use it but I’m not really intelligent enough to expound on it properly. Plus I like Tim.
11/01/2009 at 15:33 CitizenParker says:
A fine point – there’s a third part of that Soren Johnson / Fall from Heaven interview now up as well. It’s the best yet – really digs into the design decisions they made. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. Apparently there’s nothing Soren Johnson can’t do.
11/01/2009 at 15:35 Myrmidon says:
New York I Love You was the best song on the album. There. I said it.
It has to be built up to, though. Can’t just listen to it cold. It’s too tender, too disappointed with the rest of the world to jump right in. And it works best when Yr City’s A Sucker (from his last album) has shown up on the playlist earlier.
11/01/2009 at 15:36 Meat Circus says:
Frankly, if Scott Jones genuinely knows several writers who wilfully inflated Fallout 3′s standings against their own feelings of the game, then these journos are corrupt.
In which case Scott Jones has a duty to name and shame these corrupt journos. To stay silent is to share their taint by association.
Also: MGS4 – ugh. Kieron, are you really, really going to do that much-discussed EG MGS4 second opinion? That’s something I badly want to read.
11/01/2009 at 15:49 skizelo says:
Somebody should really tell Scott Jones what a reviewer does. It means telling us his opinion! And I second the call for disclosing the names of the reviewers who failed to play the damn thing.
11/01/2009 at 15:52 Chris says:
Thanks for the link, Kieron.
Also, thanks for calling attention to the Crispy Gamer Fallout 3 post. My mind’s still blown.
Also, also, also I support Muzman’s plan for Games Gonzo Journalism.
11/01/2009 at 16:03 A-Scale says:
Scott Jones is a crybaby. He didn’t enjoy one quest, one accent, and the ability to have a concussion (albeit under different terms). He also complains about the marketing. Suck it up.
I think you were playing Oblivion. No two dungeons were the same, or even close to the same, except some of the same textures. Just about every place had its own flavor, or quirk.
11/01/2009 at 16:20 kadayi says:
I think if people are going to label a game as ‘not great’ either as a whole or with respect to specific mechanics then they ought to qualify how by counterpointing it against one that they consider is ‘great’. We can all acknowledge when a game is buggy or broken mechanistically, but where a game is by and large functional it becomes another matter entirely. Often I feel people label games as ‘not great’ simply because they don’t live up to the players unrealistic expectations rather than them being genuinely inferior to previous games.
11/01/2009 at 16:22 dhex says:
hell he complained that inventory management was too complex. that’s a bit frightening.
but yeah metacritic’s a flawed but har har funny way to look at grade inflation:
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/fallout3?q=fallout%203
11/01/2009 at 16:23 Radiant says:
People will always want to read good writing.
Whilst that in itself is purely subjective I don’t think I read anything on 1up that could be described as outstandingly written or insightful.
Jeff Green’s point that 1up under UGO will be different is blinkered to the reality that what 1up did [podcast aside] can be replicated by a lot less people to draw in the same number of readers.
Did the Jeff Gertzman episode bring in or lose any more or any less readers then Gamespot had before?
Did it change that site’s editorial?
Hell one of the most popular and oldest gaming sites: ve3d have been going for years unchanged with the same 3 people posting content.
Not to blow smoke to fill your nostrils but sites like RPS where the emphasis is on the writing and, more importantly, on the writers [where the focus is on games and not the individual like on a personal blog] are much more important to it’s readership.
Hopefully you guys can get more of the Tim Stones, Quinns, Leighs and Croals to post articles to build on what you have created here.
11/01/2009 at 16:25 Yann Best says:
Actually, I’m faintly bemused by the people taking Jones to task for not liking Fallout 3, as opposed to the issue of him (and apparently other critics) pretending to like it. Do you honestly think it’s worse for somebody to not like a game as much as you do than it is for them to hide said opinion that they might fit in better? Really? Would you in fact have preferred for him to have kept up the pretence?
11/01/2009 at 16:26 Radiant says:
Although, yeeeeah, I would love it if you did post about experiences with other games you wanted to highlight regardless of platform but I think that’s me missing the point slightly.
11/01/2009 at 16:34 Zeus says:
The reason behind the EGM/1UP cover-up perpetrated by RPS is obvious: The last time you guys covered a story like this, fans convinced you to start a podcast after GFW Radio shut down. You didn’t want to get talked into starting print magazine about consoles, so, you kept silent.
Right? :D
11/01/2009 at 16:38 Dr_demento says:
I agree that Jones really ought to be more willing to give a game a lower score, and indeed demote it from GoTY-voting status, if he feels it should be. Oh, and marketing always lies. He is entitled to his personal / professional opinion of Fallout 3, though, and saying “he obviously has no taste / sense / whatever” is *precisely* the reason he didn’t review it truthfully!
On the subject of Kieron’s MGS4 review, it’s a REAL SHAME that this site is PC-only, because if it was PC-centric instead then you could post it here and bring in more traffic than you can possibly imagine. Oh, and become even more well-known on the internets.
11/01/2009 at 16:38 pkt-zer0 says:
Inflated review scores, journalists with groupthink, and games with a multi-million dollar marketing budget being overhyped, eh? Captain Obvious to the rescue!
It’s hilarious how he calls Fallout 3 an “old-school hardcore RPG”, though. Probably the same groupthink in action.
11/01/2009 at 16:39 Jim Rossignol says:
That is totally our next move.
11/01/2009 at 16:45 Arathain says:
The New Games Journalism thing has been so weird to watch. One segment attacking an almost willful misinterpretation, while a big bunch of journalists quietly adopt what KG was actually saying. It’s dead? I see more NGJ style pieces all the time.
11/01/2009 at 17:01 Skurmedel says:
I thought Fallout 3 would suck, I really did. Whined and bitched about it, then when I got it a gift and tried I fell in love.
11/01/2009 at 17:08 Lilliput King says:
Seconded, skizelo.
Not really doing his job there. I ploughed about 8 hours into Fallout 3 and found it fairly pants – If you can’t hire voice actors with even an ounce of talent, do away with voice acting altogether and let me make up my own voices, early RPG style. Anything is better than Moira. That and the quests were boring. Only two main complaints, but big ones.
On the other hand, I don’t presume to say that Fallout 3 is pants, merely that I found it so. The definition of an art to me is something that has no clear ‘best’ method of completion. So, cooking is an art form, while mopping the floor is not. Games reached that level a long time ago, and as such its genuinely no surprise that – whisper it – I’ve never enjoyed a mario game.
If only Scott Jones and his ilk had the courage to be honest and see that a negative review from them doesn’t contradict a positive review from the rest of the industry.
11/01/2009 at 17:17 Still annoyed says:
Briosafreak said: “So he doesn’t like the game, but voted it for GOTY because of peer pressure and a teenage wish to fit in. And then confesses he didn’t like it because it wasn’t like Halo or Bioshock.
Fascinating.”
QFT. There’s really nothing to add there, except that yeah, it’s nice of him to let me know not to trust anything he writes in the future.
11/01/2009 at 17:26 Git says:
People have different taste in games shocker!
I loved FO3, but there isn’t enough time in the universe to try and explain to someone who dislikes FO3 why I loved it. I have trouble understanding the appeal of certain types of game, but you know what – I don’t have to understand it for them to like it! They don’t need my approval and nothing I say will affect their opinion.
When you don’t like a game it makes its success look like a conspiracy. After all, who the hell bought all those copies? Surely they must have conned all those people, and very few of the would have liked it. After all, I didn’t like it and I’m the yardstick of taste in this universe.
One mans meat truly is another mans poison.
Scott should know all this because a) he’s an adult, and b) he’s a games journo. But what did Scott do? He let other peoples opinions sway his. He decided that he needed other peoples approval. He ate another mans meat then bitched about how horrible it tasted.
11/01/2009 at 17:39 Cunningbeef says:
While I can see where you’re all coming from, I was also swept away on the wave of hype that came with Fallout 3′s release.
To me, at least, it was like an action movie. I’m playing it, saying “awesome, boat city”, or “holy shit, nuke gun”, running around and having a blast. Then, maybe about a week after I finished up the (fucking) main quest, and therefore stopped playing, I looked back at it and saw repetitive combat, exploration that boiled down to “look for non-empty crates in generic abandoned house #387″ and utterly fucking dire writing. Comparing this to the original Fallouts, or indeed any decent RPG, is like comparing Gears of War to Deus Ex. While the former might press all the right buttons in the ‘there and now’, it will ultimately leave you feeling emptier than the latter. But I’m sure, were I in the journalism business, and was writing a review before the epiphany of blandness I had, I would have given it a good review.
I really don’t like to seem like part of the NMA crowd, and I did support the game prior to and just after release, on the strength of Bethesda’s previous works and the hope that they could be versatile enough to make this more than an overblown Oblivion mod.
ps. I’m not looking to start a debate about the merits of the game itself, so I’ll say now that the most important failing of the game for me was the writing (which is undebatable, right?). Although I guess it was naive to expect them to pull out anything better than they’d done previously.
11/01/2009 at 17:40 PHeMoX says:
” When most sites use 7’s (or equivalent) for mediocrity, and anything below is quite simply rubbish, it’s not too surprising that a game like Fallout reviews almost exclusively at 90% and above. ”
It [i]is[/i] surprising that Fallout scores almost exclusively 90% and above for this very reason actually. You know, stripped from it’s initial hype it very much is a ‘been there done that’ type of game that only barely sticks out above mediocrity. The game actually gets boring quite easily!
Why do magazines or websites give 90%+ scores anyways? Perhaps for nostalgia reasons only, but really I felt the same about Oblivion, the whole hype-based scoring is off by at least a full point, perhaps even two.
I’ve even seen 10/10 scores for Fallout3, I mean come on!?! :p
There’s no way I am going to take any of those scores very seriously, when a 50% to 60% score means ‘it barely playable, but still good enough for your money. (as in full-price, not budget bin bargain, as it should be.)’.
Instead of ‘very mediocre game, miles away from the competition. stay away, for fans only, search the budget bin.’. Something like that… 0_o
The current mags and websites have a long way to go when it comes to objectiveness. Because really, regardless of true taste and what not, what the heck happened to common sense and a healthy dose of relativity?
11/01/2009 at 18:34 Kieron Gillen says:
Right – I’m actually going to defend Scott Jones’ a bit – or rather, rephrase his argument. By accepting people would understand why he’d vote for something he didn’t love, he’s concentrated on the issue of Fallout 3, when what people are going WTF!!!!!!?!??!?! over isn’t related to Fallout 3 per se.
His position is that he can recognise the worth in Fallout 3, but doesn’t dig it enormously himself. He also knows that everyone really likes Fallout 3. Specifically, the readers.
This isn’t about going along with the hype. This is recognising that everyone loves a game. Fallout 3 has won most of the Readers Game of the Year awards I’ve folllowed (Which is two, admitedly). I dare say it’s turned up top 5 in most of them. Maybe all.
This is a highly popular game. The issue is, as a critic who is meant to forward the interests of your readers, am I alienating readers of our site by not chosing something which they love and I recognise is really neat.
Because, you think, what’s the alternative? You run a list that ignores the games your readers love. Which means they think you’re being elitist and distant and whatever ivory tower insults they choose to throw.
So, yeah, maybe I should show that I recognise it’s an enormous achievement in game design. Because I can see that it is. I’ll be objective, yeah?
That’s basically the line of thought which leads to where Jones started his article. It’s about trying to represent your readerdship in the end of the year lists, and feeling the pressure to do so.
For the record, I disagree with him totally.
KG
11/01/2009 at 18:44 Paul Moloney says:
I loved Fallout 3, but Jesus, the ending sucked the proverbial donkey’s dick. It didn’t help that on my system, the narration over the ending couldn’t be heard. So all I got was a disjointed series of sepia drawings.
P.
11/01/2009 at 18:57 Confidence Interval says:
I don’t remember any proverbs about donkey’s dicks…
11/01/2009 at 19:08 qrter says:
And this, to me, is a weird thing – it did top a lot of ‘normal’ gamers’ lists but was largely ignored by critics in their end of year/GOTY lists, as far as I can see (all of this said with the acknowledgement that a lot of these lists are stinky hot air, anyway, but that’s beside the point..).
11/01/2009 at 19:13 Dolphan says:
The whole thing about reviewer ‘groupthink’ or the fact that critics generally have a narrower range of opinions than consumers – this happens in other media too, to an extent, and is going to be at least partly because of certain sensibilities that lead to, and are later shaped by, being a critic. It doesn’t have to be because they’re all influenced by hype or what other writers think, although I’m sure that does have some effects.
11/01/2009 at 19:28 soundofsatellites says:
the album certainly would be eight times *worse* if “new york…” wasn’t there. It’s just a great song (oh man! that guitar…) just as “never as tired as when i’m waking up” from the first album.
These songs are awesome.
11/01/2009 at 20:02 Funky Badger says:
Keiron: can see the coherence of that argument but the rather stronger subtext is “I don’t have an opinion worth reading” isn’t it?
11/01/2009 at 20:06 Funky Badger says:
Actually on Fallout 3: the Wasteland’s a superb creation, really pushing the envelope for “play environments”. The writing and quest structure doesn’t come close (with a couple of notable exceptions) I hope someone looks at Fallout 3 and Fable 2 and takes the best bits out of both and moves things forward another step…
11/01/2009 at 20:08 Leeks! says:
It’s been said, but I’ve really got to second (third? fourth?) the point that Fallout 3 wasn’t universally loved, that it was, indeed, one of the most divisive games of the year (for gamers, maybe not so much for professional critics). Personally, I think that many of the critiques I’ve read of it tend to be of the “the Beatles are overrated–being overly discerning makes my opinion relevant, right?” variety, but keep in mind that I’m quite well known for being a boughie mainstream whore.
11/01/2009 at 20:13 skizelo says:
K.G., the only people he quotes as loving Fallout are the nameless and angry “Fallout 3 fan base”. He seems more concerned with establishing a connection with the people who didn’t get it, including the two C.G. execs whom he (and the half-dozen writers) actively failed by not voicing an honest critical opinion.
Basically, he feels a games reviewer could “forsake … credibility” by reviewing games. Which ultimately shreds the credibility of all reviewers.
11/01/2009 at 20:17 Pidesco says:
That Fallout 3 article makes the author seem like an incompetent twit. Which I guess makes sense as he is a games journalist.
11/01/2009 at 20:31 Kieron Gillen says:
Skizelo: The Fallout 3 fanbase are the readers.
And no-one has to convince me that the line of thinking is wrong. It’s just that “My gut response is less important in a game of a year vote than what I feel the objective worth of a game” is a bit more complicated than “Lying”, and it’s worth people trying to understand the thinking which underlies the piece.
Though, yes, the implicit insult against all games journalists grates somewhat.
KG
11/01/2009 at 20:34 crap guy says:
Edit: Poor timing!
11/01/2009 at 20:48 Tom Camfield says:
Kieron, I read your rephrasing of Scott’s argument and was totally prepared to fight on his side, but then read his original and it’s so not your rephrasing of it.
Scott’s done two things. A. He’s just totally missed the whole point of Fallout 3 (the fact that it’s an RPG) and decided to assess it as a shooter. That’s like saying Red Alert is a shit racing game.
On it’s own, that’s just stupid, but less of a crime than B. recommending a game you just don’t fundamentally understand or even like because you’re afraid of your readers, which is what Scott does. And I’ve seen that so much in 2008, critics shitting themselves over their readers reactions, running scared. It’s rubbish.
If he had recommended a game that he didn’t enjoy himself, but could totally see how it was a cool game, fair enough, what is wrong with that? (And that, as far as I can see, is how you rephrased his argument, and yet you seem to find that disagreeable, how come KG?) but that’s not what he does. He recommended the game without even thinking it’s good, which seems to make him a sheep and an idiot.
(Although kudos to him for actually saying as much, since I imagine many people have quietly done the same.)
11/01/2009 at 20:55 Tom Camfield says:
Oh, although I get where you (Kieron) are coming from if it’s just about End of Year lists – it would seem silly to waste space voting for things you didn’t like over things you did.
11/01/2009 at 20:56 Kieron Gillen says:
Tom: Yeah, I probably should have spoke plainer. When I say “rephrase” I meant “rework from scratch to show the thinking behind it”.
Because his article isn’t actually about feeling pressurised to vote for Fallout 3 in the end of year features – it’s actually about him saying why he didn’t like Fallout 3 very much.
The actual contentious parts of the piece, he just throws off without really even talking about them. I thought I’d explain why some people think along such lines. Picking apart his problems with Fallout 3 is a totally separate debate.
KG
*With some stuff about how other people got lured into it.
11/01/2009 at 21:21 leeder_krenon says:
why was it called ‘new games journalism’ anyway? nothing written today can hold a candle to the writers at your sinclair in the late 80s.
11/01/2009 at 21:41 Andrew Doull says:
Isn’t there two fundamental requirements for a game review? Create an overall impression in the readers mind of what they’ll experience playing the hand. And point out the broken bits that stop you from playing at all. For example: Far Cry 2. Morrowind in Africa with guns. Don’t get in boats because you can’t get out. No autosave. Which is why I’m surprised more people don’t use the Kotaku style format for reviews.
11/01/2009 at 21:54 Kieron Gillen says:
Leeder: Because I was drunk one night.
KG
11/01/2009 at 22:40 Ergates says:
@leeder_krenon: Amiga Power (the most direct descendant of Your Sinclair) is clearly the greatest games magazine to ever have existed. You are a heretic and must be burned.
@KG: “Fallout 3 has won most of the Readers Game of the Year awards I’ve folllowed (Which is two, admitedly).”
Pedant mode: How can something win “most” of 2?
Also: I’m fairly certain the MGS4 thing wasn’t sarcasm. Thats what MGS fans are actually like.
11/01/2009 at 22:44 deadbob says:
ah thats the excuse for most of the worlds evils :P
11/01/2009 at 23:16 Thiefsie says:
And this is why the eurogamer list was so good (and caused a ruckus – in opposition of a Tim Stone kind of list) rather than the readers choice lists which are always full og just the hyped up blockbuster releases.
11/01/2009 at 23:25 hydra9 says:
@Andrew Doull:
I think the Kotaku review format is about the worst one around. ‘Loved / Hated’ and nothing in between?
12/01/2009 at 00:11 Paul Moloney says:
“nothing written today can hold a candle to the writers at your sinclair in the late 80s.”
Whatever happened to T’zer?
P.
12/01/2009 at 00:29 Igor Hardy says:
Somebody asked about the release of Hal Barwood’s Mata Hari. Well, I know it’s already out in Germany and GamersGate claims they will have it January the 31st. Somehow no official information about it though.
As for recent titles from LucasArts ex-employees, don’t forget about Insecticide. It’s very underappreciated in my opinion, much more fun than A Vampyre Story. It also is the game with the highest rate of old LucasArts fames working on it in all kinds of departments. For instance, if you liked the music from Full Throttle, Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, you get to hear here the newest soundtrack by Peter Mcconnell.
12/01/2009 at 00:29 Kua says:
“I don’t remember any proverbs about donkey’s dicks…”
Ezekiel 23:19
Although its a prophecy, rather than a proverb.
12/01/2009 at 00:54 qrter says:
That piece by Jenn Franks on EGM’s demise is interesting. Sam Kennedy basically made the mistake of choosing the wrong words, putting on the corporate happy face – saying “hey this is great for 1UP!” when 30 people (who were your colleagues and friends) lose their jobs, it just rubs people the wrong way (see Jeff Green’s reaction).
For those interested in the podcasting side of 1UP – a lot of those guys are setting up their own things:
http://www.eat-sleep-game.com/
http://talkingorange.com/
(don’t look at the photos on the last one..wacky!!)
12/01/2009 at 01:26 Helm says:
“Like shagging a super model”
It’s strange for me that this seems to be the equivalent sexual high-point to playing one of the greatest games ever to this writer. I don’t know any personally but these women don’t seem terribly inviting to me. I certainly don’t think about how much I’d like to have sex with them when I chance on catwalk footage.
About Fallout 3 being not as good as it seemed: I can understand people changing their minds later on because the game does open well in my opinion but then suffers from dull content and bad writing in places (it feels like a ‘shell’ of a game to me, if that makes any sense), but I don’t understand professional video game writers not having reached the point where the game does so, before writing their reviews and submitting their ‘game of the year’ choices. If this writer has names he should name them so we can know who to not trust to do their job responsibly.
“So, yeah, maybe I should show that I recognise it’s an enormous achievement in game design. Because I can see that it is. I’ll be objective, yeah?”
I know you’re playing devil’s advocate here and I think your insight is generally correct but what a blessing it would be when people – especially those who get hired and paid to do critical analysis – realize there’s no objectivity whatsoever in their job, that it’s highly personal and that a lot of people actually pay to read the opposite of an ‘objective critique’ of a videogame. But wait, what am I saying, didn’t NGJ just die?
12/01/2009 at 01:29 Pags says:
I wasn’t a fan of it myself, it was nice to hear a new Peter Mcconnell soundtrack though. Not on a par with the Grim Fandango soundtrack, but then what is.
12/01/2009 at 01:32 skizelo says:
Why are all these Lucusarts alumni coming out of the woodwork now?
And Pags, the soundtrack to Monkey Island 2. I’ll fight anyone who says different. Over the internet
12/01/2009 at 01:39 Nick says:
My problem with his piece was both his position in the start – bowing to peer pressure in voting games against your own opinions is shockingly poor behaviour for a so called critic, reguardless of the reason (in my opinion) AND the borderline moronic ‘whut I has to talk to peoplez? I want halo 4!’ subtext to most of his criticism. What I felt totaly undermined it was an apparent ignorance of the whole point of the game in the first place, not to mention the mixed reception it recieved (although a lot was, of course, positive).
I liked it, thought it was better than Oblivion by a long shot, but still think Beth could do a hell of a lot better if they weren’t so seemingly lazy with some developement descions. I’m certainly not discused by that article merely due to someone saying a bad word about it.
12/01/2009 at 01:39 Nick says:
(I mean disgusted.. bah)
12/01/2009 at 02:17 Pags says:
Let’s take it outside skizelo. I will fight you! In the face!
12/01/2009 at 02:59 Mattress says:
Sound of Silver would be no more superior (a nigh on impossible feat anyway) if “New York I Love You…” was excised. Actually it would probably be a lot more inferior, the song’s a lovely endnote.
12/01/2009 at 05:04 EnglishStudent says:
“Well, you have to talk to a lot of people,” I explained.
“Real people? Like in an MMO?” he asked.
“No … fake people.”
May I add my edit?
“No…fake people, like a novel, poem or play.”
Case in point, I believe, although its merely one man’s opinion.
12/01/2009 at 05:47 drewski says:
Fallout 3 is great, and Scott Jones is a gutless limpet for not actually giving his opinion properly when asked. If I want the consensus, I’ll go to Metacritic. As a games journalist his obligation to his readers is to – in an opinion piece, which a GOTY or Top 10 by definition is – give his opinion. Even if, when it comes to games, he and I clearly like very different things.
I can has integrity? Apparently not.
12/01/2009 at 09:15 Phlebas says:
Hang on. There are people who didn’t like Moira?
12/01/2009 at 10:36 Cunningbeef says:
The biggest disappointment in the game was that the Megaton blast didn’t kill Moira.
What the fuck kind of cop out is that?
12/01/2009 at 11:08 Freakoftheuniverse says:
Has anyone given this a whirl yet? I saw it in a local magazine which has it’s own little indy column, but is a little lacking in the rest of the journalisms these days…
12/01/2009 at 12:57 Bozzley says:
Love Fallout 3, hate Moira. I think it’s the voice. I get the impression that her voice was made to be extremely whiny and grating on purpose; success!
Can’t wait to play through again with the evil devil on my shoulder, I’m gonna make Megaton BURN.
12/01/2009 at 14:57 Jimmay says:
At least eight. Maybe nine. It’s not a bad song, but it doesn’t match the rest of the damn album. Sigh. Oh well.
12/01/2009 at 15:22 dhex says:
“And no-one has to convince me that the line of thinking is wrong. It’s just that “My gut response is less important in a game of a year vote than what I feel the objective worth of a game” is a bit more complicated than “Lying”, and it’s worth people trying to understand the thinking which underlies the piece.”
i dig what you’re saying about serving the readers and all, but he can’t honestly think that it’s the game of the year. what context does he have beyond “lots of people liked it”? in his own words he found the conversations largely inane, the tasks repetitive and his choices utterly lacking in consequences. that screams “not good” when it comes to games in general and especially rpgs, which probably aren’t his cup of tea in the first place.
i think there are a lot of ways to approach f3 even if the total package was wanting in parts and wasn’t one’s cup of tea; how it’s another curious sidestep on the fps/rpg hybrid or “fps+” genre, or as an attempt to build off of the western rpg tradition on consoles (with whatever modifications/simplifications go into that).
12/01/2009 at 17:04 Risingson says:
And “new york I love you” is a fantastic song, which grows on you a lot and is great to sing with james murphy live, totally drunk, maybe a bit drugged. No, really, it’s an epythome of the Bowie blinks that Sound of Silver has, a wonderfully well-constructed ballad with a great progression, just as over-the-top as needed. But, again, I love Sound of Silver.
12/01/2009 at 17:20 faelnor says:
Re : Kieron’s “everyone liked fallout 3″.
I very highly doubt the assumption : vocal gamers in gaming webrings that gained credibility liked X == everyone liked X. Most people don’t talk. And when they do, you would be surprised at how many people do it out of their arse.
12/01/2009 at 17:24 Nick says:
Aptly demonstrated by that baffling post!
12/01/2009 at 18:07 faelnor says:
yeah, but i’m always right, obviously.
12/01/2009 at 18:07 Kieron Gillen says:
Faelnor: Democratic readers votes for games of the year seem to bypass the most vocal thing you’re talking about. Which is what I’m talking about. EG’s readers game of the year was FO3.
(Of course, votes for games of the year only include votes *for*. It doesn’t matter if 75% of the people who’ve played a game hated it. If 25% loved it most, it’ll probably be game of the year)
Dhex: To be fair, I think he said he voted for it – not that he voted for it as No.1. If you’re doing a top 10, including Fallout 3 isn’t exactly the same thing. But I could be wrong and misremember it.
KG
12/01/2009 at 18:11 Igor Hardy says:
Why are all these Lucusarts alumni coming out of the woodwork now?
It’s mostly just coincidence that so many of them had new titles in 2008 (Well, Telltale has some every year). You think it took them too long to make it on their own? Tim Schafer got around to starting his own company right after he left LucasArts, so he released Psychonauts a few years ago already, but most of the other alumni tried different things before following his path. You can read Bill Tiller’s excuse in this brand, new interview:
http://www.incgamers.com/Games/2334/interviews/167/Bill-Tiller-On-A-Vampyre-Story
12/01/2009 at 23:38 Muzman says:
Yeah that’s exactly it isn’t it. Also, I know these days gaming is more mainstream and huge titles like Halo have brought people into video games who wouldn’t be there otherwise and are a little disturbed by the breadth of things not-Halo/Mario that are called games. But geez, this guy’s supposed to be the editor of a games web site and the sight of a dialogue tree and talking NPCs just about knocks his baseball cap clear off his head. “Dude yur fagging up my shooting with talking n’ shit, WTF?”
It’s all happening a little to fast for this old fart.
13/01/2009 at 01:58 dhex says:
“When it came time to cast my vote for Game of the Year a few weeks back, I spent a series of antacid-infused days wrestling with whether or not I had the stuff to go against the grain, to stand up to pitchfork- and fire-wielders, and be true to my heart. Mostly I wondered if I’d forsake the little credibility I have in this business by picking something other than Fallout 3.”
sounds like a straight up game of the year routine.
13/01/2009 at 04:45 qrter says:
It would’ve all been fine if Scott Jones had done one of two things – either stood by his choice and sucked up his own cowardice, or wrote about how he made a mistake but that in the end it was his own mistake.
Now he makes it sound as if there’s some phantom force to blame, woe him, etc.