Justified: Gaming Edition

It used to be that if you wanted to know someone's opinion on a game, you either picked up EGM or heard about it from a friend (or, if you wanted to see a bunch of excited as fuck dudes next to a 5.0, picked up Gamepro). Nowadays every video game site in existence puts out a review for almost every release, making it easy for everyone and their mom to find at least one person out there who agrees with your minority view. This has a strange effect as well, making it easy to see who is in the minority and majority on most game releases. Given that game prices are now a small investment, the urge for people to make themselves feel better about their purchase has grown, leading to an odd phenomenon where you need to justify not only purchasing a game with below a certain score on metacritic, but NOT purchasing a game with above a certain score.

This used to exist just with more expensive items, such as in the car world (see Mustang v Camaro, Muscle v Import, etc) and in the mid 90s video game consoles (at it's height in the Genesis/SNES and Game Boy/Game Gear days). Metacritic seems to have changed all that though, and in the process made game discussion forums at least 70% bitching about reviews or saying why a certain review that agrees with you is the be-all-end-all review. I remember feeling like I had to justify my purchase of Lost Odyssey to a bunch of people on my friends list, as merely playing the game caused a slew of 'I heard that game sucked bad, how is it?' It has gotten so specific that you can pretty much use the scale below:

Under 80 - It obviously sucks, and should not be even touched
80 to 90, it obviously sucks/rocks more than X game that got that score
90+ - Why the fuck are you not playing this game, if you don't like it you obviously hate gaming and are wrong

I personally have always been a huge fan of the old EGM Good/Bad/Ugly part of the review, which has been replicated to some extent on various sites. I look at the good, see if it intrests me, then at the bad and see if it is something that would piss me off. Lost Odyssey was too traditional, something that was a GOOD for me after playing many newer RPGs. Sacred 2 had glitches I was willing to look past as they didn't impact the core appeal of the game to me. Too Human... err, I don't know why I put 60 hours into it, I still believe it had subliminal messages and Blizzard was just taking too fucking long getting out Diablo 3, so they are to blame.

The strange part is that I have suddenly had to justify why I was NOT playing Red Dead Redemption. In this case, the western setting was a turn off for me, the GTA controls were something I didn't want to fight, and the HUGE single player game was not something I wanted to tie myself to as the weather gets nice. Despite this, I cannot think of a game that I have seen so many 'If you are not playing this there is something wrong with you' posts, though some of the Nintendo games were a little like that (and Mario Galaxy is the same way). Oddly enough I decided that for me Blur was a better purchase and something I would enjoy more, even though it is obviously the wrong choice with a score in the 80s.

I'm not sure what to make of the new culture, this is more of a plea to everyone to please take a step back and look at games as more than a score. You don't need to pretend to like Mario Galaxy 2, and you don't need to automatically hate Alpha Protocol - there is normally a reason there is a majority opinion, but there is also a reason that everyone will make different top 10 lists and fight over them nonstop. Buying blindly on review scores has caused me to waste money on games I only played for 2 hours (Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros Brawl, Scribblenauts) or did not enjoy but finished just because I spent the cash on them (GTAIV, Resistance, Killzone 2, Halo 3, Need for Speed Shift, Half-Life 2). On the flip side, looking past them have allowed me to discover some excellent titles (Killing Floor, Lost Odyssey, Sacred 2). A high score will not make you like a game that doesn't sound interesting, and a low score on something that sounds awesome to you may not prevent you from enjoying it.

I will say that I love video reviews for seeing what people find frustrating/annoying about a game. Hearing the controls in Alpha Protocol are bad is nothing compared to seeing someone miss shot after shot when it is lined up (a la Fallout 3, which I learned to just use VATS). I have found these a lot more useful to get a feel for if the reason it scored low was personal preference or fundamental issues with the game I will not be able to overlook. Past that, go ahead and say your opinion, just remember that Metacritic doesn't tell you the right one all the time when it comes to your own gaming enjoyment.

Untitled Podcast FTW

Once again, we return to bombard you with correct opinions.

We start out with our usual jibba-jabba, then delve into actual games we've been playing like Alan Wake, Dragon Age: Darkspawn Chronicles, and a random assemblage of random shit.

From there, we talk a little about Steam on Mac, Guild Wars 2, and then launch into an exhaustive preview of Summer 2010 for gamers. From games to books about games to E3, we cover it all.

We're also soliciting requests for what you wanna hear about in our upcoming PRE3 podcast. What do you wanna see @ E3? What do you think will be there? What's got you pumped about this year's show?

So, enjoy the podcast, and comment away!

-Blaine

Time to Catch Up

That is often the mantra of the barren wasteland of gaming that takes hold in May-July. Of course, Starcraft 2 is now going to announce the end to that period with gusto, but until then we are left with almost nothing new that I am looking forward to. There is a chance that Alan Wake or even Alpha Protocol may turn out to be worth my cash (much in the same way Red Faction did last year) but until then I am catching up on some random gaming.

What is odd is that I fear that Starcraft 2 will be a 95% single player experience for me, and Super Street Fighter IV is shaping up to be the same way (as a side note, to even get SSFIV to work online I had to open ports not needed for any PS3 game to date, including SFIV). There is just something about recent games that seem to cause people to get a bit fanatical about them, and if you don't pick one or two games to spend 90% or more of your gaming time on, it often feels like it is not worth ever trying.

This came up first when trying to play Dawn of War 2 (before the recent patch that apparently caused it to run like ass on my computer, strangely at the same time they switched from Nvidia to ATI, hmm) online, as I quickly realized I was getting shut out every match. Now I have gotten past the phase where I need to win every game, but not being able to get a single point sucks the fun out FAST. The exact same thing happened in my attempt at playing the Starcraft 2 beta, and watching the replay was just hilarious to see how terribly I got beat.

The thing is, these games are just a couple examples of a growing issue - matchmaking has just not caught up to where it needs to be. I thought the entire idea of the 'Trueskill' systems was that I would play people of equal skill, but from Modern Warfare to Forza that never seems to hold true (though Forza is one of the few games I can always hold my own, maybe the last game besides Dirt that I win on a regular basis online). What is the point of keeping track of all these stats if we are not using them to make truly even matches? Win or lose, I think most will agree those are the most exciting parts of competitive gaming.

If I can beat everyone I know in person in Starcraft and Street Fighter, why do I never get matched with anyone close to them online? I know those of my skill level exist, the games just haven't figured out a good way to match me up with them (even searching forums now, it seems SSFIV is currently dominated by those who never stopped playing the last incarnation, with many 'I am 5-90 right now, should I give up' topics). Then again, maybe the other people like me are doing exactly what I am - playing 5-10 matches, losing horribly, and then just saying 'Fuck it.'

That being said, I am still enjoying the hell out of Killing Floor mainly because I can scratch the online itch and everyone helps one another. Maybe I am part of a dying breed that plays a lot of games but doesn't master any of them, and that is part of the problem. Maybe all those 2 liters I drank when I was younger served to be the steroids of a gamer, and without them I am nothing. Maybe 28 is past my prime by 14 years. Either way, I refuse to believe there are no more middle-skill level players out there, even for the hardcore games. I just need to find a game that can tell the difference.