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Elite
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| Article By: BAD |
| Written 9/30/00 |
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Sup everyone. Well, now that my exams are briefly passed, I have a bit of free time to complain about the recent bullshit reviews from magazines who have sorry editors. OK, to start out, what is a hard-core gamer defined as? According to EGM, a hard-core gamer is defined as only playing a game with limited continues. This is absolute and utter ignorance. Giving games (great games, in my opinion) bad ratings because there are unlimited continues is just amazingly narrow-minded and proves shallowness. Giga Wing and Strider 2 were rated low for one reason, and that being that they had unlimited continues; since when does continue limitation hack a gameplay experience? It doesn't induce slowdown, graphical problems, translation problems, or replay problems. Continuing is optional, and in no way forces the player to continue the game and supposedly "ruin" replay value on a shooter or platformer. After all, if you have a perfect conversion of an arcade game on your home console, you would like it to be just like the arcade where there is no credit limitation (if you have the bank, play as much as you want!), right? Just as a letter to the editors of EGM said, if they were so hard-core, they would limit themselves on continues. But instead, they give a game a shitass review in an attempt to be "hard-core"; the editors of EGM just try to be too elite.
Excluding the staff of GameFan, too many magazines just try too hard to be elite, they try hard to be hardcore. If Metal Gear Solid 2 (or any other big name game, for that matter) had a continue system that was infinite, they wouldn't say shit about it because it's a huge name that sells, and it's a huge game that everyone loves. I refuse to accept this form of ignorant, biased, reviewing of games that weren't given a fair chance. Each to his own, but at least review the game on fair terms. It seems that the magazines just get into this niche, this little groove of bullshit rules and regulations for us gamers to follow; it's downright insulting. I can take the stupid "this game doesn't innovate like ________ [choose title to fill in blank: Soul Calibur, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid]", but when a game is rated solely on an optional feature that doesn't affect gameplay, it just proves the depreciation of gaming magazines in the industry. They can give every Final Fantasy, Soul Calibur, Tekken, Tony Hawk, or Metal Gear game great acclaim and ratings, but when it comes time to look at something else they're too quick to hand out bad ratings and comments like it's their sole mission in life.
Even though opinions all mean nothing because they are based in preference, and preference is based on individuals, preference is no excuse for ignorance. Does anyone else feel the degeneration of gaming mags upon us? Take a careful, close look at how games are rated from majority of the mags and you'll see. However, I think two magazines deserve great props; GameFan and Tips & Tricks have unique sections, and they aren't sickeningly biased. While the jackass operation spins its wheels, we have to deal with it. Well, I think it's most safe to say that if things stay the way they are, I am not renewing my subscription to EGM, will never pick up another GamePro (what a piece of shit!), and continue to use both as toilet paper. I just wanted to address this issue, to see what you all have to say about it. I usually don't care about an ignorant review, but these types of reviews are actually starting a sickening, vomit-inducing trend.