Post-Thanksgiving Break

The Thanksgiving holiday has rolled right into sickness and some minor computer problems around here, and since I have some work and personal stuff to catch up on anyway, I thought, "why not make it an even two week break." Expect regular Monday through Thursday updates to resume on Dec. 6. Until then, you'll just have to handle the video game critiques yourself (feel free to use the comments thread for this. I promise I'll try to participate).

G4TechTV DS

Did anyone catch the special dual-screen broadcast on G4TechTV yesterday (as described in this press release)? Apparently, the video game/technology network celebrated the launch of the Nintendo DS with 20 hours of programming in a split screen format with a Nintendo DS frame. The press release says that they "partnered with Nintendo" on this, so I can only assume the big N paid big bucks to basically take over the network for a day.



I didn't get a chance to see it (being busy most of the day playing my own DS) but I'd love to hear about it from someone who did. Did it strike you as gimmicky, interesting, distracting, innovative, overly-commercial, overly-biased or all or none of the above? How did it compare to recent G4 promotions like "GTA TV" and "Halo 2 Day"? Drop your comments using the link below.



More Nintendo DS coverage coverage coming in the near future.

Well-constructed Sentence of the Moment

"Additionally, Atari offers the previously not for the console released game 'Saboteur'."

-Wolfgang Gruener, in a Tom's Hardware Guide article about a psuedo-re-release of the Atari 7800

Update: Spike TV Video Games Advisory Board

Readers of my recent post about the Spike TV Video Game Awards may recall my speculation that the show's Adivsory Board was "probably made up of members of the nominated magazines and Web sites, but I'm not sure." (emphasis added) If I had done just a tad bit more research, I'd have found a Nov. 10 press release that indeed reveals members of 1up.com, GameSpy.com, IGN, CNet (GameSpot's parent company) and the Official Xbox Magazine as judges for the shows non-journalism--related categories.



Among these and other myriad media members (including CNN/Money's Chris Morris, who pointed me to the release), you'll also find Spike TV's senior vice president of development and talent (who better to judge video games?) and the head of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (who, as an organization, have their own, slightly more respectable awards to worry about) on the Advisory Board. Interesting, to say the least.

Quote of the Moment - PR Edition

"Yo, this is the dopest thing I've seen in my life."

–Donald Faison, commenting on the Nintendo DS, as quoted in a Nintendo press release.

Gaming Mags, Web Sites Get Spiked

Has it really almost been a year since the first Spike TV Video Game Awards inspired me to question the direction of the video game industry through Disney song lyrics?



A quick skim through a recent Spike press release would seem to indicate that it has. Spike has upped the ante in this year's show with a few new categories, including two that particularly piqued my interest: Best Gaming Publication and Best Gaming Web Site.



The release indicates that both categories are "fan favorites," meaning the winner will be chosen by voting through SpikeTV.com and cell phones and not by the "Video Game Awards Advisory Board... of gaming industry experts," that picked the nominees. If I had to guess, I'd say this is because the advisory board is probably made up of members of the nominated magazines and Web sites, but I'm not sure (UPDATE: This has since been confirmed. Read more).



Enough inane chatter. If you're here for some quick and highly opinionated thoughts on the nominees, you're in the right place?



For Best Gaming Magazine

• Electronic Gaming Monthly - The elder statesman of the list, I'd say EGM is probably the prohibitive favorite. Even though Game Informer has a larger circulation, I think EGM attracts a more devoted, hardcore gamer following. Interestingly, EGM is the only magazine nominated that isn't directly affiliated with a specific store or console.
• GMR - The new kid on the block, EBGames' magazine has gained a quick following through $5 in-store subscriptions. GMR's nomination among older, more established mags shows the power of game retailers in pushing publications.
• Game Informer - Gamestop's magazine has a lot of subscribers, but many of them probably just signed up for the 10 percent in-store discount (the same goes for smaller GMR). Will the casual masses turn out to vote for GI?
• Official PlayStation Magazine - The third Ziff Davis nominee shows how far the publishers influence extends in the video game publishing world. The demo discs are good, but the balanced PlayStation coverage (especially for an "official" magazine) is even better.
• Official Xbox Magazine - The underdog of the list. The limited base of support for Xbox hurts its chances, but Xbox owners do tend to be very devoted. The only nominee from Future Publishing, a sign of how far the once-proud publisher of Next Generation and Game Players has fallen.

For Best Gaming Web Site

• 1up.com - The Ziff Davis megasite has become an ad-soaked, community-centered behemoth since its recent redesign. Interactive content could lead to strong reader loyalty and a lot of votes.
• Gamespot.com - My odds-on favorite to win, ZDNet's site has been a draw for hardcore and casual gamers alike since back when it was videogames.com. Plus I write for them now, so my cadre of followers will vote in droves.
• Gamespy.com - It took me quite a while to figure out that GameSpy was more than an online game-matching service and actually a decent gaming information web site. Increased focus on consoles in recent months gives them broader appeal.
• IGN.com - The fact that IGN gets top billing in the IGN/Gamespy mega-conglomerate should tell you something about its size. Quantity doesn't equal quality, though, and IGN's quality hasn't been very high for a while now.
• ShackNews.com - The dark horse candidate, this PC-centric site is big among the hardcore computer gamers, but I don't think it's in the same league as the other nominees in terms of popularity.

Final Thoughts:

• Does anyone else find it at least unsettling that the most prominent televised video game awards show is on "The first network for men"? Are categories like "Cyber Vixen of the Year" a symptom or a cause of gaming's male-centered demographic?
• Spike's press release named "Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour" as a nominee for Best Handheld, but the real name is "Mario Golf: Advance Tour." Toadstool Tour is the GameCube version. IGN and GameSpot were among the many who didn't notice the error when copying the press release verbatim. (to be fair, I wouldn't have noticed either if not for the eagle eye of Gaming Target's John Scalzo).
• Go Katamari Damacy!

Money, Mouth, Meet in Same Place

Sorry for missing yesterday's scheduled update. I was in be much earlier than usual with a headache that wouldn't quit. Feel free to consider this my early Thanksgiving break. Of course, I'll also be taking Thanksgiving Day off. *cough*



Anyway, it wouldn't be very fair of me to criticize the video game journalism of others without allowing others ample opportunity to criticize my attempts at the same. With that in mind, feel free to read my official debut as a GameSpot freelancer and comment on it as you see fit. Be as brutal as you like, I don't care.



No really, I don't at all care what you think.



That's why I'm asking for your comments, of course.



*cough*

Headline of the Moment

'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' is violent, exhilarating game



Imagine the same style of headline applied to film:



'The Godfather' is violent, exhilarating movie



or music:



Eminem's latest is violent, exhilarating



or theater:



Local troupe puts on violent, exhilarating performance of 'Romeo and Juliet'

Give 'em a story

There were quite a few interesting side-stories branching off from this Tuesday's release of Halo 2. By interesting, I do not mean the countless predictable (but necessary) stories of long lines and record-breaking first day sales. I do mean:



Halo 2 Strategy Guide Breaks Random House Records



Quick Summary: The guide sold more in one day than Bill Clinton's biography -- 270,000 copies in one day. An initial print run of 1.1 million will likely sell out quickly as well.



This one was particularly interesting to me, as it has implications for a long-neglected area of video game journalism. Game guides have evolved from their simple roots to include interviews, retrospectives, and the kind of minutiae that is the essence of thorough journalism. Hopefully these huge sales will lead to increased attention and talent to the game guide subsector.



Halo 2 -- Liberal Propaganda?



Quick Summary: Right-wing rag The Free Republic takes an out-of-context quote to its liberal-consipracy extreme.



Thanks to Chris Remo and the crew at Idle Thumbs for alerting me to this one and pointing out the essential flaw -- the original interview in Entertainment Weekly completely changed the meaning of a quote from Halo writer Joe Staten by leaving out the last four words. If my "negative" "review" of Halo 2 wasn't enough caution against out-of-context quotes, this ought to be. Then again, anyone expecting thorough and experienced game analysis out of The Free Republic isn't thinking straight anyway.



The best part is the comments that are so ludicrous they're often almost self-mocking: "If your kid is going to a Halo 2 release party tonight at midnight, be aware that your kid is going to a left-wing political rally..."



The New Video Frontier



Quick Summary: PRI's Marketplace uses the Halo 2 release as a jumping off point to look at the positive effects of games on business sense



Author Mitchell Wade takes the controversial position that video games have made a whole generation of players less risk-averse and more willing to accept failure. Who knew? With San Andreas sending the anti-violence crusaders into overdrve in recent weeks, it's nice to see a major outlet covering the other side. Best part: The host somewhat incredulously accepting the demonstrable fact that gamers aren't giving up games as they pass into their 30s.



IGN vs. Bungie



Quick Summary: The IGN team gives a detailed account of their thrashing at the hands of the Bungie team in multiplayer Halo 2.



Humorous color piece or conflict of interest? You decide.



Actually, I decide first -- it's just a fun piece. Fraternizing with your sources can be all right if it serves some journalistic purpose. Here, offering some unique hands-on impressions of the multiplayer game is purpose enough. It would have been nice if they had taken some of their time with the developers to get more insight into level or gameplay design, but I digress.

Giving the Prefix "Meta" A Whole New Meaning

Welcome to all the new visitors joining us from the pleasant shores of Slashdot Games, Joystiq, Kotaku, Waxy and the rest of the blogosphere. If the visitor numbers are any indication (more visits today than in the past two-and-a-half months) then people get a bit interested when you put "negative" and "Halo 2" in the same headline.



Anyway, while yesterday was all about using the words of others to nitpick a game, today is all about nitpicking the words others used to praise a game. What follows is my short opinions of a few Halo 2 reviews from some of the biggest video game sites on the Internet, based on totally subjective criteria described below. These meta-reviews come from the perspective of someone with some experience reviewing games but no experience playing the game in question.



To potential detractors who say reviewing reviews is a waste of time, I will take your review of my review-reviews under due consideration.



A brief description of my rating categories (a work in progress):

Leading off: A good review grips you from the beginning with an interesting angle or an exquisitely written lead. It makes the reader want to keep reading.

Flow: A good review reads easily from beginning to end, and covers all the bases along the way. Jarring or non-existent segues, too much detail and lazy section headers can hurt you here.

Balance: A good review manages to point out the bad parts of the best game and the best parts of an awful game, and pulls both equally from an average game. Balance also means discussing the game in its entirety, not getting hung up on one point (this is also part of flow).

Context: A good review compares a game somehow to its predecessors and contemporaries, although this comparison need not be overt. Working in the context of society at large is an added bonus.

Hype: Is the review a series of carefully considered opinions or marketing catch phrases. Bad reviews can be just as guilty of sounding like hackneyed anti-hype as gushers. Original phrases help here. Use of cliches hurts.

Score matches the text: A pet peeve of mine -- when the score seems artificially high or low compared to the description.



GameSpot

Review by Greg Kasavin



Leading off: The review takes a pretty detailed look at the original Halo and what made it "one of the definitive games in the genre." To someone who never played the first game (we do exist) it's very handy, but to the larger audience of Halo fans there might be a little of a "Well, duh!" factor.

Flow: The four-page review suffers a bit from laundry-list syndrome, where everything about the game is thrown out there in a semi-ordered fashion. Everything is discussed in detail, which is to say nothing stands out against the dull buzz of detail.

Balance: Tough-but-fair criticism of the ending and the length manage to stand out and make an impact even in a sea of praise. Readers of this review will come out with some bad impressions among many good ones.

Context: Based on this review, you might think the Halo series exists in a vacuum. References to the first game abound, but the merest allusion to the outside world is largely absent.

Hype: A matter-of-fact tone supports a review that backs up its praise with plenty of rational reasoning and little exaggeration.

Score matches the text: A 9.4 from Gamespot is almost as good as a 100 percent elsewhere, but the sub-perfect score notes the flaws without diminishing the good parts.



IGN

Review by Douglass C. Perry



Leading off: "There is a new kid in town, and strangely, you've known its name for years." Huh? The comparison to system-sellers past comes off hollow, and the overly-effusive praise comes on a bit thick right from the start.

Flow: Deft readers have to navigate through bulky screenshots and feature links and eight page divisions to get through this massive review. The actual text relies on large headers to divide the sections, but the internal flow of each is passable, if overly long.

Balance: The bad points in this review are so completely covered with "this is just minor nitpicking" style apologies you'd think they're almost sorry to utter anything negative. Let the reader determine what's a nitpick and what's a serious issue.

Context Comparisons to the Alien movies and to games in other genres fit naturally, as do endless comparisons to the first Halo. Readers get a clear sense of where Halo 2 fits in gaming hierarchy -- at the top.

Hype: Any review that manages to use the term "comes up aces" twice in its first three paragraphs fails the hype test. The praise becomes a little more thoughtful towards the middle, but phrases like "Halo 2 plays like a dream," and "It's freakin' awesome," are painful to read.

Score matches the text: It's hard to see this game not getting a perfect score after reading so many superlatives, but a 9.8 leaves some wiggle room for future games to sneak in, I suppose.



1up

Review by Matt Leone



Leading off: A simple list of all the new features grabs the readers attention and almost serves as a decent review in itself.

Flow: The review jumps from point to point in a somewhat rambley fashion, but never seems to lose a general stream-of-consciousness coherence. The length is perfect, giving a strong impression of the game without drowning the reader in details.

Balance: Bad points are mentioned subtly and a little apologetically, but some strong placement in the conclusion make them hard to miss.

Context: Constant references to specific elements from other popular FPS titles give the reader good reference points. Direct comparisons to the games of today and the near future put it at the top of the heap.

Hype: A strong showing for Halo 2 seems almost preordained given the demonstrated love for the original Halo. Still, enough support is given to back up the lofty praise.

Score matches the text: Given the lack of serious criticisms, a one-point drop on a ten-point scale would seem unthinkable. Without any finer demarcations, a 10/10 is really the only option.



Unfortunately that's all I have time for now. Later on I hope to look at some reviews from smaller sources as well. Please leave your own impressions of these or any other reviews using the comments link below.

Eliminate the Positive (or "The Only Negative Review of Halo 2 You're Ever Likely To Read")

"Halo 2 isn't a perfect game." (9) It "is still a linear series of shootouts," (5) that is "cowboys and Indians from the get-go," (2) and features "annoying graphical hiccups" and "team AI [that] isn't always perfect." (6)



"Some will undoubtedly say that the graphics have come up a bit short." (6) "There are occasionally some graphic hiccups, such as when a far off texture doesn't fill in as you approach it." (1) or when "the ground sometimes has an unrealistic ripple effect and some characters you come across look blurry." (4) One other "noticeable 'problem' is when the graphics mip-map at the beginning of nearly every scene, meaning that you first see a placeholder graphic before the more detailed version pops into place." (2) "Brutes have a very plastic appearance, and one character in particular is sloppily designed." (9)



In addition, "some of the in-engine cutscenes are kind of ugly," and "you'll actually see a little slowdown, pop-in, and LOD issues during cutscenes." (5) In fact, "you'll wonder what's going on in the cutscenes." (7) "It does detract." (8)



Besides the graphics, Halo 2 has "a surprisingly disappointing story." (5) "The first game had a cold sense of mystery and a striking sense of loneliness that shadowed Master Chief wherever he went. This time around... Halo 2 feels a little bit more Hollywood, a little less underdog." (2) "You spent the first game indiscriminately killing these fiends -- yet now you're expected to be sympathetic to them and their hatred for humankind." (5)



"The second half tends to drag on a bit," (3) but "easily the worst part about the story is the way it ends, insofar as it doesn't." (5) "The final battle is neither interesting while you're in the thick of it nor fulfilling once it concludes." (9) "You'll run into this game's cliff-hanger ending like a compact car into a brick wall... There's little satisfaction to be found in the ending here," and "there's a good chance you'll feel emotionally betrayed by the story." (5) "More than a few people will find Bungie's segue to Xbox 2 more than a little irritating." (2)



"I still see a bit of repetitive level design in Halo 2." (7) "Halo 2's campaign... frequently boils down to straight-up run-and-gun corridor crawls, one after another." (5) "Bungie's ship and interior designs are almost as repetitive in both architecture and texturing as before... Given no map, you will find yourself wondering where the hell to go more often than not... More distinct texture work and asymmetrical ornamentation would've helped."(8)



"The AI has a few weaknesses, especially when it's in the driver's seat of a vehicle, where it has trouble steering around obstacles." (5) In addition "many battles turn into strike-and-hide exercises where you take a few shots and then sneak away to let your shield recharge." (6) "It certainly doesn't help that the campaign is "rather short" (5) and that "able-bodied players will probably finish the game on Normal mode in around 15 hours." (2) "I somehow expected it to take much longer." (8)



"There's no... system-link cooperative mode." (3) and "you can't play co-op online." (4) That's right, there's "no co-op play for Xbox Live or through system link." (9) "I'd have loved to see a working online co-op mode." (7) "It would have been great to play co-op online." (8) "My dream of online co-op with the Master Chief has been dashed." (7)



"Halo 2 is not perfect." (4) "You could argue that given all the hype, Halo 2 is disappointingly more of the same." (3) "I can't really say that the engine has been vastly improved for the sequel," (7) "every now and then, the game goes a bit overboard with the technology," (4) "and well, could there have been more maps?" (8) "A surprisingly disappointing story and a fairly short single-player portion are noticeable shortcomings." (5) "After all of the time we spent waiting for this product, the developers owed us something better." (9)



EDITOR'S NOTE: If it's not apparent yet, this "review" is simply an amalgamation of bad points from nine other mass-market reviews of Halo 2. All the words inside quotes were copied directly from the numbered source in parentheses immediately following (links to source material available below.) These quotes were deliberately purged of any positive context or mitigating conditionals through judicious snipping, but it should be made clear that I believe every one of these points was intended as a negative in the original review. I did not just take random words to make it look like the reviewers found flaws that they didn't, but rather I separated out the middling negatives from the overwhelming positives and grouped them into a semi-coherent whole.



Anyone who's still ready to flame me after that should consider that it took the relatively minor nitpicking from nine separate reviews to construct one average-length, overly-repetitive negative review of this game, and the negative review still isn't very convincing. If this doesn't speak to the obvious quality of a game, I don't know what does.



So why do this at all? First, to show that quotes taken out of context can be highly, highly misleading (important to remember the next time you see a quote on the back of a game box). Second, to show that although it might seem like Halo 2 is God's gift to video gaming, it is not perfect. None of the nine reviews I read (some of which were quite lengthy and gave the game their highest score) claimed that it was. Some explicitly said it wasn't. Media frenzies like this tend to encourage hyperbole, so this is my attempt to keep the effusive praise down to a realistic level.



Thus begins what is turning into Halo 2 week at the VGO (what can I say, I was feeling left out). Look for reviews of some Halo 2 reviews tomorrow and an overview of Halo 2 news coverage on Thursday.



Review sources:

(1) http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/halo-2/564301p1.html

(2) http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3136245&did=6

(3) http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=2005815&did=2

(4) http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3136252&did=1

(5) http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/halo2/review.html

(6) http://www.g4techtv.com/halo2day/features/50249/Halo_2_Review.html

(7) http://www.ugo.com/channels/games/features/halo2/review_1.asp

(8) http://xbox.ign.com/articles/557/557509p1.html

(9) http://microsoft.gamerfeed.com/gf/reviews/520/

Wired Connects the Dots

Kudos to Matthew Stibbe for his recent two-page spread in the latest issue of Wired (12.11) titled "How Pong Invented the Internet." The text is available online, but the real draw is the sprawling web of dozens of games, organizations, people and more that connects concepts as disparate as Zork, Starbucks and the Strategic Defense Initiative through a few color-coded lines.



The graphic is a good example of outside-the-box journalism on its own, but its also a good illustration of how video game journalism can be about more than just games. The business side of games can be tied to monolithic companies like Disney, the cultural side to institutions like the Simthsonian, and the technological side to people like Tim Berners-Lee in just a few steps. Sure, some of the connections are largely tangential (Star Raiders -> Star Trek -> William Shatner -> Priceline.com) but journalists should keep in mind the larger web of relationships when looking for interesting new angles in the video game beat.

Truly Unbiased Reviews

Who better to do a fair, unbiased review of "The X-Play Insider's Guide to Gaming" than the fine people at... X-Play



Money quote: "Take it from us, 'The X-Play Insider’s Guide to Gaming' is an easy book to enjoy and an easy book to recommend. Come on, did you really think anything less? Now, go out and buy it!



Sure, it reads like a tongue-in-cheek press release, but the format is exactly the same as other reviews on the X-Play web site, right down to the 5-star rating. At least local news features about new network shows usually try to dig some news value out of it. This seems kind of gratuitous.



My copy of the book just got delivered today, and skimming through it looks decent. Actually, I just remember that it was shipped to me free of charge from the publisher, so let me ammend that and say that it's the BEST BOOK EVER OMG OMG BUY IT NOW! Expect more detailed gushing in this space soon.

The Ombudsman Asks: Who's Reviews Do You Choose

Less explaining, more asking this time around.



The Ombudsman Asks: What do you look for in a game review?



Are you looking for information about games you haven't played or opinions on ones you have? Are you looking for someone to confirm your opinions or challenge them? Do you want technical information, informed opinion, scholarly analysis, cultural reading, or something else entirely? Do you look to one source exclusively or a variety of opinions? Do you like numerical scores, letter grades or no quantitiative measure at all?



I'll be working late helping with election night on Tuesday, so don't expect a post. I expect to be back Wednesday with a post on what is now old news, at least in Internet terms.