Friday, October 10, 2008

SPC Mailbag - Fall One Edition

It's an opportune enough moment to reach down into the still fresh SPC Mailbag to answer three more questions sent in by various readers both casual and subscriber. This edition's topics include game journalism, ads on my blog, and more! Let's get right into it!

- I've read many slams made by you regarding game journalism. Do you really think its current state is so bad? - Mark

Hm... in a word, yes. In a rant, yes, game journalism is a joke, and it probably won't be considered a legitimate form of journalism for at least another decade at this rate. Let me begin by dissecting this by outlet.

IGN - On one side you have a group of people who follow hype and nothing more-- overrating nearly every blood-soaked, testosterone fest. Don't get me started on GTA IV reviews. Almost every outlet only got to spend five or so hours with the game before writing their review. IGN's took the cake with their perfect ten score. That's okay, but when the review sounds more like marketing shill than actual review, I'm done with you. "Oscar-quality dialogue". Seriously? ...Seriously?!


The other side of IGN is that of the Nintendo team. Oy vey. They underrate a lot of the games-- no, I'm sorry. They "grade Wii games hard because they expect more". Well, tell your bonehead PS3 and Xbox 360 teams to follow that. This is obviously to protect what little credibility they have in the first place. Matt Cassa-- who gives a crap-- said in a podcast that he's going to give Wii Music a 3.0. That was after the E3 showing. No, Matt, that's not a rush to judgment at all, you bitter fanboy. Don't even get me started on Halo DS and Kid Icarus. "It's coming, it's coming, I swear! Soon!" An unauthorized third party project does not Halo DS make. And three years after his Kid Icarus crying wolf, we'll probably finally see it and Matt will go, "see? I was right all along, dudes!" Ugh.

Gamespot - Gerstmann. Pfft. Mr. Double Standard. Mr. Let-Me-Sit-Down-While-Unenthusiastically-Playing-Wii-Sports. I'd respect him for getting fired if he was actually a decent reviewer. He's not. And Gamespot is a joke of a site anyway. Next.

1up/EGM - Refused to review Endless Ocean since they said it had no point or objectives. Then don't review Animal Crossing either as you gush over an even lesser game in Afrika. The reasoning behind it was beyond pathetic.

Kotaku - Posts "news" from CheapAssGamer about a new Xbox, the Xbox Pure. Turns out it was fake, and the managing editor of Kotaku cries and blames CheapAssGamer. Oh, did I mention that the news was posted on CAG in their forum by a non-staff member as a joke? Instead of saying "our bad", Kotaku decided to try to get credibility by blaming CAG anyway. No one bought it.

So yeah, short examples all added up to a rant basically, but the topic of game journalism disgusts me. Nothing but fanboys and bitter "core gamers" who get paid to write. I'll read reviews, but I sift through the crap.

- Are you going to place ads on your blog like others? - Cman

No. Blogger is absolutely free to use. I'm not like the GoNintendo blogger who uses the ads to help pay for bandwidth. I have no bandwidth to pay for. I cannot find a reason to put ads on a Blogger blog without being a cheap and complete douche bag considering there's no cost to run a blog from Blogger. You're just taking advantage of the userbase you acquired. Nothing more. I think it's an incredibly crappy thing to do, and I have no respect for those that do it. Get a job... y'know... go outside to actually earn your money, learn social skills-- things like that.

- What system are you currently playing the most right now? - mike

Now this is a topic where I won't rant... or will I? No, no. Right now I'm really enjoying the Wii. I have Tiger Woods 09, Wario Land, Samba de Amigo, and de Blob taking up my time right now. Soon I'll be checking out Mega Man 9 and WipEout HD on PSN as well as LittleBigPlanet and Saints Row 2 in a week or two. My older brother is playing the heck out of the 360, so all is well on the console front. hehe

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Good questions this edition to all who submitted and to all that I answered to. I hope this installment was enlightening. You rarely see me rant about too many things. I like to keep to myself and maintain a positive atmosphere on the site. Time to put the mailbag away for the time being. Until next time...

~ If you have a question you'd like to see answered (I imagine the mailbag will be a monthly occurence), feel free to drop a question into the c-box or by e-mailing me on my public e-mail at: superphillip32@hotmail.com

1 comment:

Zac Pritcher said...

You forgot to bash on Aeropause.com. Now that place is a joke. I used to write for them after getting a job offer from the EIC whom I met at the Nintendo Fusion tour. I wrote their for a while but was let go when one of their veteran writers brothers wanted a job as the Nintendo specialist, so he got my spot.