Slashdot Mirror
Games People Shouldn't Play
MBCook writes: "I've been a video game player for years, and I must say that the average game seems to be getting worse. Exihbit 1: Games People Shouldn't Play, an article on MSNBC. This article shows what the author thinks are the worst games on the current crop of systems. You've got to agree with calling a game bad if "...the only way to get in [the minigames] is by buying hats... How do you buy the hats? Why, by picking up garbage." If that doesn't make you want to play a game, what would? I agree with the author when he says: '... who knows what kind of disease your children might get from overexposure to these games.'"
I've played one or two of those games, and I can attest to their awfulness. Still, nothing holds a candle to Skydive! for the PC. I (Capital I)couldn't make a game worse than Skydive! if I tried! Some games are just born to be bad.
...(rejected by CmdrTaco) ...(accepted by timothy) or whatever it looks like because I haven't had a submission accepted yet. Oh well, I'll keep trying!
P.S. This is the second time that this has happened, but I submitted this too! This gives me an idea for Slashdot. When our submissions are accepted or rejected, we don't know which editor accepted or rejected them. Maybe we could be told that on our homepages (or somewhere else). It would be like this:
And now, for a sig that's a complete copout.
And a couple of gems that have literally stolen months of my life...
S.t.e.v.e.
I like how, near the end of the bit on the X-BOX game, it throws in [in it's own paragraph!]
:o
(MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
for no apparent reason.
[And for you guys who, I suppose, didn't bother to read the entire article, the guy rips on the X-Box games just as bad as the rest of them.]
It's a damn fun game. The key, as in real life, IS NOT TO DRIVE YOUR BOAT UP ONTO THE ISLANDS! I mean, c'mon...
Seriously, one of the most fun moments I've had with that game is trying to outrun torpedoes and turbo-boosting over a reef, sending my boat into the air while the torps hit the reef and blew up behind me. Smooth sailing from there. It may be Microsoft, but MS's games department tends to hit fairly often...
Take a look at the reviews. careful to attack the games. A bad xbox game gets mentioned once, and it seems almost like they are complimenting the xbox while saying the game is a bit hard to control. Ever wonder what it's like trying to right objectionably about a product your company sells and wind up candycoating while ripping into the competitor, ask Steven Kent. Makes me glad I don't have his job.
"The world is full of bias the secret is to know which way it runs"
Although nothing probably beats Custer's Revenge, there's a list of best/worst awards sites here. (don't mind the MSN stuff, the ODP is pulling a 4/1 joke).
I think innovation and revolution is highly overrated in games. I waited anxiously for Black & White for over a year, because it was going to be hugely revolutionary with its massive world and gesture-based controls and so forth. I played it for one day and took it back to the store, because while it was Innovative and Revolutionary, I didn't find it to be much fun.
Grand Theft Auto III, on the other hand, is the most fun I've ever had with a video game. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but I couldn't care less. It's a lot of fun, and that's what I play games for.
Ultimately, there's only so much revolution you're ever going to see in video games. You're always going to be using the mouse and / or keyboard or controller to control a guy / spaceship / car / abstract cursor to blow things up / build civilizations / complete goals. That's just the way the medium is, I think.
This reads exactly as an ad. You just have to read into the implications. First off, just compare how the reviewer examines X-box titles in comparasin to Playstation titles. In x-box titles, he lists poor game design choices such as the game being simply a button masher, or the game having too real of physics. Now look at the Playstion games - horrible graphics - horrible frame rate - etc. This author is implicity stating - wow - these are horrible x box titles even though they having amazing graphics, incredible real time physics, and so on. Of course, if these titles are horrible with their amazing graphics, imagine what the good titles are like. That's the implicit statment. The playstation reviews attack the platform as being inferior. Frame rate problems, poor graphics - damn, can't get much better. Of course, they drop in the MSNBC is owned by Microsoft to make you think, "Oh, these guys are owned by Microsoft so they will make sure to make a biased article" when in fact they do exactly opposite. This is an adverstisement. Trust me. And this practice doesn't simply occur in game reviews, check CNN or especially Fox news to see this overtly in action. Unbiased news is a myth.