Slashdot Mirror
Ain't It Cool Announces Game Site
Remik writes "Harry and the folks over at Ain't It Cool News are looking to do for video games what they've already done for cinema. The announcement is not exactly well received by Gabe and Tycho at Penny Arcade. Great, another place to go complain about Duke Nukem not being out yet." AIC has been a neat site for movies, it'll be interesting to see how well their expertise extends to games.
The movie industry is different from the video game industry. For one, video games bring in much more money. For another, a video game site needs different things than a movie site. Will there be codes? How about a forum for people to meet up who want to play? How 'bout a game-rating forum? This has the potential to be good, as long as it's not just a cut rate forum.
I agree with the Penny Arcade comic. AICN comments attract the absolute lowest forms of Internet life in existance. We're talking lower in the chain than 14-year-old AOL girls here.
That, and the fact that it's perhaps the ugliest "popular" site on the Internet. From the lovely "baby poop brown" color scheme, to the 800 pt. Ariel font used whenever Harry speaks. It just screams "hype".
AICN is the movie industry equivilent of the game-review/preview genre: Sellouts with no journalistic intergrity, who are just looking to keep the free "exclusives" flowing by pumping out as many hyped-up positive reviews as possible. And now, what do you know! AICN is actually moving into the game-review/preview genre!
Geez, this is what passes for INFORMATION on Slashdot anymore?
What about Slammer?
What about Gates announcement today promising to do something about security... now... really...
What about Kasparov beating Big Blue 2?
What about Gates giving a paltry 200 million to "cure" diseases for the poor? (Don't look at that Slammer worm... lookee here)
I mean, c'mon... what's the purpose of forwarding an announcement that AICN is going to review games!? Trolling for advertising revenue again? Hoping to get the movie studios to advertise here? Why not start a movie review section on Slashdot?!?
nope, you're not the only one. I never understood where the fuss about that site came from/started. And the reviews were, for the most part, rants about something or other and gave away the entire plot.
...
Not to mention that the site was completely unreadable. I've seen some very simple, elegant sites, but AICN was NOT one of them!
still, somebody got very famous from it
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
Tycho compared this to the bottom of the internet barrel. It's a kind of slimy Drudge style of reporting that won't be able to provide 2 separate reliable sources for most of its reports, and yet I don't really mind. I can separate in my mind a rumor from news. We often criticize sites like this for lacking journalistic integrity, but they often make no bones about the fact that they're simply doing the best they can.
Moreover, I don't want to spoil movies before I see them. But when it comes to inside info on games, I do want to know some things ahead of time. With the way game development schedules are often stretched to infinity, with no word to the anxious public, it'll be nice to have developers tattling on their tight lipped bosses. I mean, when can I expect the sequel to my favorite game (H&D)? I may want to pick the right moment close to its release to purchase a new $1500 machine. That's not something I'll do for the movies, and I feel cheated everytime a company won't admit they're having problems.
Tribes 2 came out way before it was ready (stable, fast, fun). I guess the market taught them a lesson in the end, but had the discord among the developers been more public, management wouldn't have tried to ship a broken game.
That AIC forum blows is that they haven't implemented a /. like moderation system.
All the First Post L337 d00dz messages don't sink like a stone like they do here.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
The last thing I think of is Harry Knowles is a great gamer. Sure, he may get some fun insider stuff for movies, but his reviews are in like 90 pt fonts and rather worthless on most mainstream films.
Can't exactly see him getting people pumped up about the next big game like he does movies either. What's next, Butt numb-a-thon includes a lan party for 24 hrs locked in a room? please.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Fatbabies and AICN are different sites, and therefore this is offtopic.
By your logic, Microsoft.com and Linux.com are different sites, and therefore, mentioning FreeBSD or Linux in any way to Microsoft's products when the article links to a page on Microsoft.com must be offtopic.
I don't see how a valid request for a comparison could be marked offtopic.
Heh. Once, I slammed Sega's horrific Phantasy Star Online hard, and it still apparently wasn't enough - judging by the drooling fanboys and girls who sent me angry e-mail bordering on death threats. (Bring it. My real life(tm) armory is more effective than your l4v1z c4nn0n, d00dz!!!!)
Aside from adventures in idiocy, I discovered something. Among the many e-mails with poor spelling and what I can only assume to be truly extraterrestrial dialects, there were a few people who applauded my review. (They then spent months e-mailing me about stuff. Including one guy whom I had a few good discussions with about classic gaming.)
People want real reviews. They're tired of the turds that float on the current gaming sites. Present day reviews tend to either insist a game will give you real live orgasms, or they complain that a game 'sucks' because 'it isn't like (insert favorite game here)'.
Reviewers, get your acts together. Tell us *why* you think it sucks. Give facts to back up your arguments. Sure, give us the good along with the bad, but for the love of Bob, don't be afraid to say, "This game is possibly the worst piece of software ever written. Small children would flee in horror from it, while their mothers would weep pitifully." Again, just tell us *why* you think that.
(No one likes, 'omg this game iz teh sux cuz i r stupid idiot hoo didnt read da manyel 'n i culdnt figgur out how 2 launch teh sooper mega explozion atak!!!')
Great, so now instead of just poorly written, contentless reviews about movies, we can also have poorly written, contentless reviews about games too?
Am I the only person here that thinks that Harry Knowles is a total raving fanboy with no journalistic integrity?
they will take more care when designing that place, so that its actually readable if you don't have perfect vision (Notice how MSIE users can't change the font size because of bad stylesheet usage)
(Yes you might say its MSIE thats bad as well, but it is the standard)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating