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.

Comments

AICN is crap.

[Skyshadow]

If AICN was ever useful, it sold out a long time ago. Now it's just useless cheerleading for movies in an obvious effort to get the "editors" invited to screenings and whatever.

Or am I the only one who remembers the infamous "Meesa love [Jar Jar]" review?

I think it will be a good site.

[Viewsonic]

People that review these games today never slam them as hard as they should. Hopefully the reviewers will be totally honest when they write about the games and just bash the living crap out of the stinkers. And hopefully when games make massive booboo's (Like Everquest devs telling their complaining fans to shut up and buy their expansion to fund their sports car payments..) it will get some MAJOR press and force these halfwits to watch what they're doing a bit more closely. There may be hundreds of gaming sites out there right now, but no one has ever had the press "pull" Harry gets. Kudos to the computer gaming industry having to get their act together or get blasted into oblivion through a major media outlet.

I hate to say it but...

[natron 2.0]

Ok so if I make a site devoted to movie reviews it then gets noticed, then I get invited to many advanced movie screenings and get to meet the stars...
Then I think I can do the same with a site devoted to video games so I can get all my games free without needing to download them from warez sites...
Somewhere along the lines I think they have lost thier original mission and are now out for themselves and not the fans. Besides do we really need ANOTHER website devoted to video games?

Re:I hate to say it but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point.

I rarely ever visit AIC due to thier biasness and terrible layout. Hell, I rarely visit PC game sites either, I still prefer the age old hard copy magazine format. No mater what we do though there will always be biasness in the reviews. I really think this is a bad move on the part of AIC it just seems like they are youing thier name and capital to get more free stuff. Shame.

Journalistic Integrity

[kabir]

Since the fellow behind Ain't It Cool News has repeadedly admitted that he's enhanced, or, on occasion, simply made up a fair number of his so called "scoops" I find the site pretty much useless. There's absolutely no reason to believe what it says unless it's been confirmed somewhere else, so what's the point? There are already plenty of gaming sites out there in the world, and while they seem to have difficulties getting accurate information out of publishers, to my knowledge they don't just make stuff up.

I guess I have to share Gabe & Tycho's reaction: no, it ain't cool.

GamezCore.com already is the /. of Video Games

[GamezCore.com]

GamezCore.com has all the user interactivity of Slashdot, with a true community feel. It is built around 100% independence from corporate bias, and brings late-breaking news to thousands of hardcore gamers daily. http://www.gamezcore.com

Re:This is great.

[Golias]

Well, to be fair, that's not all they do.

I'm sure they will also post poorly-written reviews that only express polar extremes (either "it gave meaning to my life" or "the producer should be gang-raped and murdered"). They will also say "fuck" a lot because they think it makes them "edgy."

Also, look for Harry cameos in the shittiest of shitty low-budget games, followed by Harry ripping the movie in his review to show how much integrity he has.

Oh, and "spoilers" for the more popular game franchises. Now you can be the first to know what the ending cut-scene movie for "Grand Theft Auto 5" is going to look like. Whee!

AICN isn't the first...

[cvanaver]

...media review site to move into game reviews on top of movies/TV.

Rottentomatos.com has been doing it for a little while now.

Enter: Another hangout for the fanboys

[Tom Courtenay]

The forums will degenerate into childish tomfoolery.

SamusGrrl: Metroid Melee Fox rawkz!
Halo3l33t: OMG, If you're 12.
SamusGrrl: MS Gearbox is big. LOL.

The fact is that IGN is the best source of videogame news out there. Not only do they have an exceedingly well-designed (functional) site, but the editors are generally informed and objective.

It's worth the annual fee that IGN charges its "Insiders", in my opinion. Nowhere else on the web can you find such competent & comprehensive coverage of the video game world.

99% of the gaming sites out there are run by teenage fanboys who balk at competing systems & blindly praise the one they've chosen. While I welcome another gaming site, I'd be surprised if this brings anything new to the table.

Re:Enter: Another hangout for the fanboys

[Tom Courtenay]

I don't think that's fair.

Ads are an unfortunate reality in today's "for-profit" web sites. They're paying real editors, web developers & writers to come up with that content (and bandwidth!).

As far as the previews go, they're bound to be positive. The whole purpose of a preview is to find out the feature set & "cool tricks" that a game has to offer. Look at Superman for the Xbox; it looked fantastic in previews. It ended up being a terrible game, and was panned in the reviews because of it. I think you'd have a valid point if the site was heaping praise on terrible games, but they call it squarely 95% of the time.

not just the forums

[Hellasboy]

It's also the content... and the layout.

When they had their "Superman" script expose, did anyone notice how fast they got rid of their story and immediately became WB's bitch boy? Somebody said it earlier, the site is just a chance for their editors to get into the biz of writing scripts for major studios. One of their editors wrote a review, and in some supposedly 'scoop' another reviewer wrote how great the script will be (/is so far). Would you believe a guy who is reviewing movies from a movie studio, who is also trying to get in the business with that studio? Of course not... I don't think 1 thing will change.

I hope the gaming community ignores the new gaming site. We don't need a compromising fuck face who will back down at any sign of money being involved on a layout that will stay the same for 8 years (its called re-investing in your business, look into it).

MICROSOFT MAKES THE BESTEST PRODUCTS
SCOOP!!!: ORIGINAL N64 SUPERMAN REMADE ON XBOX: ITS NOW LIKE 10X BETTER THANKS TO THE SUPERIOR PEOPLE AT MICROSOFT!

Competition needed for gamespot.

[Performer Guy]

This is good news.

Gamespot has bought up most good game sites and closed them with a redirect to their page and then locked most of their content so only subscribers can see it, even screenshots that are just given to them by publishers. It's high time they had some competition, any competition even from ain't it cool news.