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Game Journalists Go Head to Head in 'The Metagame'

Posted by Zonk on from the ready-fight dept.

The Metagame event, held this past GDC in San Francisco, garnered a good deal of buzz ... even if not that many people had a chance to see it. The folks behind GameLab set up another session of the inventive game-knowledge gameshow, and pitted two pairs of journalists against each other to see who could better argue their (randomly determined) cases. The results are not only hilarious, but viewable on the MTV website.

8 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. YAWN by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, that's way more entertaining than, say, reruns of the X-Files.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  2. Waste of Time by Jaqenn · · Score: 4, Funny

    You know that scene at the beginning of Space Oddessy: 2001, where the monkeys dispute over the water-pool? By screaming nonsense at each other? MTV recreated that here.

    I didn't think either side made a compelling argument for the entire competition. I want my 20 minutes back.

    --
    You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
  3. Still a Waste of Time by Jaqenn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sorry to repost, but I just finished the last clip, and I am so filled with rage that I have to post again saying how much of a waste of time this is.

    Question: "Which game better integrates theme and gameplay: Adventure, or Street Fighter 2?"

    Team one: "Adventure gives you...adventure. You have this, like, adventure. You get to have an adventure."

    Team two: "Street fighter gives you fighting, in the street! You're fighting, in a street! And there is two of you!"

    Both teams repeat themselves over and over until time runs out.

    Why didn't I just give up and stop watching? Because I am an idiot.

    --
    You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
    1. Re:Still a Waste of Time by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why didn't I just give up and stop watching? Because I am an idiot. Shhh! Not so loud. You'll give away the secrets to MTV's success.
    2. Re:Still a Waste of Time by cicatrix1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah. I got 2 minutes into the "randomness" clip (the 3rd one?) before I gave up. There are so many things wrong with this that watching it made my skin crawl. All I have to say is that one team "won" a challenge by saying that Resident Evil is more random than Tetris -- based on the fact that it's controls are sluggish? Excuse me, WTF? Tetris *is* a bunch of random blocks and RE is on rails!!

      The arguments made by either side are completely laughable at how bad they are, and they judgement system is worse. An applause meter? Come on. In a debate style game there should be qualified judges and some majority or ranking system.

      I guess it could have some potential if they fixed the scoring and found teams that have any clue. On the other hand, it's hard to call a series of debates with semi randomized qustions a "game show".

      --

      I know more than you drink.
  4. Needed a better scoring mechanism by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I watched the first few clips, and couldn't really take much more than that. The arbitrary nature of picking a winner based on "applause" completely invalidated any sort of game mechanic they came up with. More often than not, it seemed like the winner was chosen randomly because the applause levels were essentially split. A simple electronic voting system would have solved this problem elegantly, and made it feel like a real competition.

    I think the concept has some potential, as people generally love getting into these sorts of arguments anyhow. It feels a bit too much like a 'beta' release at the moment, though.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  5. Re:This was really bad... by Fian · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I suspect the metagame is really to see if they can get lots of people to watch their crap. If you watched the video, you were "gamed"

  6. all your feedback by stephentotilo · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm the guy you can blame for this. It was my idea. We crunched a 70-minute session into 20 minutes of video. The points of comparison between games are randomly chosen by a computer program. The games being compared are selected off of a game board by the players. I've seen this game run twice. First at GDC and then in the one I participated in on MTV. Both times I thought it was both fun and enjoyably illuminating. Sure, we aired some of the more ridiculous arguments, but I think we achieved something that can be improved on and done well. It gets people talking about games in ways they may never have considered, sometimes to intellectual benefit, believe it or not. I'll continue to look for ways that video game material can make for TV and video that you will enjoy watching. Not trying is not an option. And thanks to those who pointed out how this could be improved. The producers and I recognize many of the same issues and would love to shore up the weaknesses if we get to do another one. -Stephen Totilo MTV News