REVIEWS VS NGJ EPIC BATTLE COMMENCE!!!

Reviews for me are always somewhat hit and miss, I guess it’s often down to who’s reviewing them, normally this wouldn’t be a problem as you’d trust professional reviewers but when you have incidents such as the Gamespot employee being fired for giving a game a poor score, it makes you wonder what’s going on behind the scenes, and it isn’t helped by rumours on the internet which often discredit the sites, which while rumours are still affecting my judgement. Although enough about the sites, I’m sure there are a fair few reputable reviewers out there...I hope, after reading the articles about new games journalism and of course the examples of NGJ I actually felt somewhat enlightened, especially with the article “bow nigger” instead of the usual list features, it portrayed an actual gamer’s experience and while a portion of it sounded bad how it ended reminded me how great gaming can be and showed off more than just what the game has to offer, but the community and culture surrounding it.

"Gotta Love Google"

It felt really personal and I could really imagine the scenario even though I’ve never played the game itself, I’m not sure if it was an exaggeration about the way the game handled but it was good example of where the game’s features, which are often described by many of the game reviewers out there, did not define the game, but the experience itself. This is something which kinda hit home with me especially with the sonic games, especially with the latest game Sonic Unleashed, sites such as IGN have simply said they hate the werewolf’s concept, now I understand since it’s an odd feature but to lower the score so much based on the idea alone is rather harsh considering the gameplay wasn’t so bad, however from what I’ve seen despite low scores a fair few sonic fans have enjoyed the game greatly and embracing the werehog and many of the games features, which has led me to believe that no matter how good or bad a game is, it can still be enjoyed which makes me now understand why games like high school musical 3 sing a long exist T,T. (However I think a part of why unleashed isn’t liked so much cos IGN believe only they can make a good sonic game as shown in their lil what will make a good sonic game feature, it’s like adding insult to injury.....)

Previously the only reviewers I truly followed and like are the reviews in Gamesmaster magazine, I haven’t bought it in years as I kind of stopped caring about reviews (especially with my purchase of Megaman Battle Network for the Gamecube, WHICH I LOVE BTW DESPITE ITS HARARSEDNESS) when I read their reviews they would often make many jokes within it yet still outline the features and their opinions of it, they also used a percentage rating system which I thought back in the day was brilliant compared to the out of ten system. Now the way they wrote it, made the reviews feel like they took their time with it and as much as I now like NGJ in how it shows the experience of a game it often just focuses on maybe one or two features which the reviewer encountered during his gaming experience which is great and all but sometimes you just want to know more about the game itself.

Now I don’t mind the objective style of writing, it’s usually in-depth about features and while deadlines and pressure from companies having an impact on them they can be an interesting read and often help in deciding to buy a game, the scores pretty much have no affect on me though as I’ll buy anything that interests me. NGJ basically made me want the game, but thinking more into it, I felt less inclined as I did not know much about the game apart from the fact there are some twats out there who think they’re the big man and give very cheap blows. NGJ can make for an interesting read but I don’t think I could use it to determine fully if I want a game or not, it’s more like I would read them if I want a better insight into the gamer’s psyche and finally figure out why warcraft is do damn addictive to people!!