On EDGE’s K2 Review…

Don’t know if you’ve taken notice of the eruption of arguments across gaming forums in the last few days, but EDGE magazine’s recent review of Guerilla Game’s Killzone 2 ranks very high on top of those threads. For purely informational purposes, the link to the review is here.

Done reading? OK, let’s get on with it:

The dispute, contrary to popular belief, is not because EDGE simply gave an “against the grain” score of 7 out of 10 (amid a sea of upper 9’s, mind you), but rather because the reviewer utterly failed to justify their reasoning behind it. For all intents and purposes, it seems EDGE had given the “lower” score in order to intentionally separate itself from the pack just to seem “cool” or “better” than everyone out there. Not that there is ANYTHING wrong with dissenting opinions, but when there is a clear lack of evidence to back up those opinions, than it must be questioned. 

Sharing my beliefs is the folks over at PSXExtreme, which, while mainly a Playstation-centric site, make some very valid points in Ben’s article here. Since I’ve already ranted over in the comments section over there, I thought I’d repaste my thoughts here in this post:

“Jesus christ here, people… how many times do Ben and others here need to repeat it for you? Forget any of that fanboy non-sense, either 360/PS3/Wii/Dreamcast/Genesis, what have you, and realize from the get go that Edge’s review is a poorly worded article filled with ambiguities masked in poetical jibber jabber. Please just TRY to defend that review after reading it… I think you’ll find it quite the challenge.

The writer basically eschews clarity for, it seems, the sake of sensationalistic headlines. Aside from citing a “weak” plot point and the game’s lack of innovation – which is a whole ‘nother point of contention entirely – the reviewer fails to give any other concrete evidence for their 7/10 score. Ben is calling him (and others like it) out on the validity of their journalistic integrity: as others have already said, there is a FINE line between fact and opinion when it comes to game reviews, and this review has simply chosen to cloud their review with more opinion than fact. God forbid that a review actually INFORMS readers on the merits of whether a game should be purchased or not…

We’re not denying his opinion, no; opinion does indeed play a role in reviews no matter what anyone says. The problem comes when that opinion practically overwhelms the FACTUAL evidence needed to give consumers proper information… for instance, while I may not enjoy Halo 3 as much as many other people do, I still can RESPECT its technical achievement and contribution to the industry at large. Opinion should have little effect on an overall score for a game, which should be judged by its technical merits and not what the reviewer just happens to think off the top of his head. In this regard, Edge has failed spectacularly…”

Hopefully you see that the problem has nothing to do with having a different opinion, but rather using that opinion to try and wrongly persuade others to your reasoning, without much evidence to back it up. The job of a reviewer is to properly inform readers about the technical merits of a product, and while subjectivity does indeed play a role in this process, it should not be an overwhelming factor in deciding a “score” – see why I write scoreless reviews now? ; )

It’s important to be able to distinguish between opinion and fact in video game reviews, and to avoid such cases as EDGE has done here in trying to pass the former for the latter. The industry is growing at an exponential amount these days, but it’s disappointing to see that gaming journalism itself must witness enormous setbacks detrimental to its survival.

Here we go again…

Since the PS3’s less-than-favorable launch back in 2006, the dedicated fan base has had to sit through terrible port after terrible port of multi-platform titles (Orange Box, Lost Planet, Madden 08 anyone?) for the greater part of the last two years – and it was only until recently with games like GTAIV, COD4, and UE3 (to name a few) to prove that the PS3 could at least be on par with versions published on the PC and Xbox360. With an onslaught of quality first party titles on the horizon, as well as third-party multiplat games that look equally good across the board, many thought that dark time was already behind us. At least, we hoped it was.

Enter Bioshock for the PS3. Coming in more than a year late than its 360/PC counterparts, many expected the penultimate version of Rapture when it was finally revealed to be in the works for Sony’s controversial console. After all, it is coming in with a host of extras in the form of previous DLC and patches (that were applied late last year) on-disk, a new “Survivor” difficulty option (tagline: “Every bullet counts!”), as well as some exclusive content in the form of “Challenge Rooms” that will be available sometime before the year is out. Everything seems all fine and dandy right? And then the demo came out….

*Pictures taken from user images

Aside from a slight “blur” effect evident for the PS3 shots (which you can read in the first link below), you can tell that these poor Big Daddies have been pixelated to death! Much more than a simple isolated incident, these, among a other visual tweaks (Read Here), were quickly brought to the attention to the devs over at the 2K Forums (Read Here), which since then as spread across the internet igniting flame wars and “inferior port” worries once more. From what the 2K community manager over at the forums has stated, the pixelated textures have indeed something to do with a streaming bug in the demo – and given that the game has gone gold, and the concern to which (at least according to the 2K manager) the devs are investigating the problem, there is a very real possibility that it will be reflected in the final game that will hit store shelves in just a few short weeks.

*Officially provided image taken from the forums

Now before you yell out “graphics whore, GTFO” or anything of the like, realize that those in the forum and elsewhere in the gaming space vocalizing these concerns actually have a legitimate complaint. For a game that’s arriving a year late on the PS3, and one that is pushing for a full price release (vs. having it for 1/3 of the cost now for the 360/PC versions), prospective gamers had the right to expect a definitive version of the multi-award winning game. While bugs have unfortunately been all-too common in this generation of consoles, something as glaring as the texture problem on the Big Daddy creatures – by far the most iconic character the Bioshock has – simply can’t go unnoticed.

To be fair, however, I’m pretty sure that by judging from the demo and early glowing reviews, the one thing this PS3 version won’t shirk on is the game’s much heralded gameplay. Everything from its engaging vision of an underwater dystopia, to the powered-up FPS mechanics via unique plasmids, and of course the now classic Big Daddy encounters, have remained unchanged. I do agree, too, that most will pick up the game regardless and will be happy with their purchase, and I really wish nothing less… you could do MUCH worse than spend $60 on a game that has won multiple GOTY awards for 2007.

The main point that I’ve been trying to get across is my frustration at the latest contribution to the flame wars: mainly, prolonging the ongoing stigma of inferior multiplatform games on the PS3 – whether they’re intentional or not.  You can point the finger at Sony for creating a vastly different architecture, which is a valid complaint, or at 2K Games for not spending enough time and resources to ensure the PS3 version was on par with the 360 one released last year, another equally valid complaint (which may or may not have some legs behind it). Thing is, the results speak for themselves.

As such, I am in no way trying to slander the team at 2K, in fact I applaud them for their dedication to the PS3 fanbase and the willingness to respond to these issues. It’s just sad to see that this ongoing “inferiority complex” associated with Sony’s box always seems to find fresh meat ripe for the taking. And no, this is not coming from a whining Sony fanboy , but from a proponent for gaming in general – if we don’t keep these problems in check, then who else will?

Sources:

Ripten 1

Ripten 2

Ripten 3

2K Forums

Hunting down those sacred LBP keys

As you no doubt know by now, the onslaught from LBP giveaways last week have successfully crashed and burn a handful of the big-name gaming sites that participated, costing the lives of many a network administrator* in the process. I’ve tried – and failed – multiple times at these sites, waiting (dozens of hours I might add) in anticipation to see if my inbox would be graced by a holy LittleBigPlanet beta key. Stories and youtube clips about people’s experiences and levels have been pouring in like crazy since, making me all the more jealous at having to wait until October 21st to try out the game for myself. *Sigh*

In the mean time, I found some relief through the latest Penny Arcade comic above, which can only hint at the feverish hype the beta has been receiving within the last two weeks. Original can be found here.

*No network administrators were actually harmed in the making of this beta. At least none that have been reported… so far.

Seriously, when the Eff’ is FFXIII coming out?

As the tide has washed over FFXIII’s newly established status as a multiplatform game, many were left to ponder when exactly Square-Enix would finally release it (either in America or Japan). Well recent news from SE’s invite-only event, dubbed “DKΣ3713″, has revealed that a playable demo of FFXIII will be included in the Blu-Ray release of FFVII: Advent Children Complete next March. Other sneak peeks at Agito XIII (PSP) and Versus XIII (PS3- for now) are also to be included with the movie.

But this still begs one more question: When the hell is FFXIII finally going to hit?

One could possibly assume that, since the movie is due March 2009 (in Japan at least), the game could very well be out in time for later that Summer  (again, only for Japan). Coupled with the localization process and Xbox development, PS3 and 360 owners – remember, at E3, SquareEnix stated there would be a simultaneous launch in North America for the game – may not see the game until at least Holiday ‘09. Which, when you think about how the media has been covering FFXIII on and off for more than 2 years now – without proper gameplay footage to boot – is quite depressing. I remember FF12 similarly having a long and troubled development time so I wonder what the holdup is this time around. . .

Oh, and don’t even get me started on when we’ll see FF Versus XIII. Moreso than its predecessor, that game seems to become more like vaporware by the day, despite the affirmation of “PS3 Worldwide” exclusivity.