If you are saying you post on the GGWeekly more than 5% of the news that passes through GAF, then I beleive you.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong here, when GAF is right they are the absolute best source for news, my contention is that you just have to wade through a lot of bogous posers to get to the good stuff.

Yeah, I don't think GAF gets the credit it deserves sometimes from casual visitors. It often has very accurate leaks and a lot of websites feed off GAF to actually generate their own news stories.

Also they translate japanese stuff and find gaming news based on developer jobs and c.vs, financial reports and even find articles from lesser known sites whose stories are then brought to prominence through the GAF thread - which will then generate stories on the usual news websites.

Ggweekly.

aspro said:

.5 out of ten is five percent. Not 0.5 percent.

Vader, saying all the news you post is from gaf and all of it is correct is not the same as saying all the news on gaf is correct (unless you post all of the news that appears on gaf).

Usually here or Resetera.  But I hardly look for anything gaming related anymore.

None of them.


All video game reviewers of all kind are universally bad.

-Gagan: can't write for shit

-Towers: too much time writing about shit aint no one gives a fuck about but towers

-Chris Wagar: too much, dial it back a bit

-Journos: on top of not being able to write, they fundamentally misunderstand reviewing a game as they are too busy trying to write a bad version of a movie review.


1. They don't describe gameplay with any sort of detail.


I can maybe accept that they don't go over high level play, but they can't describe the basic act of gameplay. I can do that in a fucking forum post, and yes I get it, it's robotic, its a bit box checky, but this just in games are a mechanical fucking thing. Considering you write buyer's guides as it is, you should at least be able to explain to me that while Dragonball fighters has auto combos, standing light, light, light strings into 3 different attack animations, with the 3rd hit counting as a smash hit. A smash will either launch the character upwards or side ways to a corner, where the player can chase and extend for a corner combo. If the player keeps hitting light after this basic smash on their auto combo, they will get another air light, light, light, with the final hit bringing the enemy down, tho not in a knockdown position. DBFZ has three types of knockdowns, soft, slidiing, and hard knockdown. Soft knockdown lets the opponent get up quickly, usually not something the player wants, as it isn't that advantagous of a position for the player, but when covered with an assist you can make it a favorable one at the expense of a resource (your assist). Sliding knockdown puts you into a favorable position where you can continue that combo by connecting into a super move at the cost of meter, or you can continue applying pressure as you are in advantagous position to stay in command as the opponent wakes up. The opponent does have options during wake up (called tech) that lets them roll forward(forward tech), backwards(back tech), delay standing up(delay tech),or jump up (up tech) immediately to try to get out, but generally players have options for it if they have the resources or counter measures. It does create a rock, paper, scissors scenario tho. Hard knockdown is when the opponent gets up at a set time in a disadvantagous position with no tech options that the player can create after hitting the opponent with a level 3 super (super move that costs 3 bars of meter). It's your most damaging advantagous position.


Now mind you that's all stream of conciousness and lacks any sort of structure n what not, but that's not something I get when I go actually read a DBFZ review. Aren't these shits being written with people who have never played a video game in mind? Because we gotta think about the casuals? Also people who play the game would also benefit from this type of knowledge.

Yet this is the type of stuff they don't look to find in a review, nor do they ever convey. It's alsways, almost fucking always "what it feels like to play" that's why you get shit like "feels like batman" even tho that means jack shit, and it all ignores that Batman's combat is shallow as hell, positioning doesn't matter what so ever, and games like Devil may Cry don't make you feel any less like Dante by having you work to actually like a bad ass in gameplay. The point being criticism of the medium, critique, analysis, academic take, or even buyer's guides should on some level discuss the gameplay and how things work and what does what. Again this is the basic lower level play stuff and mid level play stuff. Which is the lion's share of your reading/watching audience.

2. They are bad at games


You don't need to be good at games to review them, but you do need to be competent at them. And you kind of can't suck at the game to have a justified opinion. Pretty simple a lot of shit people complain about being cheap and unfair in video games 99% of the time, including every single one of us that psoted in this thread, is full of shit and not willing to accept their L. There is always some answer, some way to handle it the thing stumping us. Sometimes it's painfully obvious lazy shit like "ugh the dark souls enemies can hit through walls:".............yeah that's jank, sure, buuuuuuuuuuuuut its also a thing that's consistently going to happen at the same specific angles, same enemies, same attack animations. It's not a random thing that happens, so yes first few times it gets you by surprise, after that you have no fucking excuse to get hit by an enemy who is in front of you and his attack went through a wall. Your dumbass has already seen that they can do that, so fucking adapt you putz. Now that's lazy. Obvious to tell the players fault.

"Goku Black is overpowered because 2h covers so much space" until you get good at the game, you don't really realize how much Goku Black is actually pretty bad at the game, but still happens to be a noob killer. You're just not blocking and telegraphing your aerials. Adapt to the situation.

Now what was the point of that, well generally reviewers, a lot of the time highlight how dumb n shit they are at games. I will never get over the fact that Patrick Klepek's bum ass played last of us the year prior, so he knows pick up brick or bottle, throw one way, run the other is a solution in a horror type sneaking segment. Yet had the nerve to say when playing Evil Within, "the game doesn't explain that you have to pick up a bottle and throw it in a directi"..........bitch what the fuck? Never 5get same game, Jim Sterling fights a monster that can insta kill you, but he has a fucking crossbow that can freeze the boss, and made little to no effort to use it. I mean I could also point out that he thinks Halo is a lot of shoot a whole clip into a dude, and hit them with a melee for a kill and how wrong that is, or that he thinks Vanquish plays like any other cover shooter, and how wrong that is. but you get my point, Jim Sterling being bad at the game, translates into his takes being demonstrably false. Someone who is good at the game, alos happens to have a good understanding of the game, because at the least they have a good understanding of why they make the decisions they make in a given situation.


Journos can be incompetent apes sometimes. They are worse than children at video games.

3 Poor Priorities


This one is more subjective than the other two, because frankly the other two can be measured. But any journo who puts more stock into the games story n presentation n themes than they do gameplay n depth, has poor priorities for what counts as a good game. That's my take. Hold that.

4. They Never Try to Be Objective


Sterling ruined it for everyone when he made that dumb objective game review meme review of FF13, where he made it seem like being objective in a critical format meant reading the back of a box and calling it a day. No one said rid subjectivity entirely, but your main argument should be detailed, and have evidence or examples of your issues or what you are praising. There should be measurable things that are beyond dispute. Your take, like "it being good" is disputable, but going back to my describing gameplay thing, when you describe something as is, and let the systems and scenario do the talking itself, you get the point across. That's not what you get in game reviews, and that's because "it's all an opinion man", and I will never forget that one of them wrote the article game reviewers are not an authority on blah blah, which then begs the question, what the fuck is even your value then?

As far as a source for news, eh, none of them are consistently reliable for that. They will have a good story, and then some shit heel bullshit. so again, can't trust them.


Additionally towers, yes youtuber reviewers have all those problems to a similar degree, they just benefit from a format that bails them out by actually having examples to show, and by virtue of having better taste than journo types. But Joseph Anderson is actually pretty solid, his vides are way the fuck too long, but the general concept of his review/critique is how it should be. He played the game a bunch, if he criticizes or praises something he can both show you an example and explain said example. So even the biggest nintendo dick sucker has to hold the L on how Zelda handles its gear progression and logic behind how it impacts health n damage. They can tell themselves whatever they want, but if the evidence shows that there is no tangle difference so it actually limits variety, well...........hold that bitch.

The moral of the story is that journos aren't people. They are trash. Also Devil May Cry 5 is the best game this year and deserved way more 10 out of 10s. IM DOXXING EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree that games criticism has always been bad, but YouTube ain't any better. It gets by on the medium being great for building up cults of personality, and the fact that videos offer so many more aesthetic avenues for emotional manipulation, and the audience isn't given time to pause and think about what's actually being said as they are if they're reading. And speaking of reading, video essay are worse than any written essay by default, because it takes 20 minutes minimum to narrate what I could read in under 5 minutes myself. Why would I want to waste even more of my life paying attention to what games critics have to say?

Gagan said:

Because the few solid ones while being abysmal writers, at least make up for it in tangible, justified takes on a game.







There aint no written game review where I get that. YouTube's better, but it's marginally so. The kind of better that doesn't count.

Nah, I've watched Jo Anderson, and dude takes 1 hour to say that Dark Souls 3 enemy placement is bad, boss battles are repetitive, it has corridor shooter level design and the world isn't interconnected; he doesn't do this any more tangibly than written critics who notice shit do, he just repeats himself more than they do, sure there's video footage of what he's talking about so if the audience is illiterate or the critic is a bad writer the audience won't miss anything like you say, but I'm not illiterate and don't care what people who can't write think, because they probably also can't think. This can hardly be considered an genuine advantage when the fundamental part of a video essay is writing, and even as a video, taking 1 hour to show 3 basic concepts is a catastrophic failure.


But hey, even if I were to accept your premise, at least you admit it doesn't count!