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GAMES REVIEWERS AREN'T YOUR PERSONAL OPINION MONKEYS - by Mr Biffo

22/4/2016

39 Comments

 
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There was some "drama" yesterday over Polygon's decision not to do a review of Star Fox Zero.

I've not played it yet, but Polygon's scheduled reviewer, Arthur Gies - "Gies a bite of your haggis" - chose not to give the game a proper review, because he couldn't finish it.

Not because the game was hard, but because he struggled with the controls, and thought they were bad.

Instead of doing a traditional review with a score, he wrote an article entitled "Star Fox Zero Channels Everything Bad About Wii U Game Design" - without a score.

He ended his piece by stating: "Save for very rare, extreme circumstances, Polygon reviews require that a game be completed, or at least a good-faith effort be made to complete it. I am not playing any more Star Fox Zero."

Can you guess what happened next? That's right - out they all came!

USERS
Following the publication of the Polygon non-review, the social mediasphere went into something of a hysterical froth.

​Twitter user Brendan raged: "An adult at Polygon couldn't finish Star Fox Zero, a children's game, for his job because 'too hard'"

Ty on Aussie-Gamer wrote a long and furious response, which included the line: "What kind of reviewer can honestly say they have an informed opinion if they cannot finish the game they’re writing about?"

Polygon reader Ngaiden fumed: "Not getting a proper review because the reviewer couldn’t be bothered finishing a game doesn’t look very professional."


Twitter's Robin Clarke bellowed: "Arthur Gies demonstrating yet again why Polygon are universally seen as a joke site staffed by entitled babies"

22 year-old Jack, another Twitter user, described the Polygon piece as "Disgraceful".

​Worse still, it all kicked off on Polygon, after Kangokyle claimed cheerily: "It’s good this guy didn’t attempt to score it. At least it won’t affect the metascore!"

"
There are more pressing things in life worth worrying about than a game’s supposed metascore," replied a livid Boss Kowbel.

Argued a steaming Tayturs in response: "Sort of a weird comment for someone to make on the internet on an entertainment news site. Yeah, there are always more important things in life than our entertainment luxuries, that’s a given. No real need to say it."

Anyway. You get the idea. Internet stuff. People who have nothing better to be angry about. Inevitably, there's always something under the surface for people who get bothered by stuff like this.

​Some of the response to the Polygon piece was due to people having some sort of automatic emotional reaction to Polygon itself. Others still tried to link the article/non-review to Gamergate in some tenuous way - citing the high-profile firing of Nintendo employee Alison Rapp as somehow influencing the piece. Or something. I didn't really understand what they were getting at.

​Others cited it as yet another example of bad journalistic ethics. Because... why wouldn't you finish a four hour game, even if the controls were bad? You must be corrupt.
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FINISH LINE
I'll admit it does seem a little odd that Gies - "Gies a lift to the station, son" - wouldn't bother reviewing a game which can be whizzed through in four hours. Or sooner, if you activate the invincibility mode for babies.

But here's another thing: the whining about it misses the point. I'm totally on the side of Gies - "Gies a job". Have I finished every game I've ever reviewed? Dear god no. Do I think that matters? Not particularly.

Do I think that every game I ever reviewed was given a fair shakedown? Well... probably not. I've reviewed a lot of games in my time, and I'm sure there were occasions when I was having a bad day/year, where my integrity had taken a break.

On the whole though, 99% of the time, I think I've been fair. And I think Gies - "Gies and dolls... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, crazy Gies and dolls" - was absolutely within his right to do what he did.

THIN END OF THE WEDGE

You'll have noticed the reviews have been a bit thin on the ground on Digi recently - I've still not played Quantum Break as much as I think it needs, which is why the review hasn't gone up yet. And that's because I've not had the time to play the games, because - lest we forget - this site isn't my job, unless one of you fancies contributing a couple of grand a month to our Patreon fund.

There's a backlog building - Star Fox Zero itself and Ratchet & Clank arrive today - and at some point I'll have to carve out space in my life to play them. I also have a handful of indie games I want to play. There just arent the hours in the day at the moment to get through them all, because this is the time of year when my day job is proving most demanding of my hours.

Back when I was writing Digi for Teletext it was my full-time job. Playing games was part of that job. Plus, games back then were, generally, smaller, and easier to finish. That said, not always having saves could hamper that - oh, the joy of getting halfway through a game, and having to go back to the start.

So no. For the sake of my own sanity, I didn't finish every game I ever reviewed for Digitiser. And I stand by that.

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EXPERIENCE POINTS
​As a reviewer, a review is about relating your experience with a game.

​Of course, from the point of view of a developer, you want the reviewer to scratch away at every last corner of your masterpiece - but from a reviewer's perspective, you either like it or you don't. 

You merely have to reach a point where you've played enough to be able to give a fair assessment. It's hard to say when that comes - it's different with every game - but speaking as someone who has reviewed games, on and off, for 23 years, it's instinctive. You get a feel for it.

At some point my time with a game reaches a tipping point where I just know I've played enough, and that my opinion isn't going to change no matter what. Sometimes I'll press on because I'm enjoying myself. But if a game is too much of a faff to keep playing, and I've played it enough to be confident of my opinion, I'll throw in the towel. I don't care whether you'd rather I kept plugging away, at the expense of my valuable family time. 

Alright, I may not always be able to talk about that amazing end sequence, but - sorry - a great ending doesn't make up for a bad game. If you've not enjoyed any of it up until that point, playing for hours and hours more will make absolutely no difference to the score. All it will do is make the person playing it even more miserable about the game.

Would it be nice if every games journalist played every single bit of a game? Yes. I suppose. But it's unrealistic, in this age of enormo-games like The Witcher III and Fallout 4, it's insanity to expect a games writer - who's probably barely getting paid enough for a review to cover half a week's food shop - to spend 40-hours plus on something. You try giving up an entire working week for the sake of £120. Games reviewers aren't put on this earth to be your personal opinion monkey. 

Alright, Star Fox Zero is a short game. I'd like to think I'll finish it before my review. But I'll let you know. My perspective is that reviews also need to be entertaining. That was always Digi's ethos; entertain first, challenge second, inform third.

And you know what's more important still? That the person doing the reviewing isn't wasting their own life to appease a bunch whining internet children.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
MR BIFFO ON THE TELETEXT-R PODCAST

GAMES OF MY YEARS: TELETEXT - BY MR BIFFO
39 Comments
Da5e
22/4/2016 10:07:35 am

Ah. This has made me do a sad; not because OMG Polygon got no ethics, but because I was *really* looking forward to a Platinum-designed Starwing. I loathe gimmicky controls though. Pffffffff.

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Conscience Monkey
22/4/2016 12:51:30 pm

*whispers conspiratorially* You should play it, and makeup your own mind.

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Clive Peppard
22/4/2016 10:19:44 am

If you're not my opinion monkey where do I get one??

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Dr Peanuts
22/4/2016 10:56:19 am

I suppose a restaurant critic (Giles Coren) wouldn't continue eating a pie that was full of twigs and dog dirt in the name of journalistic ethics. I would though because I'm so hungry.

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Oakreef link
22/4/2016 11:33:30 am

There seems to be a very weird sense of entitlement around game reviews. Incidents of people going mad over someone giving a negative (or indeed a good-but-not-entirely-glowing) review to a game they're looking forward to and haven't played are infamous but also incidents like this where people get super pissed off that people don't review a game at all or don't review it in the correct way.

I think it all stems back to the weird relationship games have with being consumer product, art and entertainment all wrapped up into one. A lot of people seem to think there should be some way to objectively score a game as you would review a toaster or drill. And deviation from standard review practices or giving a game a score differing from the general consensus (I've seen people claiming that one site/magazine giving a game an 7 when others were giving it a 9 as "proof" that their review is wrong) must mean that the review falls outside of the correct, objective way to review games and be "biased". Somehow missing the ridiculousness of trying to demand an unbiased review of something that is designed to elicit emotional responses.

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Klone
22/4/2016 12:52:49 pm

The whole of gaming is wrapped suffocatingly in a hair vest made from entitlement. It's very depressing.

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Superbeast 37
22/4/2016 11:58:37 am

Polygon are staffed by a bunch of entitled babies who usually display zero integrity.

However on this occasion I support what they did regardless of whether there was some political motivation (wouldn't surprise me).

They actually provided something truthful and of use to the readers (the few that actually buy games!) as opposed to a wacko political lecture.

Bravo, more of that please. Nice to see someone being brave enough to point out the truth over Emperor Nintendo's new clothes.

If you criticise anything from Nintendo, a Fallout game or a Dark Souls game you are going to be in for a rough ride regardless.

I will give them the benefit of that doubt that they did it for the right reasons although given their history I will probably end up with egg on my face for backing them as happened when I initially supported their Gone Home review and then it turned out the reviewer had a very close undisclosed relationship with a dev.

I definitely agree that you don't need to finish a game to deliver a verdict on it. I have no trouble deciding whether to refund a game on Steam within the 2 hour window.

I struggle to think of any game where my opinion of it changed after that which had formed by the 2 hour mark. If such an opinion change ever happened, it would have been that I thought worse of the game rather than better.

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Superbeast 37
22/4/2016 12:09:37 pm

Ah yes, Firewatch - up to the 4 hour point I was up for "GOTY".

When they pulled the deus ex machina over the missing girls my high praise evaporated.

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Wadaload
22/4/2016 12:38:58 pm

I doubt too many people would have been offended by the review if it was at least entertaining. G'is some G's geez should be more creative in his lack of work.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
23/4/2016 12:10:40 pm

I'm in a few minds about this whole thing, but I think this post might be why I feel a bit differently about Digi doing a review without finishing the game than a site like Polygon or IGN not doing it. Aside from Digi being a side-project, Biffo's first objective is to entertain, and even back on Teletext, I always read it more for the humour than the news or reviews. Polygon, on the other hand, has always taken itself much more seriously about being "professional games analysis". They seem to aim to "critique" games, not just "review" them (which is good, the medium needs to be seen as a medium rather than just a toy) but I'm not sure how seriously I'd take the critique of a theatre critic who walked out of a play halfway through. If you want to review art, it seems reasonable that you kind of have to review it as a "piece". That said, this brings us back to the whole issue of games as art vs games as consumer product, and how the medium uncomfortably treads the line. If the controls genuinely are unusable, that is definitely game-ruining, and bound to ruin the game, no matter what its trying to do (not that Starfox is likely to be making a particularly strong statement about anything that the reviewer would miss by not finishing it). That said, while I think that "Gies a swig o'yer Buckfast"'s article is right to focus on how the controls ruin the piece, the same way that it would ruin a film if the director insisted it could only be shown in cinemas that forced the audience to wear vaseline-smeared googles and metal underwear that gives them electric shocks at key moments in the film (feel free to insert your own gag about Batman v Superman here), there is a sense that he could have just persevered a little to see if the overall experience was worth it (though the consensus seems to be that it wouldn't).

I suspect a lot of the backlash at this comes down to gamers are generally a bit jealous of games journalists (go on, admit it), because deep down we all think we'd love to do it. For most people, the idea of getting paid to play video games every day and hang out with people who make them, in the abstract, is amazing. I'm aware it's not perfect (i.e. it pays badly), but how many people in the world get to do something they genuinely feel passionate about every day, and not have to spend money on it that they earn doing something else? As a result it tends to grate with the audience a bit that someone has made playing video games their job, and still doesn't feel like doing it. The guy at Burger King maybe would rather be operating the fryer than the griddle, but he's paid to do both, and would probably rather be playing video games than doing either (unless he is really passionate about seeing people enjoy a, XL Bacon Cheese Double, in which case, more power to him).

Of course, we're never going to have a debate on games journalism that doesn't raise hackles. Nobody wants to be told "your life is perfect compared to mine, stop complaining, and get on with it" (in fact, about half the arguments on the modern internet seem to boil down to that - not to name any recent controversies). Both sides in this debate feel that the other is entitled, so basically no constructive conclusion can really be reached. Essentially it boils down to a shouting match of "You get to play games all day and you still can't be bothered?" vs "You got to have Pret for lunch while I survive on a diet of free promotional Master Chief packs of Doritos and need to pump out thirteen articles by lunchtime to keep up with everyone else, so lay off!". I call this the "games journalism drama trapezium".

In summary, the two sides will never see eye to eye. Hooray!

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Damon link
22/4/2016 12:39:54 pm

Oh, internet.

I don't need to play a whole game to know if I'm enjoying it, though I had an interesting conversation about Undertale-- which I felt was Earthbound but crap-- that I couldn't finish it. Couldn't force myself too. "But the story!" people, friends, cried.

Someone made an RPG with a story I didn't care about and not really much else to keep me going.

But even NOT as a personal reviewer my PERSONAL FRIENDS were annoyed that I didn't play a game I wasn't enjoying. They likened it to reading half a book-- which is entirely correct. If you're not enjoying a book after you've read a bit you'd stop. But for some reason the powers that be have decided that games are special and deserve to be miserably slogged through until you're not sure what you hate more-- the devloper's parents for not having an abortion or yourself for doing this to you.

I say, wholeheartedly to not watch the film 'Splitting Heirs' which is terrible and would have put me off Rick Moranis probably. No one cares that I knew it was crap halfway through. But those same people be it a game, you have comitted sacrilege by not consuming the whole of the media.

I think it comes down to, as you alluded, people wanting opinions validated and wanting an excuse to discard any they don't agree with.

But now I feel like maybe I HAVE to review StarFox Zero. My copy is arriving today so let's see how this goes.

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Oakreef link
22/4/2016 01:42:29 pm

I loved Undertale but your friends are being ridiculous. It doesn't suddenly change into a different game half way through. If you haven't enjoyed it by the time you get to Sans and Papyrus you're probably not going to like it at all. If you got as far as Waterfall and haven't enjoyed it at all there's definitely no point in continuing.

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lilock3
22/4/2016 12:52:45 pm

It’s saddening to see this level of vitriol erupt time and time again for any reason you care to mention.

I like hearing differing opinions. I like being able to debate differing viewpoints, as a calm, sensible, ration grown-up; explaining my perspective and trying to gain an understanding of the other person’s. Even if I think the other person’s view is sheer lunacy, I still respect their right to it and enjoy hearing it. Sometimes I’ll read a review *after* I’ve finished playing a game in order to compare notes and see how someone else’s experience may have differed from mine.

What a boring read a review would be if the author just kept to objective facts…

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RevStu link
22/4/2016 01:06:46 pm

The idea that you have to finish a game to review it is a load of shite. I hardly ever finished a game before reviewing it, there just wasn't the time. As "Dr Peanuts" points out above, you don't need to get all the way through a shit pie to know it's shit.

"Ah, but what if the first five hours are rubbish and then it gets good?"

Too fucking late. If you've made the first five hours of your game a tedious obstacle of a chore to get through, you're a fucking idiot and you deserve a bad review. Putting five hours of crap in the way of the entertainment is empirically a gigantic flaw and deserves to be punished.

How astonishingly arrogant is it to demand that - having already given you 50 quid - people should also have to endure hours of misery before getting any entertainment out of your entertainment product? Imagine if Batman V Superman made you sit through five hours of abysmal bollocks before you got to the wait this analogy's gone wrong.

But the point holds. A game that you absolutely hate two hours into playing it is a game that the vast majority of people aren't going to see any more than two hours of, and therefore to all intents and purposes those two hours ARE the game. If they're shit, don't come whining to me when you get a shit score.

The only thing Gies did wrong was pussy out of just saying so. His hands may have been rather tied in that respect because of Polygon's rules, but then that just goes to show what a bunch of clueless plopholes Polygon are.

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RevStu link
22/4/2016 01:12:16 pm

Oh, and it's about time Nintendo got called out for their obsessive we-have-to-use-every-last-input-because-it's-there control wankery. Blow-into-the-mic levels in Super Mario games GET TO FUCKING FUCK YOU FUCKING COCKBITING FUCKING CUNTS.

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Darcy
22/4/2016 04:02:41 pm

Those "it gets better after five hours!" types always seem to be the ones who play two hundred hours a week and fail to realise that the rest of us are lucky to play five.

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Alastair
22/4/2016 01:10:16 pm

I rather think I'd like to know if a game is unfinishable because of the controls, it would have saved me the bother of picking up Metroid Prime Hunters and Starfox Command (also Nintendo games, fancy that).

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Phil
22/4/2016 01:12:52 pm

If I can give up on a game I've paid money for because it wasn't fun, then I can sure understand someone who was doing it for a job.

Reviews would be a lot more honest if they said "didn't complete it because, whilst it was good fun, by hour 25 I was a bit bored of the whole thing and had more interesting things to do."

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dab88
22/4/2016 01:21:40 pm

"ntertain first, challenge second, inform third" - That is bloody brilliant!

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Zod
22/4/2016 01:25:15 pm

Hang on, games reviewers must FINISH a game before reviewing them now? When did this become a thing?

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DickSocrates
22/4/2016 01:31:45 pm

My issue is claiming the review isn't a review. I don't expect reviewers to finish every game, especially if the industry is as described in this article with people getting paid F-all for their ridiuclous time investment.

But that isn't what's happening here, the Star Fox review seems more like someone throwing a temper tantrum because they so aggressively didn't get on with the game. I understand that, I frequently come up against games that I hate something about so much I can't keep going. But I'm not a professional game reviewer, I'm just some random dickhead on Twitter (who has more or less given up on being able to engage with 99% of games) giving my "hot take", which I don't even fully endorse a few minutes later.

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Merriweather link
22/4/2016 05:29:50 pm

Yes, exactly this - it ddn't do a very good job of actually reviewing the game. Having just read the Kotaku review, which similarly damned the game's controls (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/04/22/star-fox-zero-the-kotaku-review), I've come away with a much better idea of exactly what's wrong with the game rather than just someone throwing their hands up in the air and crying "this is shit".

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Nick the Gent link
22/4/2016 02:02:44 pm

Another thing I appreciate about Digi - getting a summary of ongoing internet "outrages" like this, while maintaining minimum safe distance.

"What kind of reviewer can honestly say they have an informed opinion if they cannot finish the game they’re writing about?"

What does this even mean nowadays? I put about 40 hours into Fallout 3, completed the main story and some side quests, but barely scratched the surface of the rest of the map. Am I not allowed to have an opinion about Fallout then?

This extreme sense of entitlement is the issue at the core of "ethics in games journalism".

Gamers who are arguing for this want a purity that doesn't exist: completely objective analysis, with reviewers bringing no subjective opinions to their articles. Which is impossible.

They don't want to hear things they don't like. If Star Fox's controls are so dodgy that a reviewer struggled to finish its four-hour campaign, then that's telling you something. But they don't want to hear it.

I think the ethics in journalism thing is the wrong way round. Gamers like this want to hear that their $50 purchases are all sound - that these big name games are all excellent - and publishers should continue churning out the same old. They want validation of their opinions, not candidness and objectivity.

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Merriweather link
22/4/2016 02:54:06 pm

I've just read that Polygon review - seems like a pretty legitimate complaint to be honest. And I'd rather a reviewer was honest about hating a game than trying to write from some imagined point of absolute objectivity.

But having said that, most of the review boiled down to 'I hate motion controls', and it was pretty light on any detail other than that. So, to be honest, I'm still in the dark about whether or not I'd enjoy Starfox Zero, seeing as I don't particularly mind motion controls (I thought they worked very well in Splatoon).

Therefore, in the sense that it didn't really help me to make up my mind about whether to buy the game, it's not a particularly helpful review.

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paulvw
22/4/2016 05:11:59 pm

Surely if you can't finish it because of the controls - That is the flipping review right there?

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Kelvin Green link
22/4/2016 05:35:35 pm

Well, it's the usual posturing from Polygon; I'm not surprised about that. Ye gods, what a dull and self-important site.

That said, I've never understood this thing about getting angry with reviews. It makes zero sense to me, but then I look at reviews as a guide to what's interesting and what to buy, but I think these people read them to have their own opinions validated and get upset when they don't.

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Mr Crikey link
22/4/2016 06:46:12 pm

There seems to be a bit of confusion over why, exactly, people are upset over the Polygon Star Fox fudgemuffin.

Firstly: If you're throwing your toys out of the pram simply because a reviewer didn't finish a game before writing about it, then yes, that's a very silly attitude to take. Okay, so unlike virtually all other games this one has an invincibility mode that could theoretically have negated the control issue entirely, but for somebody unable to get their head round the controls this wouldn't have been playing the game. This would have been enduring it.

As the Biffster quite rightly says, some people just automatically have a negative reaction to Polygon at every opportunity. I must confess to being guilty of this myself to a degree, For that reason, you may not be entirely surprised to learn that I don't believe all people who hate Polygon are morons. I distinctly remember, for example, Robert Florence saying some extremely unkind things to Gies on Twitter about him and his site. But anyway.

The problem that at least some critics of the piece have is that Gies didn't actually bother to write a review. As many people pointed out during the Twitstorm, Polygon were happy to review Codename STEAM despite the reviewer explicitly stating that he didn't finish the game.

I held my proverbial nose, and clicked through to read the article in full (so that, ironically perhaps, I could make a judgement based on the item in its entirety). After the first three paragraphs - which tell you very little about the game - it really is at least 90% Gies finding different ways to say 'I am unhappy about having to use motion controls'.

I have more important things in my life to worry about. I write myself, have a (completely unrelated) full-time job, a wife, and three beautiful young children. Nonetheless, I am filled with tedious self-important rage when I see people not doing their job properly. Yes, I am exactly the sort of person who gets flustered at the sight of a misplaced apostrophe.

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Mrtankthreat
22/4/2016 07:01:38 pm

"I'm totally on the side of Gies - "Gies a job". Have I finished every game I've ever reviewed? Dear god no. Do I think that matters? Not particularly."

Isn't that a contradiction? Surely "his side" is that he's not going to review it because he didn't finish it and that that does matter? And "your side" is that it doesn't really matter? I'm not saying either side is right or wrong btw, it's really not that important to me, I'm just saying logically it seems like they're opposite sides is all.

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Scott C
23/4/2016 04:11:58 am

It is so nice to read the sort of informed discussion encountered here on Digi2000. My faith in t'internet is restored.

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AcidBeard
23/4/2016 06:56:30 am

Mr Biffo is a diamond gieser.

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AcidBeard
23/4/2016 06:54:49 am

If, some how, all these people complaining are all people who do finish every thing they start then I'd like them to review a knob rot schnitzel sandwich because how will I know how delicious they find it unless they eat all of it?

But somehow I imagine they have not finished every game they've ever bought, and that's OK.

There is no reason why someone should finish a game once they get to a point where they have decided they no longer wish to do so. This applies to anyone, reviewers included.

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Aradiel link
23/4/2016 08:24:33 am

Whilst I do agree with the main thrust of this article, from what I've read on at least one other site, the motion controls are completely optional (admittedly opt out) so if Gies couldn't finish the game due to the controls, perhaps he should have turned them off and tried again?

Maybe he did, I haven't read the article in question.

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peskyfletch
23/4/2016 10:59:53 am

one game that genuinely does turn from fairly mediocre to good later on is spec ops the line, jst to be contrarian

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Rakladtor III The Terrible
23/4/2016 11:20:04 am

If this Starfox game controls anywhere near as stupidly as Kid Icarus Uprising did, I don't blame the reviewer for not completing it. Strikes me as a lazy, unrepentant attempt by Nintendo to 'justify' the Wii U gamepad. Knowing they can get away with it, as their army of fanboy kids they've hoarded via pokemon, will ALWAYS defend whatever Nintendo do, like the obedient little tribe they are. Have begun to wonder if Nintendo are literally trying to get rid of their mature audience, by giving them intentionally broken fan service (kid icarus uprising, this new star fox), so that they bugger off, so Nintendo can focus instead on milking parents through mobile apps (Nintendo badge arcade etc).

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Old Red
23/4/2016 07:15:47 pm

I've been playing both Star Fox Zero and Guard the last couple of days and I'm having a blast! After getting used to the controls with Splatoon I've found it quite easy to adjust and all this stuff about finding different sitting positions on Kotaku is baffling. You just put the gamepad in your lap and look down when you want to fine tune your aiming.

I can see how it could be frustrating for a reviewer when a game has a long/steep learning curve though. In this case Star Fox is developed by Platinum and their games only really shine on the second or third playthrough when you 'git gud', so I can totally see why it's getting a less than glowing reception. It was the same with Wonderful 101, I hated it on my first try, now it's one of my favourite games this gen.

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nicholas
23/4/2016 10:40:55 pm

As a developer, the truth is that we make a game as well as we are given time for. A month or two if we're lucky. All the time, there's a manager that doesn't know their heap from their stack who might as well tell you straight, "As your manager, I'm the only person that matters. I'm the reason the games we make are so great. You guys are just headless nobodies following instructions." Of course, the instructions we receive are along the lines of, "We need to make a good game that will sell x number of copies. It needs to be milkable and to maintain our company's reputation." When you make a game, you know that some person in a privileged position's child is going to get all the credit for the game instead of you, so I personally imagine the people that will play the game as part of making new memories and friends. The pay isn't great since the few games that make the big bucks pay for the many games that don't, all the staff and god knows what else. I would be lying if I entered the industry not expecting riches and celebrity status, but it didn't work out that way. It's okay though, because I work with a great team of like minded people who almost across the board take their job dead seriously. You see, a game might possibly be played by millions of people, and each of those could get years of enjoyment out of it. A game can be there when alternatives might be alcoholism, drugs and crime. This means you're work could potentially turn someone's life around, and god do we know what it's like to feel worthless and that life isn't worth living, but on the flip side we also have plenty of ways to cheer people up. That is what keeps our team going, and I believe it's what keeps us all going. Everyone being exploited right now. No matter the profession are doing what they do to the best of their ability, despite the poor treatment, because what you do can bring a smile to a crying child.

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Rakladtor III The Terrible
24/4/2016 09:40:23 pm

That's nice dude. As a farmer the truth is I grow the biggest turnips I can. However I don't need to mention that since it has nothing to do with Starfox, whether Starfox is good, whether reviewers who criticized it were in a position to, or whether business strategy or the company's own pride is affecting design choices which are causing bad reviews

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TPG
28/4/2016 12:54:22 am

Edge magazine's saying-loads-while-simultaneously-saying-nothing-at-all 'house style' has a lot to answer for.

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TPG
28/4/2016 06:26:56 am

I've just read the offending review. Of course it's a review. It tells me that 1) the controls are shit, 2) the levels aren't very fun to play, 3) the package as a whole needs more polish to reach Nintendo's expected standard. Those are all things I actually want to know about a game. I don't need a number shat out onto the bottom of the page to make my mind up about the reviewer's opinion, and an opinion is what a review should be. The only bit of the article that isn't a review is the line about it not being one.

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