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m00 · Jul 9, 2009

Hey guys, I apologize in advance for the wall of text, but I thought I'd share some more unintentional, unmalicious reference-point-usingness. I googled a couple of suspiciously well-written sentence fragments clumsily and ungrammatically incorporated into "Andrew Ramsey's" review of FF4: The After Years, and found Nintendo's press release and this Nintendo Life review by Corbie Dillard.

Andrew Ramsey said:
The story of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years of takes place many years after the original and centers on a young man named Ceodore, son of the paladin Cecil and the white mage Rosa, who, along with their loyal and steadfast friends, once saved the world from evil born of the second moon. Now, monsters are reappearing in a world that had finally attained peace. The second moon has returned anew. What tidings does this ominous harbinger bring? Familiar faces and new allies join the battle to save the Blue Planet once more. This is the meat of the story in part one, while having multiple other story lines through the form of character DLC which is being released in the future along with a final DLC which wraps all of them up together.

Ninty said:
Description: FINAL FANTASY IV: THE AFTER YEARS is the sequel to the hit RPG FINAL FANTASY IV. The story takes place many years after the original and centers on a young man named Ceodore, son of the paladin Cecil and the white mage Rosa, who, along with their loyal and steadfast friends, once saved the world from evil born of the second moon. Now, monsters are reappearing in a world that had finally attained peace. The second moon has returned anew. What tidings does this ominous harbinger bring? Familiar faces and new allies join the battle to save the Blue Planet once more.

Corbie Dillard said:
This main game is the meat of the story, but if you want to experience everything the game has to offer, you'll have to purchase the add-on Character Tales in order to experience the storyline in its entirety. While this offers a huge amount of added game play to the main title, it will also cost you an extra 300 Nintendo Points per Character Tale, not to mention another 800 Nintendo Points for the final story add-on. That means if you want to play through every part of the game, it's going to cost you a whopping 3700 Nintendo Points to do so - certainly not cheap considering this is, after all, a WiiWare release.

Andrew Ramsey said:
Speaking of the moon, it actually plays a big role in the gameplay, Moon Phase function. Not only is time kept through the phases of the moon, but it also affects your physical and magic abilities. You need to pay attention to what conditions are occurring. This adds another level of intuitive gameplay to the mix. Also new to the game comes in the form of the Bands attack. If you ever played Chrono Trigger this will be familiar to you. Bands attacks are basically attacks done by multiple characters. Mix and combine different attacks and battle commands to come up with new combos.

Corbie Dillard said:
One of these is the Moon Phase function. Time is kept throughout the game using various phases of the moon. These phases also affect your physical and magical abilities as well, so you always have to be aware of what moon phase you're currently playing under when you take part in battle. Another new element comes in the form of the Bands attack. These special attacks involve multiple characters and can be particularly effective against large groups of enemies. You'll learn some of your Bands as the game progresses, but you can also try various combination of characters and battle commands to stumble upon new Bands during battle. Once learned, you can then make use of these Bands at will during combat as long as you have enough MP points to execute them. So as effective as the classic game play system is, these new additions do a lot to add a nice layer of freshness to the overall experience. If you're feeling adventurous, you can even get three other players to take control of each one of the other characters in your party during battles and have a little cooperative multiplayer action.

Andrew Ramsey said:
Unfortunately, the visual style is from the SNES era and not the redone version that was released on the DS. This isnt a bad thing, it just would have been really nice to of had some kind of updated visuals to keep up with the times. Same can be said about the music score. While it is a nice score, it just doesnt give the punch that some of the other Final Fantasy titles have had.

Corbie Dillard said:
The visuals in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years look like they were plucked straight out of the 16-bit era, which is a good and bad thing, depending on your viewpoint. For some gamers, the nostalgic look of the game will be more appealing than to those who've become a bit spoiled with the recent updates that have appeared on the DS system. It would be difficult to fault Square Enix for keeping with the classic look considering that's really the main draw of this release in the first place, but a bit more visual flash still might have been nice. There are at least a few interesting special effects strung around various part of the game, so they tend to keep things interesting during those times when certain sections start looking a bit bland.

Final Fantasy titles have long been revered for their amazing musical scores, and while there are plenty of the classic Final Fantasy tunes strung throughout this title, the original compositions lack some of that catchy appeal found in the retro tracks. There's plenty of variety in the musical pieces, with everything from uptempo numbers during battle to some of the more moodier compositions during some of the more dramatic moments of the game, but ultimately they just feel a bit uninspired and generic at times. It's nothing to get overly bent out of shape over, but it's something that seems to stick out when compared to the amazingly high quality soundtracks of past Final Fantasy titles.

I'm going to take a look at some of his other articles.

EDIT:R amsey's description of Noitu Love 2: Revolution in his review was taken from the official description. He makes a few slight changes to Joakim Sandberg's description....

Ramsey said:
The story is simple set 100 years after the events of Noitu Love 1 the new star of the Peacekeepers is Xoda Rap, there is a sudden resurrection of the Darn armies and she is going to have to put an end to that, unfortunately the city is also turning into places from the past! You need to find out what is causing this entire ruckus to occur and put an end to it. Doing so will be the fun part.

Konjak said:
100 years after the events of Noitu Love 1 the new star of the Peacekeepers is Xoda Rap, and what she has to endure is a sudden resurrection of the Darn armies, but adding to that the city is locally turning to places of the past! What could be causing this?

His Neves Plus review looks like it was cribbed from this IGN review by Craig Harris; the words are changed, but both reviewers express the same ideas in the same order.

nincompoop · Jul 9, 2009

m00 said:
Hey guys, I apologize in advance for the wall of text, but I thought I'd share some more unintentional, unmalicious reference-point-usingness. I googled a couple of suspiciously well-written sentence fragments clumsily and ungrammatically incorporated into "Andrew Ramsey's" review of FF4: The After Years, and found Nintendo's press release and this Nintendo Life review by Corbie Dillard.

I'm going to take a look at some of his other articles.

Good, can we all stop defending this guy now? Flachmatuch that means you.

Vyer · Jul 9, 2009

Not copying someone else's work doesn't need to be explained, or excused, or ignored, or politely commented on. It's common sense. It's a basic tenet of not only journalism, but a lot of other professions/work in life. Trying to say that losing this job for doing it is 'extreme' makes no sense.

It's like saying you have to 'warn' the valet about stealing the car or the waiter about pissing in the soup. It's basic shit that, if you fuck up, you get fired. Simple.

It doesn't matter if it was revealed in a messageboard post or not.

Also, there is no logic in complaining that games journalism isn't 'professional', and then turning around and complaining that holding someone to one of the basic rules of trying to be a professional journalist is unneccessary. That is just plain foolish.

xs_mini_neo · Jul 9, 2009

This topic is just pointing out how lazy and fanboyish reviewers have become in the last ten years.

They should just add a disclaimer letting you know they don't really review most games anymore. They only review the ones they were going to play either way, and the ones they get bribed to blow. Everything else is thrown into the quarter-assed review pile. Maybe if we're lucky they'll play an hour of those games and copy & paste other people's opinions/reviews from the many gaming forums out there on their review.

This is what today's videogame reviewers get paid for.

KHarvey16 · Jul 9, 2009

This is a depressing thread and that's not just due to Andrew Ramsey.

skip · Jul 9, 2009

mmmm...broad strokes.

LaserBuddha · Jul 9, 2009

xs_mini_neo said:
This topic is just pointing out how lazy and fanboyish reviewers have become in the last ten years.

They should just add a disclaimer letting you know they don't really review most games anymore. They only review the ones they were going to play either way, and the ones they get bribed to blow. Everything else is thrown into the quarter-assed review pile. Maybe if we're lucky they'll play an hour of those games and copy & paste other people's opinions/reviews from the many gaming forums out there on their review.

This is what today's videogame reviewers get paid for.

?

whatever that means, I'm sure its stupid

Aruarian Reflection · Jul 9, 2009

Shurs said:
Does anyone want to recap the Richard Li situation that went down at 1up a few years ago? Was it similar to this?

Richard Li copied his 1up Dead or Alive 4 strategy guide off a DoA forum thread, lifting all the combo commands, organization of the thread posts, and strategy commentary. 1up loyalists were quick to point out that fighting game input commands are facts and therefore not subject to plagiarism claims, but that doesn't excuse all the copied commentary scattered throughout his guide. The only fallout was a brief acknowledgement of the DoA forum added to the guide, Richard Li was later promoted at 1up.

What about some examples of the lifts?

Helena
VirtuaPai (DoaCentral)
Can avoids (sic) Most attacks, except low mids, and low attacks.

Richard Li (1UP.com):
Can't avoid low mids and low attacks.

Lei Fang
VirtuaPai (DoaCentral)
Avoids most attacks with proper timing, not good against mid kicks.

Richard Li (1UP.com)
Must have good timing to avoid most attacks, but is horrible against mid kicks.

Commentary on the whole ordeal, which was quickly forgotten

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/the-young-and-the-plagiaristic/

bigdaddygamebot · Jul 9, 2009

m00 said:
Hey guys, I apologize in advance for the wall of text, but I thought I'd share some more unintentional, unmalicious reference-point-usingness. I googled a couple of suspiciously well-written sentence fragments clumsily and ungrammatically incorporated into "Andrew Ramsey's" review of FF4: The After Years, and found Nintendo's press release and this Nintendo Life review by Corbie Dillard.

He's a busy little beaver.

M3Freak · Jul 10, 2009

Once again, proving my point the gaming "media" are fanboy douches who will tank an otherwise awesome game if a dev gives them so much as a candy wrapper with a picture of a game character on it. God knows what they'll do when they're lavished with games, consoles, and other freebies.

Don't trust game reviewers. They have neither the time, skill, dedication, nor ability to review any game on any platform. They are all fanboy douches.

Someone should start a "Fanboy Douche" website.

Cartman86 · Jul 10, 2009

Makes me sad to see people who don't seem to trust or like any games media no matter what (this case just makes them feel better about their views), AND the people who don't seem to care about plaigarism at all.

There is good games press out there.

EDarkness · Jul 10, 2009

Cartman86 said:
Makes me sad to see people who don't seem to trust or like any games media no matter what (this case just makes them feel better about their views), AND the people who don't seem to care about plaigarism at all.

There is good games press out there.

Just not enough good games press....

Calcaneus · Jul 10, 2009

EDarkness said:
Just not enough good games press....

Well if everyone just says "its all terrible" how are people gonna notice the good ones out there?

EDarkness · Jul 10, 2009

Calcaneus said:
Well if everyone just says "its all terrible" how are people gonna notice the good ones out there?

That's a good question, but it's simply a case of a few ruining it for everyone else. It's not the consumer's job to police the market. That has to come from the inside. I used to be a magazine editor and I tried to keep the quality high, but all it takes is two popular mags to really give mags a bad name. It's hard to prove yourself in those conditions. Which is one of the reasons I got out. It wasn't worth the trouble since consumers had such a bad view of the market. That was six years ago and apparently it's gotten worse.

Deleted member 30609 · Jul 10, 2009

it makes me laugh when people say "lol games journalism", like this sort of behaviour and professional standard is somehow unique to it

Oblivion · Jul 10, 2009

Rez said:
it makes me laugh when people say "lol games journalism", like this sort of behaviour and professional standard is somehow unique to it

bububu bad gaming journalism is why video games aren't being taken seriously

Dave D. · Jul 10, 2009

Oh, great. Another "games journalists are evil and don't deserve to be called 'journalists' because real journalists never do bad things ever and some guy on 1UP didn't like Crysis as much as I did so they must be corrupt and moneyhats and bawww" thread. Keep on truckin'.

dammitmattt · Jul 10, 2009

nincompoop said:
Good, can we all stop defending this guy now? Flachmatuch that means you.

I think we can also stop wasting time investigating this guy, too. We get it.

ramennoodles · Jul 10, 2009

GamePro Arcade just wiped all his former posts after looking into the guy's post history and deciding he's been up to shenanigans before. They give a shout-out to GAF for the detective work too.

http://gparcade.blogfaction.com/article/109149/following-the-plagarism-issue/

Following the plagarism issue.
July 09, 2009 5:36 PM
Tae Kim

Yesterday, we had a troubling development on GamePro Arcade that was brought to our attention by members of the NeoGAF forums. You can see the original NeoGAF thread here as well as our initial response to the situation. The long and short of it is that we had to let one of our contributing writers, Andrew Ramsey, go due to an issue with plagiarism. After some careful investigation, weve come to the unfortunate realization that Andrew's transgressions are wider in scope than we first thought. After much deliberation, we have made the decision to erase all of Andrews posts from GamePro Arcade.

It wasnt an easy decision to make but in the end, we feel that it is the right thing to do. We take our journalistic integrity very seriously and we felt that the only fair thing to do for everyone involved was to delete Andrews entire body of work. We cannot fully express the regret that we feel over this situation and we apologize to you, our readers. We cannot erase what happened but we can take proactive steps to ensure that something like this will never occur again.

This situation will now serve as a powerful reminder to every member of our network that we have a responsibility to do our jobs in a professional and ethical manner. We will also use this as an opportunity to take a closer look at our editorial process to ensure that this never occurs again.

Again, we apologize for the trouble this ordeal has caused. If you have any thoughts or questions on this matter, please do not hesitate to send me a note.

Firestorm · Jul 10, 2009

That guy is really, really going to feel the burn when he starts applying to any writing jobs. Hope he didn't think this was going to be a career.

Rez said:
it makes me laugh when people say "lol games journalism", like this sort of behaviour and professional standard is somehow unique to it

Either people here don't read mainstream news on important issues or they are really, really, naive.

Cat in the Hat · Jul 10, 2009

m00 said:
wow

This probably happens more than we know but it's still kinda surprising to see.

I think Gamepro is handling this very well, kudos guys.

GhostSeed · Jul 10, 2009

ramennoodles said:
GamePro Arcade just wiped all his former posts after looking into the guy's post history and deciding he's been up to shenanigans before. They give a shout-out to NeoGAF for the detective work too.

http://gparcade.blogfaction.com/article/109149/following-the-plagarism-issue/

The hits just keep on coming :lol

Shurs · Jul 10, 2009

SnowWolf said:
Richard Li copied his 1up Dead or Alive 4 strategy guide off a DoA forum thread, lifting all the combo commands, organization of the thread posts, and strategy commentary. 1up loyalists were quick to point out that fighting game input commands are facts and therefore not subject to plagiarism claims, but that doesn't excuse all the copied commentary scattered throughout his guide. The only fallout was a brief acknowledgement of the DoA forum added to the guide, Richard Li was later promoted at 1up.

Commentary on the whole ordeal, which was quickly forgotten

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/the-young-and-the-plagiaristic/

So why does Richard Li get a free pass?

MC Safety · Jul 10, 2009

I think game journalism deserves the knock, especially when it comes to freelance and volunteer writers.

Honestly, the fish stinks from the head down, as Franklin said. If game publications augment their staffs with volunteers and freelancers who are paid a pittance, they should expect shoddy workmanship. It's sad but true: publications need to be more selective about who they "hire" and then cultivate the relationship by paying a decent wage to their writers.

Flachmatuch · Jul 10, 2009

nincompoop said:
Good, can we all stop defending this guy now? Flachmatuch that means you.

Yeah. He quite obviously deserved to be fired, and I should have looked at his other articles before I made my first post. Most of my arguments still stand though.

Weenerz · Jul 10, 2009

Bad water puns = plagiarism?

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