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Worst "Games Journalism" article of 2014?

M

Moofers

Member
I thought it might be fun to look back at the year and have a moment of special appreciation for the reporting, editorials, or reviews we found to be especially ridiculous. Let's have some fun with this and remember those shining moments of stupidity!

My pick is for "Kissing vs Killing: How Shadow of Mordor fails to explain the difference".

I won't link to it, but it's over at Polygon. Maybe you can see a Google cache version of it, I'm not sure how clicks work with those. But to save you time, the gist of it was that because the start of Mordor teaches you to sneak by sneaking up on your wife with flowers and a kiss, gamers are somehow missing the difference between that and slicing throats because the input is the same on the controller. Derp!

Ok, your turn. Keep it light-hearted and not too mean. Say what you wanna say but let's be civil please.
 
NotLiquid said:
Mario Kart 8: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Pie Chart
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1st post wins 100 percent according to this pie chart.
pie-chart-wrong-total.png
 
Polygon Pie Charts
That Nintendo Life Nintendo phone article. And them "debunking" the Mario Kart 8 advert that people thought showed a new GamePad. They think they're geniuses or something. Anyone with a half a brain could see it wasn't a new GamePad.
 
Didn't polygon have multiple sonic fan art/porn articles this year? Also that article about Pokemon doing too well, nintendo should go mobile and make F2P advance wars because waaaaaa
 
Yep, Polygon Mario Charticle incident was probably most pathetic this year.

Although there have been some hilariously embarassing moments from nothing sites like Gameondaily and Craveonline as well.
 
Moofers said:
My pick is for "Kissing vs Killing: How Shadow of Mordor fails to explain the difference".

I won't link to it, but it's over at Polygon. Maybe you can see a Google cache version of it, I'm not sure how clicks work with those. But to save you time, the gist of it was that because the start of Mordor teaches you to sneak by sneaking up on your wife with flowers and a kiss, gamers are somehow missing the difference between that and slicing throats because the input is the same on the controller. Derp!

Ok, your turn. Keep it light-hearted and not too mean. Say what you wanna say but let's be civil please.
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Geek said:
Here, I'll link the article in the OP for you.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/1/6880061/shadow-mordor-kissing-design

It was written by Zach Gage, game developer of Ridiculous Fishing, Spelltower, Bitpilot and more.
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I can't believe this is an actual article.
 
Lionel Richie said:
Sure, let's spend 10 motherfucking paragraphs on a completely non issue before reviewing the game.

Yeah, screw you Polygon.

Edit: Oh, and that Smash review where the dude spends most of the time talking about some weird stuff about his relationship with his dad has to be a close second.
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Media Representation is not a "non-issue." When you're reviewing a game, you're sharing your own opinion of the game. If the sexualization in the game bothered him that much, than he absolutely should write about that. If you agree or not is an entirely different conversation than calling it a "non-issue."

There are plenty of better examples of the problems with Polygon... like that Mario Kart article.
 
prwxv3 said:
The most hilarious thing about Kotaku is that they are becoming less and less like a gawker website while their competitors are becoming more and more like a gawker website.
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I think the thing about kotaku these days is that a lot of the time they don't even try to link some of their articles to videogames. They just post what they want..... I find it a thousand times more offensive when polygon decides to try and link pretty much anything they can with videogames so they have an excuse to get clicks from it...
 
prwxv3 said:
Gies is pretty much the only journo I really dislike. Hes the same guy that reviewed a game (KZSF) that he publicly had negative reactions too when it was announced. His opinions on the game are fine to me though.
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Is he supposed to be a robot with no emotions whenever a new game is announced?
 
Sheroking said:
Polygon, Mario Kart, Pie Charts.

#1 with a bullet bill.

The article, for reference: http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/15/5718168/mario-kart-series-sales
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I don't know what's so wrong with that one. Looking at past trends and extrapolating is interesting to a lot of people, judging by NPD threads.

I like the idea of using analytics for predictions, especially when it utterly fails to work out the way it predicts..aka the 2014-2015 Edmonton Oilers.
 
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