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Worst "Games Journalism" article of 2014?

guggnichso said:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/12/15/Review-Dragon-Age-Inquisition

This fucking thing. Most "ethical" review out there /s
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With BioWare's reputation established in the early 2000s by middling but commercially popular, if somewhat buggy, releases such as Baldur's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare was, at least a decade ago, strongly positioned to achieve sustained success at the "average games that perform well with customers" end of the market. (To be fair to both of those titles, they have very enthusiastic fan bases.)
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what on earth was this paragraph

edit:
Practically every release from BioWare now contains dozens of gay and lesbian romance storylines or sex scenes, which many young gamers find baffling.
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It gets better, the good ol' "Don't expose kids to samesex relationships" argument. Thanks mate, feels great to know I should be hiding my sexuality away and that any children shouldn't consider their already confusing feelings 'normal'.

What a fucking cunt.

edit2:
Except to say that, evidently, Bioware has failed to do even cursory research into lesbian relationships. For a start, both partners are cute. And they actually have sex!
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Is this

like Anita Sarkeesian muscling in on the games industry and encouraging developers to slap a few dykes or a woman in a wheelchair into games
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cunt for real
 
Mesoian said:
And that's fine, but I'm really tired of people who just straight up forgot that Bioshock was a first person shooter and BI is a sequel in the same franchise. It's cool if you didn't care very much for the mechanics or you didn't think the combat puzzles were as good as Bioshock, but people asking for a completely different game because they fell in love with the new aesthetic in the first 10 minutes, but forgot that the game was a first person shooter is nothing short of crazy. It's like complaining that Day of the Tenticle is an adventure game because the dialogue made you laugh.

That being said, Tevin Thompson's "Bioshock Infinite Is the Worst Game Of The Generation" was my "Worst games journalism article of 2013".
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Well, Bioshock was't just a first person shooter, but a streamlined take on System Shock. I was hoping we might see more elaboration on that formula or some of those Immersive Sim elements being re-integrated, but it wound up stripping the game down to the mechanical elements of Bioshock that were "just okay" to me without really adding much.
 
Came for this. Wasn't let down. Thanks OP.

Kissing vs Killing: How Shadow of Mordor fails to explain the difference"

Truly horrible, this may sound harsh but I discredited Polygon and stopped visiting the site due to that article. All credibility was lost.
 
Without questions it's either the Mario Kart 8 graph article from polygon or the Shadows of Mordor Kissing opinion also from Polygon.

To think any other article this year has been as bad as those two is just crazy. Even the yahoo pokemon killing nintendo article is not this bad. It's stupid, but it seems to be an issue of ignorance. With the MK8 Graphs and SoM Kiss article, those are pieces that you have to work hard to just fuck up, and polygon clearly did.
 
MattyG said:
Yup. It's not even a review of the game, it's a review of other outlet's reviews with a few bits saying "I don't like the gameplay" or "I was bored sometimes", all tied up nicely with the not so sutble undertones of homophobia throughout.

What a shit show.
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Undertones? Those were tones. Those were overtones. Those were those weird powerful tones Nikola Tesla figured out how to use to make earthquakes.
 
Solidsoul said:
Came for this. Wasn't let down. Thanks OP.

Kissing vs Killing: How Shadow of Mordor fails to explain the difference"

Truly horrible, this may sound harsh but I discredited Polygon and stopped visiting the site due to that article. All credibility was lost.
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Can you explain what you found objectionable about that article? Here are my comments on it from earlier:

ultron87 said:
You see, this wasn't the gist of the article at all. The article was a game designer (ie not a journalist and therefore not even valid for your thread title) writing about how he thinks that a game mechanic and an emotional reaction lining up is a very powerful thing that games can do and how this moment went against that. I had never even considered game mechanics from that perspective so I found it pretty interesting.

This was the central point of the article:
Games can make us feel those different emotions. They’re that powerful. They have the tools to do that through their lighting and their animation and their context and most importantly and sneakily, through the way we actually control them. When a designer or animator gives up and decides to use the same controls and animations for two actions that couldn’t be more different it’s a giant wasted opportunity.
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I think the only real problem with the article is the headline which makes everyone assume that it is some "oh no violence is bad and this is conflating it with everyday actions and ah!" morality police article.
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Sheroking said:
Yup.

graphwrite.aspx
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Very good.
 
Wow. That Breitbart piece of shit about Dragon Age. Holy crap. That was some of the most hateful, homophobic, knuckle-dragging shit I've ever read in an piece that was supposed to be about a damn VIDEOGAME.

I mean wow. I hope if this asshole ever shows up at a convention somebody points him out and we chase the bastard out of there.
 
It's not game-related, per se, but Polygon did spoil a movie that's not even out yet in the headline. When called on it by other journos even, Crecente was basically like "Deal with it."

As for actual games related, it HAS to be the Breitbart "review". The way Gaters have been squawking in support of it is pretty telling of the movement as a whole.
 
Any review written by Kill Screen Daily.

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/super-smash-bros-finds-more-tricks-wii-u/

Jon Irwin said:
But the music that plays isn’t triumphant or bombastic. You hear a light tickling of piano. The notes are from the main theme but transposed to a minor key. They play softly, pianissimo. As you look at your bounty and reminisce about each fighter bested, each really just a toy that has come to life and that you’ve willfully knocked off its pedestal, the emotional tone set by the music is plaintive … almost sad. Or perhaps it is meant to be peaceful, a soothing epilogue to all that violent grandeur. And no matter how many times you complete the sequence, you will hear that same, slightly melancholy tune. Instead of a rousing aria to the victor, the game presents a dirge for those defeated.
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http://killscreendaily.com/articles/everything-its-right-place-pokemon-omega-ruby-review/

Erik Fredner said:
The problem with a finely honed system like Pokémon is that, unlike Blade Runner, there's no uncertainty, no ambiguity, and, at its most pernicious, no challenge outside of competitive play. The characters are inoffensive and monochromatic. The environments have been so thoroughly kid-proofed that they don't even offer a sense of staged discovery. Maybe I'm just burnt out on these loops after seventeen (!) years of getting to know the game. But I think there's something else at work here.
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http://killscreendaily.com/articles/you-probably-already-know-if-you-want-play-persona-q/

Davis Cox said:
As much as I love Dave Grohl’s drumming in Nirvana, Josh Homme’s thudding stoner riffs in Queens of the Stone Age and John Paul Jones’ solidifying bass lines in Led Zeppelin, it took considerable digging for me to remember that their short-lived combination, Them Crooked Vultures, even existed, much less why I’d pull out the album again. Supergroups are typically interesting on paper only; while it sounds thrilling to see your favorite stars performing in the same room, rarely do you come out with a product that’s memorable or stands on its own merits.
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Zombie James said:
You ask that question like they behaved differently before.
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They used to employ the inimitable Russ Pitts so yes, they used to be much, much better.

I have the feeling this thread is going to bring out another gamergate discussion.

I think 2014 is the year Kyle Wagner turned it around and stopped blaming consumers for poor decisions made by platform owners. I'd have to double check, but I thought I'd applaud that instead of find that one time a review talked about gender and whine.
 
Beelzebufo said:
What do you think the point of a review is? I would argue that it's to explain to people what you liked/didn't like a game and why, so other people can be warned. The FPS example also isn't really accurate, because that's a core part of the gameplay. Bayonetta's gameplay is action, not sex haha. It's like criticizing an FPS for starring an in-your-face hyper sexualized female.

I mean personally, that part of Bayonetta is why I haven't even played the demo. I'd feel uncomfortable playing it when my roommates are around.
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I guess you are right, maybe I overreacted to it. I just don't like when a reviewer takes issue with a single mechanic or peculiarity of a game, especially when it's a prominent feature on said game, and hammer it home during the entire review. IGN recently started doing that as well ("too much water", the whole Alien Isolation review).

I do get that reviews aren't objective journalism and the opinion of the writer is going to be inevitably all over it, but when a dude feels that strongly about something in the piece he's reviewing to the point where he spends most of the time talking about it, I'd give it to someone else.
 
Toxi said:
Wait, did everybody seriously forget IGN announcing the Last Guardian was canceled based on one source confirmed by IGN russia that turned out to be completely wrong? Then they tried to save face by changing the article repeatedly based on new information even as it became obvious that their source was wrong until they eventually retracted the article and issued a formal apology.

That's an actual case of fucking awful journalism, not just someone writing an opinion you disagree with.
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Reminds me that their Amy Henning / Druckmann story was this year as well


Boy... this year has been great for shitty games journalism.
 
funkystudent said:
Reminds me that their Amy Henning / Druckmann story was this year as well


Boy... this year has been great for shitty games journalism.
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Oh yep. Forgot about that too.

I'd say that matters a lot more than someone complaining about Bayonetta being sexy, or even some prick writing a homophobic review for Breitbart. At least they are just expressing terrible opinions, as opposed to presenting information as truth without doing some proper verification.
 
funkystudent said:
Reminds me that their Amy Henning / Druckmann story was this year as well


Boy... this year has been great for shitty games journalism.
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remember when some gaf posters took Amy retweeting the authors tweet about a ND fan cancer fundraiser as proof the story was correct?
 
Lionel Richie said:
Thing is, Bayonetta is a game conceived as a sexualized extravaganza. It was created like that. He can dislike it, but spending 10 paragraphs rambling about it before even talking about the game is awful. It's like criticizing a FPS for making you shoot stuff.
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Generic FPS Review:

7/10
"Too much bullet."
 
Toxi said:
Wait, did everybody seriously forget IGN announcing The Last Guardian was canceled based on one source confirmed by IGN russia that turned out to be completely wrong? Then they tried to save face by changing the article repeatedly based on new information even as it became obvious that their source was wrong. Eventually retracted the article and issued a formal apology.

That's an actual case of fucking awful journalism, not just someone writing an opinion you disagree with.
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I forgot about this. The fallout on GAF that night was glorious lmao

Nothing beats Polygon pie charts though.
 
Toxi said:
Wait, did everybody seriously forget IGN announcing The Last Guardian was canceled based on one source confirmed by IGN russia that turned out to be completely wrong? Then they tried to save face by changing the article repeatedly based on new information even as it became obvious that their source was wrong. Eventually retracted the article and issued a formal apology.

That's an actual case of fucking awful journalism, not just someone writing an opinion you disagree with.
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I seriously did forget that, fucking hell. Man, trying to work out which is worse, Polygon or IGN. It's like asking someone who their favourite despot is.
 
Why are so many people mentioning reviews in a thread about journalism articles when they're nothing of the sort?

Anyway, that Breitbart horsehit would win it for me going by what's allowed in here but since it's not a journalistic article (it's not even a review either) imma go with the Castlevania nonsense from earlier in the year that has been posted a few times already.
 
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