• 14Apr 09

  Back, But Not For Long

  I was watching the Bioshock Retrospect here on GameSpot and it makes me ill.

  All these GameSpot staffers talking about Bioshock as if it's anything more than System Shock 2 with a different plot and watered down gameplay.

  When does it end?

  Let me clear something up first:

  -The storyline of Bioshock is fun and original, and the "Would you kindly" twist was cool. Being a Big Daddy was cool.

  -I played Bioshock to the end. The game was not bad, it was just painfully unoriginal and the rabid fans of it annoy me and all need to be corrected for their own sake.

  Now let me rant. Despite the above, everything else in Bioshock was a direct ripoff and downgrade from a greater game known as System Shock 2, a PC game that came out over a decade ago that apparently not a single soul on GameSpot, its own editors included, has ever played (or refuse to acknowledge when talking about derivative old Bioshock). Unfortunately, we're living in this era where all new gamers are too young to know of any video game that existed pre-2000, and we have the GameSpot staff who unhelpfully enjoy slurping the mainstream sausage whenever possible, compounding the problem and taking great joy in taking a collective dump on old classics to talk up "the next big thing" even when it's just "the next big ripoff of a better game that came out ten years ago with pretty water." Go look at all of GameSpot's Halo launch parties for evidence of their mainstream sausage slurping.

  Any proper retrospective or, hell, any proper review of Bioshock should, out of common courtesy, speak about System Shock 2, the game Bioshock so heavily takes gameplay from and is so derivative of that it even has "shock" in the title.

  System Shock 2's class system was miles ahead of Bioshock's. You could only specialize in one area, unlike Bioshock where you can do everything equally well, which is extremely cheap and lame. Want to hack a machine? Can't hack? Oh, just pay the robot money, apparently machines take bribes to buy booze with! Want to shoot guns? Go ahead, you're automatically the most skilled mercenary/gunslinger/soldier in the west somehow! Plasmids you say? Here, have a whole bag!

  In System Shock 2, if you couldn't hack, you didn't. Period. In System Shock 2, if you couldn't fire weapons, you didn't. Or you did very, very poorly. If you weren't pyrokinetically inclined in System Shock 2, you didn't cast pyrokinesis. And you most certainly couldn't specialize in all three areas at once.

  In Bioshock, you're so boringly overpowered and all the combat/non-combat aspects are so horribly simplified from System Shock 2 that they're an absolute garbage heap. You can do every single thing in the game equally well, which presents you with no challenge and no alternate approaches to getting through levels. You can mow everything down with a machine gun, throw fireballs, and throw wads of cash at security robots simultaneously. You're a super-sneaky machine-gunning plasmid-mage at all times.

  Why not just put in an "I win" button? It would have expedited the process of braindead-easy victory that was designed to cater to spoiled console gamers who would have a heart attack if they were told they had to use their heads.

  I understand partly why Bioshock was dumbed down from System Shock 2; Bioshock was made for younger console gamers, a casual market no matter how you cut the cake. System Shock 2 is something that is only remembered by serious gamers who find Bioshock offensive when you realize they're trying to sell you something you already played ten years ago with a different coat of paint and gameplay that has been braindeadened to the point of retardation rather than enhanced.

  But clearly I'm the crazy one here.

  • Posted Apr 14, 2009 4:31 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 23Jan 08

  The Long-Delayed Followup

  Been a long time since I've been here, but in the wake of Jeff Gerstmann's firing and Alex Navarro's leaving, I thought I'd put in my two cents. I'm not going to pretend I knew it 100% that GameSpot was losing its credibility, but from my last blog post, I knew I had to be on to something rotten. Turns out I was right.

  For those who never saw it, there was a blog post made by a freelance journalist basically saying quite plainly that from what he heard happened behind closed doors, he believed CNet told GameSpot's editors that they can either start being softer on games (especially games they have active advertisement partnerships with), or they can walk. All that has happened since then only reinforces this.

  Alex Navarro is famous around these parts for being brutally honest, and he knew it. That was the sole reason he put in his two weeks, I firmly believe; he knew he too would be more honest than CNet and their advertisers would allow, and he'd be fired for it just like Gerstmann was. That's what he meant when he said he felt he no longer belonged at GameSpot. He didn't want to know every review he wrote from that day on would have to have cushions tied to either side before it was allowed viewable by us.

  And due to that revelation put forth by this freelance writer, it also showed us that CNet's explanation of what happened to Jeff was more than just damage control, they were offering outright lies to us. What does this mean? It means that anyone who chose to remain at GameSpot agreed they would not be hard on games, even if they deserved it. What does this mean? It means the collective credibility of GameSpot from this day forward MUST be put into question. No matter what review you read for any game, you'll have to ask yourself from now on "Were they being as hard on this game as they wanted to? Am I going to buy a copy and be disappointed when I get home?"

  Anyone sad to see Alex go doesn't understand why he left.

  Alex Navarro, I salute you, because you had to integrity to stand up and show them you refuse to be held back from stating your true opinion about these games we love to play so much and these investments that can't be taken too lightly as to be trivialized by a greedy company wanting to roll in some extra advertiser dollars at the expense of disappointed core gamers.

  To that end, you may never read this, but if you did by some stroke of luck, once again I believe you did the right thing. You were good to GameSpot as long as you were here, but it did not return the favor.

  And readers, personally I don't like turning to a site as questionable as GameSpot has become when I have to decide whether I want to spend $60 on a new game. GameSpot is falling apart at the seams. Every editor that has agreed to abide by CNet's new terms of content softening has also agreed to lie to us if it means not hurting the feelings of the advertisers. This sends a terrible message.

  • Posted Jan 23, 2008 6:41 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 27Aug 07

  Goodbye GameSpot. I'm through with you.

  I speak for a good handful of people when I say I'm starting to look at moving on to greener pastures. Or pastures that have any green to them, period.

  Metroid Prime 3's review score itself is not in my list of gripes. Of course one could say that an 8.5 is hardly worthy of what the game deserves, and I would agree. Though 8.5 is "great" on a spectrum of 1 to 10, games rated 5 and below by GameSpot and other sites that follow a "half-decent means 7.0" review model are still garbage from my experience, which makes 1-4 absolutely pointless since it's needless subtle levels of terrible/do-not-buy.

  No, the last straw for me is the review's actual contents and how it's all a sign that we are never going to get fair Wii coverage from GameSpot, ever. In the review, it takes a jab at Metroid Prime 3, a single player game, by saying it was disappointing that it had no multiplayer.

  By that strand of logic, I guess we should look forward to Mario Galaxy being docked points because it isn't going to have deathmatch. GameSpot, go find a toilet and fish out your credibility before someone hits the handle. Or maybe it'll just be docked points for being a Nintendo game, who knows anymore?
  

  Of course, they also griped because the game's controls are too good.

  Yes, that was in their list of cons; the controls were good. If someone posted a topic on the Wii forum saying that, they'd be moderated for trolling, but make no mistake, making ignorant statements is quite fine as long as you're an editor at GameSpot.

  The worst point GameSpot glossed over sealed the deal that we were never going to get fair reviews here at GameSpot ever again... Metroid Prime 3 was slammed for not doing anything different.

  Keep in mind for comparison's sake, Halo 3 is going to walk away with Editor's Choice when it arrives (call it spider sense, BS sense, what-have-you) despite the fact that the game is not and never was innovative or new, and certainly won't be in its third iteration.

  Above all, GameSpot will probably not slam Halo 3 for being a simplistic, repetitious, run of the mill shooter even when it is (since it's immune to being faulted for its own genericism for reasons no one can explain).

  Although some may question my motivation behind this comparison I make between Halo 3 and Metroid Prime, it is only by coincidence that I'm comparing games that are in somewhat similar genres. My main point is that it seems to be okay for one game to be recycled and unoriginal, repetitious and mindless, as long as it's got a cult following. But when another game is (according to them) also like that, it gets points subtracted for it. I'm sorry for my oversight last time; GameSpot has left me nothing left to believe that they do have some sort of bias, or that their reviewers are incompetent, getting old and jaded, and understand nothing of what they're playing anymore.

  This is not me getting upset over an 8.5, this is me getting upset because GameSpot just accused one of the most original and innovative games of our lifetime of doing nothing new, meanwhile they've hyped Halo 3 through the roof and guaranteed it a pre-determined Editor's Choice just by spending their resources creating a launch center for it. Ah, people who praise a game that pioneered nothing, but they act as if it pioneered everything... And to think, "reputable" GameSpot helps spread this as truth by ignoring faults it will gladly point out in other games.

  Whatever pays the bills, am I right? I'm sure you don't get paid to create launch centers, create hype, and pre-determine review scores just like you don't get paid by random beverage and chewing gum companies to paint your whole site with their background logos every other day. And to think, if you just provided clean coverage instead, you'd have more happily paying subscribers to foot those hefty server costs for you. Sadly for you, when you lose a heavily networked user like myself, I take a lot of people with me.

  I'm going to GameTrailers. My user name there is CaptainDingo, same as here; if you'd like to sign up there, drop me a friend request. I'll be doing my blogging there from now on and I have a feeling I'll have much less reason to be negative. I do my best blogging when I've got nice things on my mind.

  Sorry GameSpot, I guess I just wasn't enough of a 1337 dethmatch d00d for you.

  • Posted Aug 27, 2007 8:40 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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