"Spirits be willing to talk."

• 8Sep 07

  Cognitive Dissonance and the case of Lair

  Hmm, Factor 5 releases a flight game with clumsy controls and a painfully severe level of difficulty. Why is everyone so shocked?

  It always cracks me up how upset people get over review scores. The only people who have any right to be mad over criticisms of a game are those who helped to create it (developers) and those with a vested interest in its success (publishers). If you bought the game, the review is moot, they already have your money. To the consumer who has already purchased the product, it doesn't matter if the game gets a 1 or a 10, it won't (shouldn't) change the game experience for you. Yet the way people howl and cry and shriek on message boards all day long, you'd think someone insulted them personally. To all the people who claim "I love Lair it is awesome I'm going to play it no matter what anyone thinks," well if that were really true you wouldn't be on these boards whining about a stupid number. You'd be playingthe game you *claim* to love.

  The fact is the true reason these people are defending Lair is because they feel shame over purchasing a lousy game. No one likes to believe that they were taken in by hype, influenced by advertising, or that they made a bad decision with a game and let their supposed reputation as a "l33t" gamer suffer. So while most who buy a bad game just say "ah well Caveat Emptor," there are always a few who scream out in defiance of all reason, "NO! IT'S A GREAT GAME! EVERYONE GO BUY IT!" and lobby gaming rags to try to change their opinions. Why? Because if they can somehow single-handedly reverse the failure of the game commercially and turn it into a bestseller, their personal shame over having purchased it will be erased (theoretically) and they will be vindicated where they were once ridiculed. It should be noted that this NEVER HAPPENS. People can always smell **** no matter how much you dress it up.

  So really people, if you love Lair so much, just go play it and enjoy it, and stop acting like it's the end of the goddamned world because no one else agrees with you.

  • Posted Sep 8, 2007 12:19 am PT
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• 3Dec 06

  meaningless term

  I just got done playing through Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in the US) and I liked the game; but it insisted on calling itself an 'interactive movie.'  Blech.  Other people like to call heavily cinematic games like Metal Gear Solid series or Final Fantasy games by this misnomer.  There was even an Interactive Movie genre back in the old days when real FMV in games was novel.

  Seriously people this term is meaningless and I wish you'd all stop using it.  Everyone has a different idea of what it means and none of them are descriptive enough to be worth anything.  You wouldn't call a movie a "Non-interactive Videogame," would you?  Course not, that makes no sense.

  Or how about a book a "Non-visual text-movie?"  Heh.  Or how about a painting a "non-movie-movie?"  Lol.

  Shut up with this interactive movie nonsense.  It's a meaningless term.

  • Posted Dec 3, 2006 1:50 pm PT
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• 8Mar 05

  Xenosaga: Das ist nacht eine boobie!

  Ooh, my first entry. Well this isn't very impressive I know, but soon there will be something big here I promise. In the mean time, I'm going to talk about Xenosaga.

  I just finished Episode 2 and I didn't care for it. As a huge fan of Xenogears obviously I had high hopes for this series, but so far it is dissapointing me. The battle system of Episode 2 is not the worst I have ever played, but I despise it thoroughly. However looking back I know that Xenogears is hardly a perfect game; rather it is a game whose flaws are dwarfed by the overwhelming strength of its characters and narrative. Now I see Xenosaga ending up the same way; flawed games with a great story, though as of yet they haven't approached the pure granduer of Xenogears. And that's the real thing that's got me in a twist about Xenosaga: With two games out and supposedly four more on the way, they still haven't provided a play experience that matches that of Xenogears, and it was all in one single game. They way Xenosaga's story is creeping along, buying the games seems like extortion.

  Or maybe just really, really good marketing.

  • Posted Mar 8, 2005 8:28 am PT
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