• 2Sep 09

  Witnessing A No-Brainer Idea Be Presented As A Complete Mess

  I don't understand it. A contest to find who's the greatest Video Game hero shouldn't be that hard to set up.

  And yet, Gamespot seems to have fallen flat on it's face on this one.

  Sure, people are coming in by the thousands to speak their mind on their picks, so there's no arguing it's a hit amongst the site visitors. But then, the numbers aren't the issue.

  It's the fact that many of the match-ups don't make one bit of sense. It's as if they just drew a bunch of names from a hat for pairing off. Most would have the good sense to pit similar characters against one another, have a nice litte even match going. Not Gamespot. Nope, the dared to be different. Or rather, they tossed common sense to the wind and decided "HEY! Let's throw big name stars against a ton of unknowns and oldies that hardly anyone remembers! YEAH!"

  This first round isn't even a contest, anyone with a brain in their skull could tell you who's going to win. Heck, most of the people voting for the underdog admit that their vote's for the impending loser. Half way through I found myself feeling sorry for most of the fairly-unknowns, especially after reading their descriptions. A lot of these characters, of course, come from PC games, and most of them only had one or two credits to their names. These guys, however, aretrue characters, with so much love and care put into their existence.

  The guys pulling in most of the votes, including half of mine? Card board cut outs with barely any level of personality. The problem with the popular characters is that they weren't really created with story in mind, they were created for a look and feel that would fittheirrespectivegame dynamics. Most of them have seen more than one installment, and it's in most of these that their personas are fleshed out. The sad thing about this fact is is that the people doing most of the writing on this are writing, not to give life to their child, but to impress their boss.

  As I'm voting I'm seeing all of these characters I've barely even heard of. Heck, most of them I just remember seeing on the cover of their game(s) a few years back. I'm intrigued, so I click on their profiles...I wanted to know why some people find these characters worth voting for, despite their obvious lot in this "contest". As I'm doing this I'm finding out that these guys are more than just the image of a fantastic game, their someone's children. The other's, as "cool" as they might be, don't have anywhere NEAR as much effort put into them as these guys.

  And it's an absolute crime that they've been put up against full-fledged gaming icons. Torn apart like so many victoms in a gruesome horror film, these guys never stood a chance.

  Gamespot knows this. Heck, it would seem that the people writing the descriptions of the underdogs don't even care about them. When you read the main attraction, and then read the mostly-unknown, you'll find that more effort was put into the description of the more famous hero. Honestly, that seems kind of silly, when you think about it. Show me their name, I'll know who they are. Most anyone who hasn't even played videogames might recognize their face.

  So there's no fair fight here. At all. Half way through I really wanted to go back and change my vote. I found that I respected the more complex characters over the cool ones I'd known for so many years.

  Aside from pitting monsters against children, these match-ups are absolutey pathetic beyond belief. They should have pitted the fighting game characters against one another, Sonic against Mario, etc. That would have made more sense, it would have made the match a little more difficult to decide on for the masses. I realize that, once the dust has cleared from this first round, it'll be a match between behemoths, but even then it won't be proper. The Splinter Cell guy should have still faced off against Solid Snake. The two female spys (forgive me, they're relatively unknown to me because I've only ever known mainstream) should have gone at it; Lara Croft should have faced off against Nathan Drake (I would have voted for Drake,it's hard for meto care for something that exists purely for her "assets") and so on and so forth.

  Gamespot, what is wrong with you? It's bad enough you competely lack on the personality front, but do you have to be completely brain dead when it comes to things so simple? We could have seen epic showdowns from the beginning, instead we're being forced to sit through an unnecessary first round where ALL of the battles (save one, maybe two) are going to have obvious outcomes.

  My my my, I don't think I've ranted this much since I made the mistake of witnessing the tragedy that was $200 Million gone to waste. Forgive any spelling/grammar related errors. I'm tired. I only made it half way through the voting thing, and then I looked at the rest of the match ups from a glance. Yeah, as much as I enjoy these things, I think I'm going to have to sit the rest of this out. Someone let me know when something more...logical...has been put together.

  • Posted Sep 2, 2009 9:37 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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