“Live long, and prosper,” wished Mr. Spock, the Vulcan with a heart. Console fanboys and fangirls rarely act half as cordial.
I’m not an “Xbot” or a “PSthreetard.” I’m level-headed enough to break away from the gaming cattle who proclaim undivided allegiance to a particular console manufacturer, scoff at the offerings of all the others, and act surprised when life sinks a red-hot branding iron into their skins .(From what I’ve heard, the smell is pretty much identical to a weenie roast.) When someone asks me “Which console do you prefer?” I often smile and reply, “I just like games.” I’m not playing Ari Fleischer and dodging the question, I’m telling the honest to goodness gee whiz truth.
Scout’s honor.
But this blog post isn’t about me.
This is about you! You. Yes, you. You’re the one who has yet to play Killzone 2 on the PlayStation 3 (it doesn’t hit retail shelves until February 27) but still believes it isn’t receiving fair and unbiased critical reviews. You’re the one who infects and infests every industry-related message board like deer ticks riding anopheles mosquitoes, accusing journalists of betraying the public. You analyze every paragraph, every sentence, every word, hoping for some “proof” that will render their unfavorable analysis invalid. If it’s a video review with narration, you direct your all-hearing-ears to the tone of his or her voice, even saying a slight fluctuation indicates deep-seated bias. You even do this for reviews that give the title in question the highest possible score on an outdated numbering system.
Worst of all, you actually believe this (the comic strip below).
You’re all sad byproducts of multi-million dollar hype machines and you don’t even know it.
If I had a boo box (check out the video above if you don’t get the reference) I’d quarantine you and your fanboy fever inside. Instead, face national ridicule at the hands of Adam Sessler, the host of G4TV’s premiere videogame program, X-Play!
Yes, Hitler. Adam’s even referring to you.
Following Mr. Sessler’s lead, I can’t help but share a few more isolated instances of pathetic, dysfunctional creeps fanboys gone wild over Killzone 2. Please keep in mind the game isn’t available for purchase until Friday, February 27 and most, if not all, of these users have only played the title in beta or demo form.
Aggregate review site Metacritic.com, as of writing, lists the title as having an average review rating of 93 out of 100, with the lowest being an 80 from U.K. gaming site Totalvideogames.com. Naturally, the morons sharks responded to the blood in the water.
Here are just a few of the gems I unearthed after sfting through the 45 pages of comments.
“What, do you have stock in Microsoft?! Fail!!!”
“By far the worst review I’ve ever written from a title that deserves a full point more. I know why I never heard of this site now, and with more reviews like this your lack of fans will continue to slide.”
“sorry I think this site seriously needs to sack the r*t*rd that reviewed this game maybe there fans of gears or something though how this scored lower than gears is beyond me, just tell me how this is less original than gears 2, maybe he should stay off the drugs.”
“What a piss poor review, this game is head and shoulders above Gears of War 2….and yet it scores worse. Can anyone say TVG = 360fanboys.”
Continuing on, the NeoGAF gaming forum is often criticized for the knee-jerk unsubstantiated opinions of its users, but in the message board’s defense, it’s just like any other gathering of individuals. Applying a negative label to the entire group for the actions of a few, or even many, is probably unfair.
Still, at over 700 pages long, the Killzone 2 thread affords observers some very chewy nuggets.
In response to user “Kolgar’s” claim that he or she is going to “temper expectations” just in case it doesn’t live up to the hype, “Private Hoffman” replied “The map designs in KZ2 absolutely destroy the designs in other games. Quit playing the role of ‘antihype’ when you have no experience with the game whatsoever.”
“I’m having trouble keeping up with the snide remarks from reviewers as they pour in,” observed “Hellion.”
When one user posted an image comparing Halo 3′s artificial intelligence (the “smartest”) with Killzone 2′s (the “dumbest), for some reason the community insisted on making fun of “xbots.” “Lupinko” said “XBOTS UNITE AND FORM XBOTATOR,” and “KeioSquad2″ added he “*Pictures 5 Mr. Potato heads uniting*.”
Oh, like Voltron. How original.
Stepping away from message boards, let’s see what happens when one journalist gets his hands on a review copy and likes very little of what he plays.
Robert Ashley, freelance journalist and host of the superbly edited “A Life Well Wasted” videogame podcast, tweeted this message regarding Killzone 2 on February 4th: “Tom Chick nails it. I beat this game a month ago. Big time production blown on cynical bullshit.” Ashley then followed the message with a link to Chick’s pre-review analysis on Fidgit.com.
Here’ a brief excerpt from the piece:
But it just kills my interest level that the developers haven’t done anything interesting with this wonderful engine. Killzone 2 consist[s] of hemmed in shantytowns, sewers, streets, an industrial area, a bridge, a crane, and even a brief Matrix-inspired lobby. In other words, nothing I haven’t seen before. It’s atmospheric, with swirling wind, clouds overhead, and lots of smoke and dust, but it’s otherwise static, soulless, and entirely uninteresting, the setting for prosaic Call of Duty firefight after prosaic Call of Duty firefight.
Once again, intelligent discourse prevailed.
An anonymous user wrote “This is the shittiest review I’ve ever read. Maybe try a new vocation because it seems to me you don’t enjoy gaming. Did you even play the game? Way to knock your cred down a few notches, not that this site had any cred to begin with.”
“Attention whore,”observed Stag. “This is the only site/review that claims KZ2 is “a disappointment.” You fail.”
Maddens_Raiders (nice name) exclaimed “Congratulations! You win the award for the worst review of the year. Douchebag. What a frickin’ dumbass. EPICFAIL.”
Toron Mak Kau decided to take a more personal route. “Dude. Your name is Tom Chick,” he or she wrote. “That in itself is an epic fail. But then, I suppose, it does explain why you go through life with that much anger and cynicism.”
But out of all the sites and message boards I’ve visited, my favorite series of comments comes from a user by the name of Burden of Proof. I’ve preserved the original formatting for extra effectiveness.
At 4:13 AM on 2/6/09, this person wrote:
“killzone2 delivered the grafics from the 2005 e3 trailer (whic was so good they canclled the nex e3) and people still whine. go play your xbox 3shitty and let us enjoy next gen actual grafics m$ slaves.”
Three minutes later, he or she added:
“btw noobs
I played the hole game (japanese demo) and this “reviewer” DIDNT
logically, my opinion is worth more becuz I PLAYED THE WHOLE THING 10/10 game full price better than sex
m$ slaves”
Hey, Mr. or Mrs. Proof of Burden. The next time an uninformed national news agency portrays gamers as basement-dwelling middle-aged virgins, I’m knocking on your door and holding you responsible! Then again, why bother? You won’t hear my tap tap tapping while you sit, hunched over and undearneath a bare lightbulb, the only source of light in your parents’ dank dark basement, twitchy digits air-jamming to a pre-production mix of Nobuo Uematsu’s One Winged Angel on repeat.
Obviously frustrated with the madness demonstrated by his gamer kin, Poop_stick also commented on Chick’s article, “How do you write a review when your audience is seemingly comprised of nothing but hypersensitive man babies? Reviews shouldn’t exist solely for the purpose of reaffirming hype, or to validate the expectations of brand biased consumers.”
Despite the crude name, this Poop_Stick has a point. Reviewers should serve no one.Their only obligation is to tell the truth, however unpopular or of the minority it may seem. Tom Chick, I can sympathize.
Does anyone think these loads loons will reverse their opinions if the game doesn’t meet expectations? Will they even remember their opinions? Or will they already be projectile-vomiting bile on a new set of randomly chosen victims? What if these losers clowns people aren’t gamers at all, but professional trolls in the employ of the PR firm responsible for the ‘YOU LIBUREL SOSHALISTS AR HAEDED STRATE 2 HEL”-type messages that inevitably mar news and politics sites? For that matter, what if they’re the very sane people? After all, with the election over, pol-troll jobs are probably pretty thin, and even slimeballs paid to impersonate psycho creeps gotta eat, don’t you they? Anybody asks, I know exactly what to feed ‘em.
Now you realize that commentary about commentary about the opinions of people on a divisive topic such as an exclusive PS3 game is really rather pointless, this rings eternal and will not end, no one is going to be enlightened and see a new found respect for those who would think in a different manner than themselves. Everyone is prejudiced to something, whether thy may be will to admit their own shortcomings or not.
just ignore them.
them (fanboys)
…what he said.
worst thing ive ever read
The style of writing is very familiar to me. Have you written guest posts for other blogs?
It always amuses me the amount of hype that games get particularly when they’re exclusive to particular consoles. The fan boys go absolutely bonkers and rant on about everything and everyone, as highlighted by this article. If they could just realise everyone is entitled to an opinion…