A 7/10 is basically a complete failure, so why didn’t reviewers take my feelings into account before publishing their scores?

  • Scary le Poo@beehaw.org
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    10 months ago

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    Hi, I’m a stupid person who gets mad at video game review scores! You might know me from my normal, not-a-red-flag internet comments over the years including hits like, “This game character doesn’t look hot enough”, “I didn’t give this franchise permission to change,” and my masterpiece, “Zelda? More like CEL-da!” We were so mad about Wind Waker that we said we’d never play the series again! And did any of us learn anything? Of course not. That’s why me and everyone like me are now yelling at real human beings who didn’t completely like a game we were excited about. They liked it! But ooooohhhh not enough! video of the day

    You see, when I’m excited about a game, that means the game is going to be good. That’s it! As the only sentient person on Earth, I’ve come to understand that my tastes and my tastes alone are the baseline for everyone. And because I’ve structured my personality around what I watch and play, anyone who disagrees with me is doing a 9/11 multiplied by Pearl Harbor.

    Related: How To Pretend You Actually Played All The Big Games This Year

    Everyone knows this. I have over three dozen social media accounts that spam every pop media news site with my feelings on how the industry should be run. Crackerjack observations like, “This company should use a new game engine.” Do I know what a game engine is or does? No! Why would I? I watched half of a YouTube video by a guy who’s never actually learned how games are made. He also has extremely confident opinions on Japanese culture despite never having been to Japan nor even met a Japanese person in real life.

    It’s just not okay that some things I want aren’t worshipped by everyone. These ‘journalists’ should plan on giving video games a high score months before they’re released. Also, I don’t know the difference between game journalists and game critics, which somehow only makes me angrier at all of them. If I’m excited about a game, I expect those journalists to consider what I think is fun. Because I am the arbiter of reality, my opinions are objective truth. Giving a game a score lower than what I expected is breaking the commandment to not bear false witness. Starfield-space

    Oh, and they’re also lying if they give a good score to a game on a console I don’t own. Very important! They should know I don’t have that specific mass-produced system, so how dare they fucking give any exclusive on that platform above a 7. To be absolutely clear, I’ll never play those exclusives, but I will have strong opinions as to why they’re not nearly as good as the games I will play. I’ll do this without any sense of irony because I’m a pure blockhead who may have been told I’m special too many times.

    It is literally impossible that a game reviewer might have minor issues with an otherwise enjoyable game. Games are only perfect or garbage. There is no middle ground in art. If they didn’t enjoy a single specific gameplay element, it’s because they are terrible people who didn’t care enough. There is no possibility that anything in a game I haven’t played yet is either wrong or undercooked. Unless - I want to reiterate - it’s a game made by those fucking losers paid to give up their honor by working on a product for a competing, but nearly identical system.

    Anyone who’s been to school knows that an 8/10 is essentially an F and a 9/10 is an insult to corporations that I would die for if they asked me to. If a review liked everything but the user interface, it will become my full-time job to put together a furious PowerPoint presentation that somehow still proves the original opinion absolutely right. Oh, and if they criticize the story, you know I’m writing a long thread that both brings up and compares it to movies douchebags like when they’re 19. Cydonia Entryway Starfield

    And we all know that video game reviewers are paid off to give games good or bad scores, right? I’ve never seen proof of this, but it sounds true to me. That’s why so many of them live with four roommates in a two-room apartment! If I had to guess how much a video game reviewer makes, I’d say - and maybe I’m underestimating - $750,000 a month? That’s probably correct. So my level of vitriol is absolutely commiserate with their sin of grading a game I wanted lower than I expected. Or higher.

    You might think I’d come to understand that I’m specifically the problem here. But people like me are either 13 years old or completely broken. That’s why I need to reply to every one of a reviewer’s social media posts with “STOP SHILLING!” Sure, some of us get hit by life and realize that our opinions aren’t established facts that are being ignored in bad faith by people online. But others like me get hit by life and turn into supervillains that feel personally attacked when a reboot of a video game series doesn’t put big boobs on a formerly pixelated character. Starfield Battling The Datura

    Anyway, thank you for listening to me. Remember: nobody with different opinions on how good a video game is should be allowed to live. Remember: my dumbass friends and I are the only ones who know what’s good. Remember: the other console is exclusively owned by sex pests and criminals. Okay? Reviewers need to stop writing their opinions and start writing mine. That’s the only way I’ll be able to trust them again.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to posting the personal phone number of a Twitch streamer because I found out that she has a boyfriend in real life.