Long Suffering LolKotaku
Gamer Gate got its start in the 1990s.
When gaming mags were first taking off they had a major problem. A typical review usually read something like, “This is a good game. I like it very much.” There would follow two or three pages of technical prattle and that would be it. The average gamer was left in a daze still uncertain if they wanted to shell-out sixty bucks for the game.
Editors decided that they could either teach gamers how to write or teach writers to play games. They made the wrong call.
Writers could learn to play games no problem, but it would never be their passion. Writers care about characters, plotting, and story structure. They find game mechanics dull and tedious. They liked good graphics though, they were super keen on those.
Oh and left-wing politics, so you had better have those too.
Consequently, they started reliably giving good reviews to games with a good storyline that leaned Left and looked pretty. Game producers noticed and adjusted accordingly. Prime example? The first Bioshock. It was so buggy that it was all but unplayable on a PC but was universally hailed as the game of the year in 2007. Today, there are more people playing F.E.A.R. launched in 2005 than are still playing the first Bioshock.
The thing is, gaming journalism’s “practices” are now set in stone. And no one but Neil Cuckman takes them seriously.
So, you can imagine how much value gamers put into gaming journalism reviews of gaming consoles.
Disclaimer before I get started: In fairness I should state my own opinion regarding the new Play Station and X-Box.
They are budget PCs.
That’s it.
That is all you need to know about any console. It’s just a computer with cheap PC components. Sorry, if you think they bring more to the party than that.
There really is nothing special about them. Only a few companies build PC components. And fewer companies build CPUs. So that is where Sony and Microsoft have to go when they build a new console. Neither company produces that kind of hardware in-house. There are a lot of companies that build motherboards and, granted, the one that Sony puts into the Play Stations are good but that doesn’t change the fact that it is just a budget PC. True all of the constituent elements are vertically integrated, and the games run on an OS that optimizes the system as a whole.
Which only means it can really polish those turds.
Side-rant concluded.
As I was saying, gaming journalism reviews of consoles are not valued within the gaming community at large. It was hard to go any lower than zero but Kotaku decided to dial it down to minus eleven. No link of course because fuck lolkotaku.
“This review has spent 3,000 words talking about the PlayStation 5, which is the most I’ve written about anything. It’s as good a video game console as there has ever been. The combination of ultra high-definition video, increased framerates, high-end graphics techniques like ray tracing, and the lightning-fast SSD make it feel like a real-deal, next-gen successor to the PlayStation 4. And if you’re not ready to give up on the previous console, the PlayStation 5 reliably runs a vast majority of the PlayStation 4 library, with many of those games receiving upgrades to fidelity, framerate, and loading times.
But I’d be remiss to ignore all the reasons not to be excited for the PlayStation 5.
The world is still reeling under the weight of the covid-19 pandemic. There are more Americans out of work right now than at any point in the country’s history, with no relief in sight. Our health care system is an inherently evil institution that forces people to ration life-saving medications like insulin and choose suicide over suffering with untreated mental illness.
As I’m writing this, it looks very likely that Joe Biden will be our next president. But it’s clear that the worst people aren’t going away just because a new old white man is sitting behind the Resolute desk—well, at least not this old white man. Our government is fundamentally broken in a way that necessitates radical change rather than incremental electorialism.
The harsh truth is that, for the reasons listed above and more, a lot of people simply won’t be able to buy a PlayStation 5, regardless of supply. Or if they can, concerns over increasing austerity in the United States and the growing threat of widespread political violence supersede any enthusiasm about the console’s SSD or how ray tracing makes reflections more realistic. That’s not to say you can’t be excited for those things—I certainly am, on some level—but there’s an irrefutable level of privilege attached to the ability to simply tune out the world as it burns around you.”
OH! THE HUMANITY!!! HOW CAN ANYONE EVEN THINk ABOUT PLAYING GAMES IN WORLD WHERE TRUMP SUPPORTERS HAVEN’T BEEN SENT TO THE CAMPS!!!
The pants wetting and had wringing are hilarious. Bring me my hair-shirt! For I must now review a gaming console in a world where there is Covid and Republicans!!!
Funny as that was, Kotaku went on to beat it with their review of the new X-Box Series X. The reviewer was, I shit you not, frightened of it because it had “too many holes.”
HA! HA! HA! (gasp…wheez…gasp) HA! HA! HA!
So as terrifying as Covid and the GOP are, they don’t hold a candle to, “too many holes.”
To think, I used to believe Kotaku had no value. But I haven’t laughed this much for a week.
