Score 7

Single Player is Over (apparently)

gordonpbaty — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:43:09 +0000

Just the other day someone I know declared that they never gamed by themselves anymore and found single player gaming to be an underwhelming, pointless experience. They, like many people I suspect, bought Modern Warfare 2 with no intention of ever playing the single player campaign. Wow – for me, checking out the single player was my priority, in order to see what new dramatic situations they had created (mainly because of the epic cold war machine in Modern Warfare 1).

There was a time when I was hooked on Halo multiplayer – it was just so easy to drop into one capture the flag game after another – for a couple of hours straight. I also have done my time (literally) on an MMO. Fun times, but it’s a phase that I’m over with – probably after becoming jaded with the interactions I’ve had with strangers online. Maybe I’ll come back to online gaming, who knows. Right now for me social gaming is about playing with people you know, preferably in the same room. But that’s just for me.

I find it fascinating that people can have such wildly different views of games, and I can even play the same game and never touch the modes that keep another person engaged for weeks. It used to be that if you were into games you were into games. Now it’s a question of what kind of gamer you are and what types of games you like.

Journalists are tired of game media too

gordonpbaty — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:12:20 +0000

Check out this blog from a former game journo who got tired of the way game coverage is these days.

I would rather read about the interesting stuff that falls down the cracks. The things that are interesting for their own sake; the things that might not generate short-term hits but that sustain long-term interest. The things that make games worth reading about. And the things that, apparently, most games websites aren’t interested in writing about any more. I love games, but I guess I don’t love writing about them any more.

If game journalism is only about featuring the games that guarantee lots of website hits, plenty of good ‘long tail’ stuff will consistently be left out. Do we have to use Amazon.com reviews to find out about games that we might want to play but weren’t supported by blockbuster marketing?

I totally share this journalist’s disillusionment but I don’t see why there can’t be better resources for finding and talking about great games that fell through the cracks.

Goodbye Games

first post

gordonpbaty — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:38:13 +0000

This blog is dedicated to a particular mission of mine: I’m tired of the way games are reviewed in the press and popular game websites. It seems like games that get a score of 8 and up get all the glory, but plenty of times there’s good games that don’t get those numbers and have a good experience to offer – just not in the eyes of the game reviewer elite.
This blog is going to be dedicated to all the games that scored 7 or less that I discovered by chance and had a great time with. How can I find those lost games and how can video game reviews get better at serving people who don’t always feel the same way as the critics.

what’s score 7?

gordonpbaty — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:33:53 +0000

Let’s start with this excerpt from Gamespot‘s playbook:

The average rating on GameSpot lies between a high 6 and a low 7, which is fully in line with what we believe is the fairly good quality of the average game on store shelves. Because we do not strictly grade on a curve, we have not set 5.0 as our average rating. We believe the high end of our rating scale (the 8 and 9 range) works suitably well to distinguish truly outstanding games from all the others. However, most games really aren’t bad.