[Any similarity between this post and one from earlier today on Kotaku is purely coincidental]

Why, hello there. It’s that time again, time to remind seasoned vets and newcomers alike how to comment right here on Negative Gamer. Things to keep in mind:

We banned a guy. Once. One time I did it. And that’s not all! We once argued back to somebody in a comment. (I bet they felt like such an ass!)

We also reward stellar commenters with virtual, meaningless praise (because smart people appreciate that), and commenters can reward each other with virtual blow-jobs and hooker nominations. Swell.

Why do we do this? Well… Have you visited other sites? I haven’t, and I’m so far up my own arse, I don’t really understand what’s going on. Not everyone who reads NG comments, and some of those individuals perhaps, just perhaps, would like to read intelligent, insightful remarks from smart people, not dribble from dummies you complete fucking morons. Who the fuck do you think you are coming on MY site with your retarded “opinions” anyway!? Everybody knows the only people on the internet are 12 year old social rejects.

I’m the only smart one here, and I am sat so high up on this big-ass thrown of journalism, you snivelling peasants cant even see me.

You may now act grateful.

Co-op is one of the best features currently being used in gaming. There is no better feeling than running around with a buddy and relying on each other to beat a level or a boss. This generation of consoles has seen the most co-op games since the SNES. Some of these games have come close to nailing what a co-op experience should be, while others serve as examples of why a game’s integrity shouldn’t be sacrificed just to be able to have co-op listed as a feature on the back of the box.

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Imagine if you will: For the past month you have been playing Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 with a female “internet friend” you met while playing. Her gamertag “Foxylady69.” You both have gotten to know each other and decide to meet up in real life. Your mental image of her ranks an 8 on the Nerdfit Scale of Hotness but then dread sits down on your shoulders as you realize, that’s no moon.

That ‘Foxylady’ is really a porkmonster.

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GameStop will now be offering year subscriptions to ridiculously boring magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, and O Magazine. But wait, there’s more! I know you’re already rushing away from your computer to get your fill of sex tips, how to starve yourself, and how to please your man. Please contain yourselves for the rest of the article.

Mike Hogan, VP of Marketing for GameStop, ran at the mouth:

“Today’s moms are looking for ways to incorporate exercise into their lifestyle. Active video games are a terrific way to reach your fitness goals, and as an added bonus, they can be enjoyed with your whole family. [...] We know that getting in shape is one of the toughest New Year’s resolutions to stick with, especially for busy moms who often don’t have time to spare for exercise.”

Although that doesn’t make sense, because if busy moms don’t have time for exercise, why would they have time for a video game that asks you to exercise? Kind of retarded, but hey, that’s GameStop marketing for you! Stock up on video games and magazines that you, the busy mom, won’t even have time to use! Because that’s good for the industry, and fantastic news for gamers such as myself who couldn’t give a shit less about learning Japanese, cooking, or losing weight.

Sorry, I meant, SIGN ME UP! I am a woman so I must be interested! HOLY SHIT, I need to do Oprah proud and cook my man a big meal!

Why not offer a subscription to, I don’t know, Game Informer? Right, because that would make sense. Oy. Oh wait, that’s because this a marketing campaign obviously aimed toward women! Because I know, as an owner of two ovaries (count ‘em, two!), that the first game I want to pick up is some shovelware to tell me how to live my life. It’s very disconcerting to watch the “hardcore demographic” die a little more each day. I really didn’t believe that the casuals needed any more cajoling to purchase shitty games. I guess I was wrong.

[Cameron read an article on Kotaku titled "New Year's Resolutions For The Game Industry" by Leigh Alexander. Among the many points argued, she calls for more recognition of the people who actually make the games - Ed]

Among the resolutions Ms. Alexander discussed, the ever so hopeful “Value Your Talent” section caught my eye. I’ll just say that Marketing will never entertain the thought. The very last thing they would want is for someone in press to talk to a designer who’s been knee-deep in 65 hour-a-week shifts knowing all the things, good and bad, with the game’s development. It’s far more convenient and safe (for their own job security) to throw out the PR-spiel prepared Producer to the media. A producer won’t be disgruntled. A producer will want to protect his “project” just as much as the PR bum in charge. A producer is more refreshed than the drained, disgruntled designer.

Not saying all, but many producers don’t have to (nor want to) sit around in the office as long as the design team, and they don’t. They clock in their 30 hours for the week and maybe keep up with the team from the comfort of their office chair…at casa del producer. That’s not to say they aren’t team players, some will actually stick it through and kudos to them. However, from my experiences, unless they have to take on the final boss that is the almighty deadline, forget about it. Even in deadline, there’s no lingering issue that a “Will Not Fix, Legacy” tag won’t cure.

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When we play our games we often have one or more supporting characters following us around giving us advice and aiding us in our quest/mission/attack. More often than not these characters are assigned personalities to make them feel more human. I thought that it would cheer us all up to think about some of the most depressing of these characters, the ones that bring us down and remind us of the misery of whatever post-apocalyptic war zone we happen to be romping through (depending on the game of choice of course).

Before I talk about some of my favourite (least favourite?) of these I think I should establish some rules. Firstly there should only be one character per franchise. Else I would just be listing City 17’s citizens. Secondly they should be of relative importance to the game be it gameplay or story-wise (”remember to reload, Mr Freeman” is not particularly important advice). Let’s begin.

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Britain’s most irrelevant major newspaper The Telegraph has delivered a particularly mindless piece of anti videogame propaganda. The report concerns a disturbing announcement by Conservative MP John Bercow that the language skills of children can be dangerously underdeveloped. I’m no fan of the Tories but Mr Bercow definitely makes some important points. He includes excessive gaming and television viewing alongside a laundry list of societal ills which contribute to poor communication skills in children.

It’s a valid point, talk to the average British teenager and they can barely string a sentence together. As someone who works in a career advice centre specifically for young people, I’ve witnessed first hand how inarticulate much of today’s youth are. Mr Bercow has sensibly blamed these issues on a lack of sophisticated communication in childhood with decreased interaction between parents and children the main culprit.

What really grates about both the original article and the MCV report is the emphasis on gaming as a primary cause. At no point in either the Telegraph or MCV report does Mr Bercow exclusively blame entertainment media. However The Telegraph still felt it was necessary to add the following to it’s article,

Toddlers could be screened for speech problems after evidence that many are so addicted to television and video games that they are failing to learn basic communication skills.

Bercow never used the word addiction to describe children’s interaction with TV and Videogames in either The Telegraph or Daily Mail reports on the subject. Poverty, little parental contact and under-exposure to language were the main culprits. This is exactly the kind of propaganda that contributes to the idea that games are mind rotting sludge. The Telegraph should feel ashamed for publishing such nonsense.

Games, TV or any other medium will not rob children of their ability to articulate themselves. Just to repeat what has become a mantra of the gaming press - blame the parents. I’ve met plenty of intelligent and articulate people who’ve gamed since early childhood. If your kid can’t string a sentence together, unless they have a genuine handicap, it’s your own damn fault.

I thought it might be quite nice for me to have a weekly-ish video blog. If it’s good enough for David Jaffe, it’s good enough for me. So, starting today, roughly once a week I’ll post a short video filled with me talking about crap you may not care about.

Hopefully one day I’ll say something that can be taken out of context and makes me look like a dick. It’ll get watched by a billion people and I’ll be able to retire. Until then, it’s just my thoughts on the week’s news, ideas I’ve had, games I’ve played and some site-related goodness. I like the idea of documenting  the growth of a community/blog like this, and I think other people may like it too.

Anyway, I think that’s enough preamble. If you have any ideas or thoughts on changing anything, do let me know.

As I said a few weeks ago, this Review Symposium will either be very important for videogame journalism, or a bit of a “self-obsessed literature fart”. So far, and we have only seen one topic discussed, it’s been around 50/50.

The first topic discussed was that of giving a numerical score to a review. I recapped all the interesting points I got from it in part 1 and part 2 earlier this week. In this final part of my report (I really need to think of better ways to break this down, “Part 3 of my Report on Part 1 of the Symposium” just doesn’t fit right) I’ll go into a little more depth on my reactions to what was said.

Reviews have scores, critiques do not.

The first thing I picked up on whilst reading the debate was that several writers don’t seem to understand who they are actually writing for or who their target audience is. Most reviews are not aimed at the wine drinking, game-theory learning, late-20-somethings who actually understand Braid. Reviews are aimed at the people who want to know about a game and the people most likely to buy it. For the most part, these people don’t care about what a game is about, just if it’s any good. They want to know if they will enjoy it.

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As if humanity needed another reason to hate MMORPGs, or more specifically the players. The MiddleTown Journal reported that on Monday, Dec. 29th, police arrested a 17-year-old boy for pretending to be suicidal. Officials stated that the boy was having an online conversation with a Blizzard Entertainment representative. When the boy wasn’t getting his way, he typed…

“[...]he was suicidal and that the game is the only thing he has to live for.”

The representative then called 911. Police and paramedics responded to the call where they discovered the child was only pulling a prank; the suicidal threat being his trump card to get what he wanted from the game. He was then arrested, handcuffed, and placed into a squad car. He is being charged with a first-degree misdemeanor and was soon released back to his father.

The boy is scheduled to be in court Tuesday, Jan. 6.  We can only hope the judge and jury are all World of Warcraft players so this whelp can get proper punishment like a few years doing nothing but Pick Up-Groups(PUGs).

Us Western rhythm gamers are relegated to hasty ports of Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution, and guitar games with shitty FIRST FEMALE IN GUITAR HERO!! singers, but Japan’s got it made in the shade. While it’s expensive to import gems that I want to get my hands on, I can at least turn to YouTube to get my fix of Japanese rhythm game goodness. That, or asking some of the readers for a generous donation to visit Japan. Since that’s not going to happen, all I’ve got is the Internet and a bunch of videos. And the occasional homebrew.

One of the latest to make a splash is entitled Jubeat (pronounced “you-beat”), and it’s essentially a cube with 16 mini squares (making it a 4×4) comprising a main screen. You choose a song, and tap the squares in time to the music. Reminiscent of Elite Beat Agents/Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, with a dash of Pop’n Music, this is an arcade smash that I’d kill to see in the States someday. However, because America is full of a bunch of grubby little teenagers who think that “Through the Fire and Flames” is the most difficult song on any rhythm game ever created (or that it’s even a good song), it’s unlikely we’ll see any arcade machines anytime soon. No, we’ll probably get a few more shitty Pump It Up Exceeds…if that.

Check out this video of the song “A Perfect Sky” from Bonnie Pink (J-Pop artist), as Jubeat’s demo song. No one’s actually playing it, but where the screens flash, that’s where your hands would be. Do want. Yes? Yes.

Pete Metzger from the Los Angeles Times has compiled a list of qualities from other games that, when combined into one, will make the perfect game.

• Portability of God of War: Chains of Olympus
• Control setup of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Sluggers
• Chess-like qualities of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2
• Puzzles of Professor Layton and the Curious Village
• Simplicity of Boom Blox
• Stunning cut-screens from Devil May Cry 4
• Fun of Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman
• White-knuckle racing excitement of GRID and Burnout Paradise
• Re-playability of Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution
• Chills and thrills of Dead Space
• Overall wonder of Fallout 3
• Cuteness and creativity of Little Big Planet
• Complete Package of Resistance 2
• Button-mashing action of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
• Originality of Air Traffic Chaos
• Intense war games of Call of Duty: World at War
• Originality of Mirror’s Edge
• Bar-raising open worlds of Grand Theft Auto IV

Already I see flaws with this list. It lacks the idea of KISS. You know, that silly acronym for “Keep It Simple, Stupid”. They quote Dr. Frankenstein’s famous words, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” but really all I hear in my head is, “This game sucks.”

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Hype, whether through word of mouth or mass marketing campaign, has been endemic to gaming since its inception. However it wasn’t until the last generation of consoles that the mass adoption of broadband allowed constant updates on a game’s development. We now live in a world of endless screenshots, videos and early impressions. A game no longer receives just a preview and a review as was once the case in print media. Instead, we are privy to the tiniest bowel movements of the lowliest member of the most obscure games from day one. It is this endless hype that I’ll be discussing today.

First off, let’s not unequivocally condemn hyping any game. If it wasn’t for word-of-mouth hype on certain podcasts I routinely listen to I’d never have played Castle Crashers or Left 4 Dead. The difference between the hype around these games and AAA blockbusters usually centers around concept vs gameplay. What do Castle Crashers and L4D have in common? The answer is that whilst lacking particularly inspiring concepts they offer refined and exciting gameplay. A 2-D brawler and a co-op FPS aren’t the freshest ideas out there, but where both titles excelled was in their execution. In this situation hype is a welcome necessity to boost sales and awareness. Few games these days deliver genuinely exciting gameplay devoid of a grandiose conept and when one comes along it needs all the help it can get.

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In a futile attempt to make the NG staff appear a bit more personable and less cynical and jaded, here’s an obligatory New Year’s post that 9439573947539475 other blogs are doing.

Here’s hoping that 2009 is a year in gaming that we can be proud of, which is apparently more than we can say for 2008. No, seriously, folks. Get out there and enjoy the last few hours of the year. Don’t sit at your laptop making blog posts.

Happy New Year, from all of us at Negative Gamer.

This is Part 2 of my 3 part article on Shawn Elliot’s Review Symposium. In Part 1, I covered the off-topic ideas that were discussed in the first part of the symposium. In this part I will go over the main points raised regarding the actual scoring that more often that not accompanies reviews.

I won’t go into as much discussion behind my thoughts on the matter as that will be the focus of Part 3. Again, if you do find yourself interested in the ideas and topics, give the full symposium discussion a read. All of the quotes I have used have been taken from that debate.

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