New Games Journalism

New games journalism is personal, sometimes brutal and subjective but it’s honest which is rare to find, it’s about how the game makes them feel instead of just statistics.

Project Gotham City Racing 3 article is unrealistically complementary. Throughout the review he is saying how wonderful the game is and then when on to give it a8/10 which if he likes the game as much as he makes out that he does why not give it a 9 or 10/10. Well I when on to read the comments on the article and one stood out particularly ‘as good as it is, its loading times are obviously a problem. Especially having to load to restart.’ This wasn’t mentioned in the review but that’s not what bothered me ‘boomboxdan’ replied saying this was an issue but that he would now give it 9/10 which seems insane why after recognizing a fault would you want to grade it up.

So I figured I should look into Eurogamers scoring system (the score is the opinion of the writer on the overall company) a 10 is supposedly reserved for a game which they believe is the best to date in that genre. They on average give a way three 10’s a year which does seem quite a lot if they are following the ‘best in genre’ policy. 10’s are classed as a must buy as with a 9. A 1 is classed as something you should avoid and is about as much fun as anthrax. The scoring system seems unnecessary but if is going to be done it should have a strict scheme so that a high quality isn’t rated the same as a mediocre game.

I agree with kieron Gillan on ‘the worth of a game lies in the gamer not the game’ everyone is different and as a result different turn on and offs. If in the morning your partner looks like a zombie then a zombie game will probably seem less scary and just funny. This is something that statistics can’t gauge or predict so in a way they then become redundant.

I think there should be a middle ground between both types of journalism something which shows personal views whilst doesn't sound like their talking to a neighbor. But on the whole I prefer new games journalism; it’s at least entertaining!