Artless Gamer

About things that aren't in the manual!

Archive for the ‘GotW’ Category

GotW: Bad Game Critics

Posted by Artless Gamer On December - 9 - 2009

trollI haven’t really had any particular gripes of note, lately. With games like Assassins Creed 2 and Modern Warfare 2 occupying most of my Xbox gaming time in recent days, I found it a bit hard to sit down and complain about essentially meaningless things. This little gem of a user review, however, prompted me to post a response. The following quote contains a brief user review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the predecessor of the recently released Infinity Ward title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2:

The first Modern Warfare was fairly generic. I had always wondered why people went “OMFG EPIC LOLZ” about it. Sure, it was kinda innovative, and kinda unique, but when you get right down to it, you went from map to map, place to place, ducking behind cover long enough to heal, kill as many more enemies as you can before hitting near-death, ducking and healing, and basicly repeating the process.

This has to be the most generic, most unthoughtful and most dilettantish way to judge a game. Just about any game can be be broken down to its individual components and made look simpler or more boring than it actually is by judging it by its basic functions as a video game.

For instance:

Super Mario: Just run to the left or the right, jump on enemies and avoid the pitfalls until you reach the flag. Every few levels you fight a boss. Rinse, repeat.

Final Fantasy VII-X: You stand on one side of a screen taking turns hitting each other until someone falls over. Also cut scenes.

Burnout 3: Drive really really fast and crash into things.

Lost: They wander around an island for a long time.

You could continue this kind of game reviewing ad nauseam with any game imaginable. It is not a valid way to analyze a game and never has been. Even Pong doesn’t deserve to be viewed in that way despite it being one of the most simple incarnations of any video game. If I had to classify these kinds of reviews, I’d probably call it trolling. Or mom and pop didn’t get them the game for Christmas and now it obviously has to be a shitty game.

Popularity: 30% [?]

GotW: Limited Edition Unlocks

Posted by Artless Gamer On October - 31 - 2009
BF:BC 2

BF:BC 2

Our first Gripe of the Week isn’t really that much of a gripe. At least not for me. For a couple of days, now, people have had access to this new Battlefield Bad Company 2 trailer. And just like in the previous version, they gift early buyers of the limited edition with unlocks that normally have to be earned by playing the campaign or rising in ranks in multiplayer.

The issue I may have with this is why my fair chance in the game should be compromised by a couple of gamers that essentially bought themselves a better chance at dominating the battlefield. Everyone scoffs at the lame kids who buy WoW accounts in order to jump right into their overpowered level 85 character – they get called names, get harassed, reported to Blizzard and shamed on the forums.

“Level your own character, loser.”

How is that any different from people who get very useful unlocks from the get-go without having to earn it, just because they bought a limited edition of the game? The only way it is different from buying WoW accounts on eBay is that the developer encourages it. But that is just marketing. It doesn’t make it one bit more legitimate or acceptable.

These days consumers want to get paid to buy your product. So give them something extra for buying your game and they’ll gladly fork over the money. That’s how you acquire customers these days and the gaming industry isn’t the only industry that works this way. Nobody is to blame, here. Except the consumer, perhaps.

Personally, I don’t have that much of a problem with it. I get pwned no matter what kind of gear I have available and I will gladly earn all these unlocks regardless if some players had it before me just because they bought some special edition with the developer’s golden booger smeared on it. As a matter of fact I will try to get a limited edition of the game, because I am one of those people who never even got to level 60 in WoW and I probably would have bought an account off eBay weren’t I such a pansy and afraid of being banned.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Artless Gamer Goes Live

Posted by Artless Gamer On October - 27 - 2009

We’re live and soon you’ll find all the little useful things you won’t find on the manufacturer’s pages.

Popularity: 100% [?]

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About Us

Artless Gamer is actually a team of two inept gamers. We aren’t really good at any particular game but we have plenty of opinions to share with regular gamers just like us. During our humble beginnings on this blog we try our best to focus on news and tips that revolve around the little things in gaming that gamers often can not find in manuals. Too often does it happen that people face issues that aren’t quickly resolved by a look at the instruction manuals. We try to capture those issues and provide a solution for easy access.

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