Games Journalism

What the hell was ‘Boomboxdan’ thinking when he wrote his Project Gotham review?

“When i have been playing on it I have been thinking,why is this game so good” You can actually imagine how Boomboxdan would look by this sentence… I’m guessing he is a skinny boy racer with neon lights on his Nova.

But hey, I guess it keeps him off the streets. You have to be pretty passionate about a game to have taken the time out of your boom boxing schedule to sit and write a review. He thinks the game is ace, good for him. I have found most racing games pretty dull and repetitive… Review writing is subjective.

I have never understood the idea behind ranking in any form of creative reviews. How can you rate a book? Or a piece of music? ‘Boomboxdan’ gives glowing praise to Project Gotham Racing 3 - “Everything is so perfect with it there is not one bad comment I can say about it” but then gave the game a modest 8/10… Not so perfect after all.

So do 10/10 games exist? Not really, no game is 100% perfect in every area, which is what that rank suggests. I take rankings and reviews with a pinch of salt, listen to my friends opinions and make my own mind up on what I will spend my pocket money on. I guess this is why I think NGJ is a good idea. When attention is focused on the journalists experience of playing the game, reviews become more relaxed and easier to read.

Some reviews are just plain funny:

Reading games journalism normally just makes me aggravated. The games I am most fond of tend to be ones you get emotionally attached to (Shadow of the colossus, Ico, FFVII) and my soul aches a little when journalists tell me how lame I am for loving such girly drivel. These reviews tend to be written by men who think their manhood will be taken away if they show an ounce of emotion in public. They sit in dark rooms manoeuvring around various recreations of WWII blowing the heads off anything that moves.

This description applies to anyone who tells you they felt no remorse after killing the first colossus, or when Sephiroth sliced Aeris in half.