This is one for the record books...

This one goes out to you, Pete. Read it to the end and you'll know why. 


You might have figured out that I'm not, on the whole, a big fan of professional gaming journalism. Wait, that came out wrong.


I'm not a big fan of the way gaming reviews work. Someone's objective opinion being passed down as fact, more often than not side-stepping the fact videogames are a form of art and therefore subjective. I can understand disliking a game that has nothing to offer to you, much as most people would prefer, say, the Guernica over a slightly pornographic doodle on the margins of a high-schooler's textbook. More often than not, reviewers lose sight of the subjectivity of human experience, and buy into their own hype, believing their words to be gospel. They rate games as if they actually view them as in totalitarian terms of good or bad, leaving little room for personal taste that isn't their own. 


Which, of course, is convenient for some gamers who only check out games after they check their scores on their publication/website of choice. I know of people that actually buy games as such regardless of genre, their past gaming experiences or the fact the reviewer might, in fact, have his head up his arse. It's one of the main reasons I never give videogames scores when I rate them, and simply give out my own personal opinion, knowing full well it won't sit well with everyone or might not reflect the game accurately for everyone. In the same way I'll actually find something worthwhile in a game generally regarded as shit by people who are being paid to sound smart and act as Moses coming down from the mountain with review scores etched in stone, I will dislike (and be vocal about it) games that are critically acclaimed. And I'm fine with it. My conscience is ok with it, because I know I'm speaking my mind as I see it, without being bought off by a big fat salary, endorsement, exclusive tidbits of information or freebies, because, unfortunately, there's people who work like that. A bit of a hubris in saying this, but I see myself a tiny bit like a watered-down Spider Jerusalem of gaming journalism.


I'm not sure where I'm going with this at this point. I guess I just got carried away from my starting thought, which was this: no one does holier-than-thou gospel reviewing better than Edge magazine. And, to my eternal puzzlement, I actually caught myself agreeing with something on it. A few days ago, Edge Online posted this article. In which, they recap ten of their most "controversial" reviews. The general vibe of the article is that inescepably, retrospect makes fools of us all This is Edge eating some of their words (the bits where their gospel was rejected by the gamers themselves), and validating the bits where the gamers agreed in a sort of smug "hate to say I told you so" way. In any case, what I caught myself agreeing with was the Fallout 3 section, particularly this bit:


What we got right: Imagine a Fallout 3 where individual NPCs didn’t move and behave like clapped-out animatronics, or a Fallout 3 that ran without quest-stymieing bugs and offered freedom from glitchy, unaccountable behaviour from the environment and enemies. Fallout 3 can be simultaneously engrossing and infuriating – the cost of its unrivalled ambition being a rather rough-hewn feel. Bethesda’s game offers much for those prepared to look past its clunkier aspects, but would be even more involving if you didn’t have to in the first place.


So there you go. Edge actually managed to put into concise terms what I've been trying to say for ages. Then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Unless it's a digital one.