Archive for Action Button
New Gaming Site Uses Cheap Shock Factor to Gain Hits
Kotaku + Comments + Action Button + Wired
04.10.2007 at 8:24 am
Both Kotaku and Wired have posted links to the new review site Action Button. The author claims to be creating the “Pitchforkmedia.com” of videogames but mostly comes off as being “controversial” for the sake of getting hits.
Check out the Kotaku comments for the word on the street.
“This site is no different from any other review site. It’s just some guy ramming his opinion down readers’ throats as though it’s fact and attaching a number at the end like that’s meant to mean something. The only difference is that the reviewer is more of an arrogant prick than the guys on IGN or Gamespot.”
“While I applaud their conviction to give over-hyped games bad scores, I just can’t read those reviews. They’re verbose, meandering rubbish that says virtually nothing about the game itself and instead just serves to let the self-important writer talk about himself for 10 paragraphs. I expected the self-indulgence would stop and the review would start after a few paragraphs but instead it just goes on and on and by the end you’re left with no insight into what the game is like. I think I’d sooner read an IGN review.”
“So basically this is him being a troll and bashing good games for hits? Lovely.”
“Tim Rogers is a twat. I’m not just saying that to be provocative; I can back it up with hard scientific evidence gleaned from his insufferably smug column in that awful rag GamesTM.”
“Q: How do you get attention and hits to your new site? A: Do something “provocative” like give a game everyone likes a score of zero. Looks like everyone is falling for it hook, line, and sinker!”
“I read a few of them and I wouldn’t say he’s being all that critical of games he actually likes, which seem to amount to sandbox games. I was eager to read his Twilight Princess review, because I thought there were fundamentals that where wrong in the game that everyone I’ve talked to have overlooked. However, his review is really just a complaint about Zelda gameplay in general, doing oddjobs for people (most of which are optimal) and advancing in a basically linear fashion. And to confuse matters, he has a line in there that states “You should have bought Wind Waker, at least it made some honest mistakes.” That’s all he says about Wind Waker, and frankly I don’t see how his problems with ZTP don’t translate directly to problems with ZWW. If I wrote a purposefully critical review of ZTP, it would sound nothing like his, and it would pull from the previous two games. So that said, I think his site is just about pushing peoples buttons, and not about being constructive.”
“Well, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. A o/4 for god of war2? That’s just silly. It seems that was the poor game to be the sacrificial lamb so that people would come to the site to see what these extreme cool guys were doing.”
“Wow. That site is ridiculous. I was fully ready and willing to offer up a chance for this site to present an opinion that I hadn’t considered, in a concise manner as to actually make sense.
What came after reading the Twilight Princess review was a sense of confusion and the interest of having the time I wasted returned to me. No, there isn’t so much as a bit of compelling point to it, it’s the same dogmatic diatribe that’s the major basis of today’s gamers; we need ‘bigger’, ‘better’, ‘prettier’, and lest I forget, ‘multiplayer’. Or else the game is terrible. I wish I could say I wasn’t surprised. Myself, I am almost finished with the Forest Temple; but the game has provided me more enjoyment for my money than many games I’ve played recently. And while this is certainly just my opinion, and I also wouldn’t say it’s perfect (nothing ever is) I am really going to have to echo the sentiments of earlier posters: speaking negatively for the point of getting people angry. Bottom line: Unless you’re as much of a sycophant as any of their reviewers, the site just isn’t worth the time.”
“I think the site is great cause it offers something different than the usual game reviews. I think the GoWII review was great.”
+ nosedive51
