Why have video game magazines become painful to read? It's because my peers write things like this (from this months Official Xbox Magazine):
From the Delta Force: Black Hawk Down Review:
"The Somalian rebels are so indistinguished and repetitious that gameplay can become reminiscent of bad SNES platformers like Double Dragon"
Sigh. The SNES had three DD games: Super, V, and Battletoads & Double Dragon. The only one even remotely close to a platformer is the Battletoads edition, and that's surely not a platforming title. If you want to look at ALL the DD games, a few ports, like the NES and Game Boy editions have SOME elements, but are still pure beat-em-ups.
Next, two quotes from their Metal Slug 4&5 review:
"The pixel-perfect Xbox reprise of these 2-D arcade shooter classics packaged as a two-games-in-one combo seems like an old-skool gamer's dream come true."
Is a game two years old a "classic" and "old-skool?" I think not, yet this writer must believe Metal Slug 5 is. I understand the gameplay is "old-skool," but referring to the game like this is wrong, not to mention using the aggravating term "old-skool." Onto number 2:
"From the original Metal Slug onward (around six have appeared in arcades)..."
Around six? Would a quick Google search have provided him the facts he needed to make an accurate statement? Is he right? Yes. That doesn't matter. There's also NO mention of the home Neo Geo hardware where each game has appeared.
I have no problem with the review scores, or why they gave them, or how they are written otherwise. I simply fail to comprehend how a "professional" can do this for a living, and have neither the knowledge needed or fail to do the necessary research as it pertains to the job.
Is it nitpicking? Of course. This type of information is so easily accessed now, there's really no excuse. It seems the writers responsible for these reviews failed to take their time. This is a tough business. The deadlines are brutal, but that's no excuse for doing something like this.
Maybe the Metal Slug aggravation wouldn't be there if the mistake with Double Dragon had been left out. We're talking about an industry classic, one with sequels on sequels, and ports on ports. How can you take anyone's opinion seriously when it's so obvious they've barely touched anything before the Playstation era?
Article comments
1 - Mode Seek
When in doubt, go kill some zombies.
2 - Jared
Just my observation... It seems that internet game sites are a cut above all gaming mags now. I don't know why. Maybe it's because the internet has become the primary media outlet for news and opinions about games. The magzines will probably always have their place, but it seems that your IGN and to a lesser extent your Gamespot have their facts in line and a bit longer an attention span.