Tweet
What does it take to review a game?
A broad written vocabulary by which to best impart your thoughts to the reader?
A passion for the medium that instils a sense of integrity?
A deep understanding of the development process and the nuances that entails?
How about simply knowing what an option menu is?
If ever there were an (im)perfect example of the current state of mainstream Games Journalism, IGN’s review - and subsequent retraction - of Borderlands 2 VR stands out as the most horrifyingly hilarious. Hilarious because its IGN, horrifying because ITS IGN!
When reading reviews, which is admittedly rare these days, I often – if not always – scroll straight to the bottom to have a gander at the overview/score. Yeah, I’m lazy and what? I’m am though an enthusiastic PSVR fanboy, so when a AAA game like Borderlands was announced for the platform, I was naturally excited, as was the rest of this fledgling community.
As soon as the game dropped, the PSVR Youtubers started publishing their reviews. All of them, while critical of some the technical failings of the game, were pretty positive. So how then could IGN’s Calum Marsh only give the game a 3/10? This is especially ironic given all the sponsorship Gearbox had been providing IGN in the build up to release. Against my better judgement, I decided to sully myself by actually reading the review and like a wannabe actress at an interview with Harvey Weinstein, it was around the halfway mark I realised I was getting screwed.
In an effort to combat motion sickness a good VR game will provide the player with a plethora of control options ranging from click turning to free look, from teleportation to full locomotion etc. Most VR games that employ a broad range of options will default them for an individual who would get sea sick watching Titanic (tbf I get sick every time that old bint throws the jewel in the ocean, selfish cow), this means you’ll often start a game with a field of view smaller than my social circle and a movement speed slower than BFV’s stock.
Not only was this fact completely overlooked by the reviewer-for-the-planets-largest-games-journalist-platform, it’s was actively used to score against the game.
“There is no way to sprint, strafe, jump, or spin, and besides short, jagged pivots left or right — telescoped with an intrusive iris effect, again designed to prevent nausea — movement is restricted to a plodding, tedious crawl.”
As specified above, all of these things can be changed by that wondrously ingenious innovation known as the ‘option’ menu.
To be somewhat fair to IGN, they did retract the article, though it took considerable pressure from the PSVR community, which in itself only goes to prove one of two things. Either IGN care so little about the growing VR scene that they are happy to allow their reviewers to publish inaccurate/counter-factual information. Or they’re simply so corporatized and disconnected that they do not feel the need to employ reviewers that actually play VR games as a hobby.
Perhaps, in the end though, those two points are the same problem.
Cheers.
LTTG
Link to retracted article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181215...ds-2-vr-review
A broad written vocabulary by which to best impart your thoughts to the reader?
A passion for the medium that instils a sense of integrity?
A deep understanding of the development process and the nuances that entails?
How about simply knowing what an option menu is?
If ever there were an (im)perfect example of the current state of mainstream Games Journalism, IGN’s review - and subsequent retraction - of Borderlands 2 VR stands out as the most horrifyingly hilarious. Hilarious because its IGN, horrifying because ITS IGN!
When reading reviews, which is admittedly rare these days, I often – if not always – scroll straight to the bottom to have a gander at the overview/score. Yeah, I’m lazy and what? I’m am though an enthusiastic PSVR fanboy, so when a AAA game like Borderlands was announced for the platform, I was naturally excited, as was the rest of this fledgling community.
As soon as the game dropped, the PSVR Youtubers started publishing their reviews. All of them, while critical of some the technical failings of the game, were pretty positive. So how then could IGN’s Calum Marsh only give the game a 3/10? This is especially ironic given all the sponsorship Gearbox had been providing IGN in the build up to release. Against my better judgement, I decided to sully myself by actually reading the review and like a wannabe actress at an interview with Harvey Weinstein, it was around the halfway mark I realised I was getting screwed.
In an effort to combat motion sickness a good VR game will provide the player with a plethora of control options ranging from click turning to free look, from teleportation to full locomotion etc. Most VR games that employ a broad range of options will default them for an individual who would get sea sick watching Titanic (tbf I get sick every time that old bint throws the jewel in the ocean, selfish cow), this means you’ll often start a game with a field of view smaller than my social circle and a movement speed slower than BFV’s stock.
Not only was this fact completely overlooked by the reviewer-for-the-planets-largest-games-journalist-platform, it’s was actively used to score against the game.
“There is no way to sprint, strafe, jump, or spin, and besides short, jagged pivots left or right — telescoped with an intrusive iris effect, again designed to prevent nausea — movement is restricted to a plodding, tedious crawl.”
As specified above, all of these things can be changed by that wondrously ingenious innovation known as the ‘option’ menu.
To be somewhat fair to IGN, they did retract the article, though it took considerable pressure from the PSVR community, which in itself only goes to prove one of two things. Either IGN care so little about the growing VR scene that they are happy to allow their reviewers to publish inaccurate/counter-factual information. Or they’re simply so corporatized and disconnected that they do not feel the need to employ reviewers that actually play VR games as a hobby.
Perhaps, in the end though, those two points are the same problem.
Cheers.
LTTG
Link to retracted article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181215...ds-2-vr-review
Comment