In my never ending mission to find things to complain about, I frequently stumble upon poorly phrased passages in competitors articles (by competitors I mean real web sites). Here are two stupid things I found recently:
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Joystiq calls Alien Soldier “filler.”
Or maybe it’s a highly respected game from a hugely talented developer that never made it to American shores.
In the wake of the release of Super Mario 3, many have overlooked Treasure’s cult classic Alien Soldier. This has happened before – Super Metroid overshadowed Shinobi 3, despite both being awesome. The strength of the Virtual Console lies in its ability to offer us access to excellent games we missed, or hard to find classics. While it’s true that the first thing I did when I got home yesterday was download Mario 3, it and games like it that have been released 17 separate times aren’t what makes the VC so sweet. We both already own Mario 3.
If you’d like more chances to play games you missed, support VC titles that did not initially come out in the States. Or at least don’t call them filler unless they are actually shitty.
1Up calls a DS detective game a non-game.
Or maybe it’s called an adventure game.
In the media’s mighty quest to appear hardcore, many things have been labeled non-games, including Brain Training, Karaoke Revolution and lacrosse. The absurdity in this specific instance is that an adventure game is being called a non-game – a genre chock full of classics. Secret of Monkey Island? Planetfall? Sam and Max? Zork?
Sure these Japanese detective games may be shitty, but they are either far from non-games or we need to retroactively strip an entire genre of titles of its “game” status.
Reading the article on Joystiq (the official VC Monday one) makes the blog look extremely retarded and simple-minded. They blame the game for not being Mario 3, but say it’s a Treasure game for the Genesis that has never been released in America.
That’s a fucking gold mine, if you ask me.
Why the hello would they knock it? Fucking children.
But, I’ve always thought of adventure games like Phoenix Wright a game that non-gamers would love. Minimal interactivity, heavy on the story and reading. They’re basically books on video game systems. Non-gamers would have very little to become confused about. But 1UP shouldn’t relegate them to “Non-game” status like that. It makes them look derivative or something.
My girlfriend tried playing PW, but just didn’t like the source material. But she played it for the first 2 cases, which is a win for me.
Joystiq is puzzling. I’ve always considered it trash, and lately I’ve realized that the between it and Kotaku (both often post near identical stories), kotaku generally has more content by the end of the day, and sometimes it isn’t always filler.
This however is merely another example of the great hyperbole that Joystiq seems to be fond of, especially of late. Alien Solder is such a good game that fans consider it a bigger release than SMB3. While that might be a close call, I’ve been playing the game on Gametap every so often and it really is a Treasure classic. The fact that Joystiq seems to be so uninformed about it makes me doubt any of their clout as a leading gaming news site.
Another example of this hyperbole can be found in their – wait for it – Rock Band impressions. They claim that the enw Fender Strat controller is so good, it makes the new GH Les Paul look “childish”. Thankfully I know someone who has played Rock Band (aside from VL staff), and he says that it really, really is a nice controller in terms of looks, but didn’t put the praise that high. Other sources on the net say that its a solid controller, but the five new fret buttons are a little too close together. Joystiq commenters are saying its a flimsy piece of crap, perhaps to spite them.
The moral is, the Strat seems to be another well built peripheral that has a couple of flaws (just like every guitar controller I’ve seen). To put the well built Les Paul in the realm of childish (without even describing why) seems irresponsible and extreme of Joystiq to do.
Joystiq is by far the worst thing that has ever happened in human history.
stop plagiarizing from them Jay