So I reviewed AI War by Arcen Games. It's probably one of my worst reviews, but I hope a fairly breezy piece of writing. One day I'll manage to be good at reviewing and sentence-crafting at the same time, and there'll be much rejoicing.
The fun and games in the comments (where Christopher Park, CEO and lead programmer of Arcen turns up to respond) makes me think that maybe I should try to formalise my thoughts on "how much do you need to play a game before you're qualified to review it". Trouble is, I'm not sure I've yet worked out my answer.
My original text for this asked no forgiveness for being crude, and used "wank" instead of "you-know-what", but I guess if you start a review with a masturbation simile then you can't be surprised if your editor feels the need to fiddle.
It's very hard to talk about something you think is brilliant without just saying, "it's brilliant!" over and over again, so it's lucky Lewie lets me do more-or-less whatever I like when I write for him on Savygamer. I realise now that in this review of Super Mario Galaxy 2 that got published today, I spend more than half my time talking about the history of the series instead of the game itself, which is probably not the most balanced way of approaching things. Ho hum.
My meandering review of Persona 3 has now been posted over at Savy Gamer. At 1,600 words it's a slight test of endurance, but on the whole I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
Rightly or wrongly (and the answer is almost certainly, "wrongly"), I've always found it easier to write about games that aren't so well known. This is partly because if you're going to bother inflicting your words on the world it's important to try to say something original, and that's a lot harder if millions of people have already discussed the thing that you're writing about. But there's also the less noble reason that if your reader has existing knowledge of the thing you're talking about, you're more likely to get called out for factual errors.
So I'm fairly pleased to have had two things published this week about a couple of "big hitters", and I hope that in both of them I've managed to write combinations of words that aren't totally obvious or boring. On Resolution I've got a piece about Arkham Asylum where I talk about the game in relation to the graphic novel. Re-reading it now I think it's maybe a little slow to get going, and the point I'm making is maybe a little too obscure, but I feel mostly satisfied with how things worked out on the second page.
I think my review of Mass Effect 2 (that's gone up on good ol' reliable Savy Gamer) is a bit more successful. To me it feels like there's a consistency in tone that my writing often lacks. I might almost call it the best review I've ever written.
But jeez, look at the boring writer write about boring writing. You should probably have hit those links already. (Or just the 'close tab' button in your browser.)
My review of Tales of Monkey Island has now been posted on Savygamer, and you'll see I had less fun with the game than most other reviewers. Im hoping that's because I'm the only reviewer whose judgement wasn't impaired by nostalgia, rather than the seemingly more likely explanation that I've been too harsh. Hmm. Have a read and decide for yourself.
I mentioned it here shortly after I first played it, but now you can find my full review over on Savygamer. I aimed for a slightly more personable style this time, which I think has sort-of worked, although reading it back now I feel like I should have done better with that clunky fourth paragraph.
Never betray your reader. That's the first rule of criticism. Don't let your friendships, fancies or politicking get in the way of truth-telling, because integrity is mighty hard to earn and all too easy to squander.
These thoughts weighed heavily on my mind as I headed to Tom Farrer & the Pharaoh's EP Launch Party last night. I'm friendly, though hardly friends, with everyone in the band, and although determined to come away able to write some sensible words about the evening, I knew my objectivity was always going to be in doubt.
So screw objectivity: it's a naïve and futile thing to aim for anyway. Those professional reviewers of “important” gigs at big venues don't begin their articles with a disclaimer that explains that they got in free, had all their drinks bought for them by a sexy girl working in PR, and that they were lucky enough to be invited back-stage to a showbiz, coke-fuelled after-party at the end of it all. Perhaps they should but they clearly don't. I guess their readers are supposed to figure these things out for themselves.
"I’ve become a willing participant in the rape and murder of seven young women. I say “young women”, but five of them you’d definitely call girls. What worries me is that I’m not sure I even regret it."
Get me. I've written what could almost be described as a "proper" review of Secret of Mana for Savy Gamer. Someone's even gone and commented on it already, so clearly it's been a wild success.
Single-player, fantasy-based roleplaying videogames are often a lonely, tedious experience. You spend hundreds of hours developing your character, trudging through predictable environments, and repeating the same attacks over and over again. Japanese developers in particular have a track record of making games where the core mechanic consists of battling against wave after wave of easily defeatable enemy, who exist solely to dispense the Experience Points you need to beat the more challenging and interesting boss encounters. Any time spent in combat with enemies who never realistically pose a threat is no fun, because a fight without some sense of peril is inevitably dull. Yet it’s become so commonplace in modern RPGs that fans of the genre have learnt to accept it and even name it: ‘grind’.
Penned into the stables at the Proud Gallery in Camden, boys in skinny jeans were asking girls in polka dot dresses, “why can’t we go in the main room?”
Pete Doherty was there.
For hours we waited. While making-do with Proud’s adequate but unadventurous playlist, the patience of the pretty poser girls and the anaemic indie kids was thoroughly tested. They stood about outside, restlessly chaining their umpteenth cigarette of the evening, until finally word got around: the doors had opened.
We poured through. There were some guys in skinny jeans on stage, but no-one recognised them. “Are they his backing band?” asked a too-tall man standing too-far forward.
No. They were ‘Vaults’, one of those bands who tediously refuse to put the definite article before their name even though it’s crying out for it.
Maybe ‘Vaults’ were excellent. Maybe they weren’t mediocre hitless me-too’ers. Maybe they sounded adequate and unadventurous because we hungered only for most the evocative lyrics of our generation.
Whatever. Vaults weren’t Pete Doherty.
So we trooped back outside. We smoked our umpteenth-plus-one cigarette. Some were heard cursing that they might miss their last train.
But when finally cigarettes, Vaults, and frantic phone calls to Transport For London were over, it almost took you by surprise. It began with screams, then came “PETE!” swaggering onto the stage, and before you could elbow past too-tall man standing too-far forward, a belting (but perhaps most importantly, unironic) performance of ‘What a Waster’ was over.
Doherty was on fine, crowd-pleasing form, smashing through his greatest hits while treating us to a total of six Libertines tunes. The pace was almost business-like, and he barely uttered a word between songs, save for one moment early on when he started to complain about the quality of the lighting.
“It’s so dark out there I can barely see you! Err, can anyone see a Graham Coxon in the house?”
And to the delight of all, up strolled a sheepish-looking Graham Coxon to the stage. He looked nervous, maybe from being so unusually close to the hungry mob, or maybe because of Doherty’s liberal attitude to tempo. Songs would race forward at twice their usual speed before he’d suddenly slam on the brakes and do the final chorus at a canter. Regardless, the two shared a cockle-warming chemistry, even (or especially) when things around the edges got a little rough.
Yet after a couple of songs Coxon was gone and Doherty was alone, although still amply filling the stage all by himself. And “alone” must surely be a poor word to describe a man with four hundred people screaming his songs back at him. In these intimate surroundings, with Pete at his effortlessly entertaining best, there can’t have been a soul in the room who felt alone.
That said, the soul-less were there too, watching the whole set through the viewfinder of their cheap camera-phone, fantasising no doubt about the number of hits their grainy pictures might get on Youtube. Too-tall man standing too-far forward was one of them, leaning over the row ahead of him with arms fully out-stretched, grinning smugly at the good-looking but awful-sounding footage he was recording. Where did this cult of joyless camera-phone people come from? Are they perhaps descended from the losers that read all their album sleeves nine times over in order to learn lyrics?
Was it really worth it?
Whatever. Someone please take them away and do something horrible to them.
Yet in spite of nuisance support acts, and nuisance camera phones, Doherty was great. When stripped down to just the man and his guitar, his brilliance as a song writer is indisputable. He enraptured the crowd, as they sang along loudly to the songs they knew, and listened respectfully to those they didn’t. He remains a living legend, and everyone needs to hear the web of sound he spins when he picks up a guitar.
I have so far spectacularly failed to finish the two articles I took last week off from this blog to finish. A combination of alcohol abuse, busyness at work, and a worrying lack of inspiration have conspired against me. It also hasn't helped that I get pathetically precious about my choice of words when writing for someone else for the first time, and typically end up spending an hour writing and re-writing the same paragraph about sixteen times.
Microprose made a lot of the best PC games of this era
Despite my inactivity this past week, one of my first ever game reviews has appeared on UpToJump. The site is connected to Be Excellent to Each Other, a forum I often lurk on, which about a year ago asked for reviews from its members for a games site they might one day get around to creating. Nothing happened for a very long time and I'd completely forgotten that I'd ever given them a review, but the site has now arrived, and although it's fairly obvious that it's a work in progress, I'd say it shows some promise.
Caviar with raspberries and chillies on pizza. YUM.
As for my review, I find it a little bit painful to read. Not only is it pretty pedestrian, but I hope I've now learnt better than to start sentences with words like "ostensibly". But I'm pleased that the short list of websites I can say I've written for is growing, and assuming I get my act together in the next couple of days, there may be two more names to add to it by the end of this week.
