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Forums - Gaming Discussion - What Exactly Is Jim Sterling Reviewing? Not Much Apparently

I begin to like Jim Sterli- *HEADSHOT*



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rocketpig said:
Torillian said:
rocketpig said:
Torillian said:
rocketpig said:

It amazes me that people will accuse Jim Sterling of having an agenda when he gives a high-profile big-budget game a 4/10 and states his opinion bluntly in his review but all those reviewers who sugar-coat FFXIII and automatically reward every high-profile game with an 8.5 or higher have no agenda whatsoever.

Yeah, that TOTALLY makes sense.

Some of you need to stop confusing "I don't like this guy's opinion" (which is totally valid) with "he's not an honest journalist". If anything, we should RESPECT the guys like Sterling and Edge for blasting big-budget games despite the prospect of losing advertising revenue and severing relationships, not taking them to task for punishing a game they didn't like. In the game review world, THESE ARE THE GOOD GUYS. Stop cheering for the black hats.

Gamers really need to grow up. Check out reviews on some past Oscar nominees. Their scores usually vary anywhere from 50-95% on Metacritic, yet no one in the movie business gives a damn because they understand that not everyone else is going to like what they like.

Shit, Inglourious Basterds Metacriticed at 68 and was nominated for Best Picture. It received a 38 from one reviewer and 7 (!) scores of 50.

Really, grow up, people.

This is all well and good, but in this same thread you said people shouldn't bring up Sterling's review of Deadly Premonition and lamented how people don't get sarcasm.  So basically Sterling made an entire review just to be sarcastic, gave it a 10 it didn't deserve to continue with the hoax, and he's one of the good guys?  To me that cements the idea that he's one reviewer that should never be listened to.

He rated what has been widely regarded as an epicly bad game with an ironic score. I don't see how that relates whatsoever on his ability to write a legitimate review of a game he isn't mocking tongue-in-cheek. I'm sorry but that's a pretty weak leg to stand on if you have to start defending an opinion based on comparing it to his Deadly Premonition review, which was riddled with sarcasm so thick it was almost impossible to miss.

Would you look down on Ebert's review and discount his ability to convey his thoughts about a movie if he wrote a sarcastic review of a Troma film and gave it six out of five stars? That's basically what you're saying here.

So he put up a joke review on his site, without any indication that the review should not be taken seriously and allowing it to go up on all of the aggregate sites.  How do you know which reviews of his are a joke and which aren't?  You're just going to assume this one is serious, I mean here he has given what is widely regarded as a good game an epically bad score.  Sounds pretty similar to the case with Deadly Premonition, so what makes you think this review is meant to be taken seriously?

Really, you're reaching here. When a game is heavily mentioned in an editorial by the same guy in which he completely lampoons the game and then finishes up his review with this paragraph:

"Deadly Premonition is beautiful. No, not graphically. Graphically it's atrocious. It's a beautiful trainwreck, and it's well aware of the fact. Despite this game being quite like everything ever made, there's nothing quite like the game itself. There is absolutely nothing in this industry that can compare to how weird and wonderful the whole experience is. Judged as a piece of entertainment, as a game that consistently surprises and amazes and leaves jaws hanging, I have no choice but to say that Deadly Premonition goes above and beyond. This game is so bad, it's not just become good. It's pretty close to perfect."

It's pretty obvious that the review is entirely in jest. He calls the game "a trainwreck", "so bad", and "graphically atrocious". Come on.

If you assume that a paragraph like that must mean he's talking in jest than you must not have any friends who watch and love bad movies and list them in their favorites like I do.  I have friends who would rate Snakes on an Plane very highly, and do so with a completely straight face.



...

Everyone loves bad movies, even many reviewers I follow. On the other hand, not a single one of them has ever written a review that awards a trainwreck movie a perfect score. People may say they like them but when they break them down into a review piece, there's no way they ignore the massive flaws in dialogue, story, acting, etc. and give the movie a 10/10 because "they like it".

Loving a trainwreck movie really has little to do with not seeing its flaws. In fact, loving the movie is usally based AROUND seeing its flaws and laughing at them.




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rocketpig said:

Everyone loves bad movies, even many reviewers I follow. On the other hand, not a single one of them has ever written a review that awards a trainwreck movie a perfect score. People may say they like them but when they break them down into a review piece, there's no way they ignore the massive flaws in dialogue, story, acting, etc. and give the movie a 10/10 because "they like it".

Loving a trainwreck movie really has little to do with not seeing its flaws. In fact, loving the movie is usally based AROUND seeing its flaws and laughing at them.

So he obviously doesn't take every review he writes seriously.  If he doesn't take them all seriously then why should I trust any random review written by him?  He wrote a overrated review for one game just for giggles, how do you know he's not underrating this one just for giggles as well?



...

Torillian said:
rocketpig said:

Everyone loves bad movies, even many reviewers I follow. On the other hand, not a single one of them has ever written a review that awards a trainwreck movie a perfect score. People may say they like them but when they break them down into a review piece, there's no way they ignore the massive flaws in dialogue, story, acting, etc. and give the movie a 10/10 because "they like it".

Loving a trainwreck movie really has little to do with not seeing its flaws. In fact, loving the movie is usally based AROUND seeing its flaws and laughing at them.

So he obviously doesn't take every review he writes seriously.  If he doesn't take them all seriously then why should I trust any random review written by him?  He wrote a overrated review for one game just for giggles, how do you know he's not underrating this one just for giggles as well?

It may have something to do with him breaking down every piece of Final Fantasy (and other games he reviews), stating what he liked or did not like and not including lines like this one from his Deadly Premonition review:

"Deadly Premonition may well be the first game reviewed almost purely for its comedic value"

Really, this is kind of ridiculous. He sits there and insults Deadly Premonition at every turn and then awards it a perfect score. This falls into Captain Obvious territory.




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Kasz216 said:

Another good quote by Ebert.

"I have quoted countless times a sentence by the critic Robert Warshow (1917-1955), who wrote: "A man goes to the movies. The critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man." If my admiration for a movie is inspired by populism, politics, personal experience, generic conventions or even lust, I must say so. I cannot walk out of a movie that engaged me and deny that it did. I must certainly never lower it from three to 2.5 so I can look better on the Metacritic scale.

I cringe when people say, "How could you give that movie four stars?" I reply, "What in my review did you disagree with?" Invariably, they're stuck for an answer. One thing I try to do is provide an accurate account of what you will see, and how I feel about it. I cannot speak for you. Any worthwhile review is subjective. If we completely disagree, my words might nevertheless be useful or provocative. If you disagree with what I write, be my guest. If you disagree with how many stars I gave it, you can mail your opinion to where the sun don't shine."

Great quote, kasz. I'm going to steal that for an impromptu editorial I'm going to write up tonight.




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ShadowSoldier said:
Wasn't Destructoid the same people who didn't review Demon's Souls because they didn't finish it?

You are correct sir.

 

For those interested, here is a snippet from that article.

Destructoid writes- We're not in the business of reviewing games we don't finish, so I'll say right away that I did not finish Demon's Souls, the latest action RPG for the PlayStation 3. Because of this, we will not be giving it a review score this week. This write-up is going to have to suffice. Sorry.

It's not that I didn't want to finish it. I truly do, and I look forward t doing so. It just isn't going to happen now. The review date is upon us, and I've got plenty more game to go. On top of this, Atlus has pulled down the gaming press test servers to prepare for the game's retail launch.

http://www.destructoid.com/non-review-why-i-couldn-t-finish-demon-s-souls-151008.phtml



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twesterm said:
So he got to the end of the game and didn't beat it?

So?

Forgive my ignorance but in a 40+ hour game, is an extra two hours really going to change it from a 4/10 to a 10/10? It appears that he didn't like the story and I suffered through 40+ hours of a story I didn't like I doubt I would want to suffer through any more too.

If he had played the game for 10 hours, maybe I could see the anger, but all the hubbub over him just not finishing the final level?

He's a reviewer. He should be required to beat the games he reviews, it's his job. It doesn't matter how it theoretically would have affected his review, that is completely missing the point. He didn't beat the game, and if he didn't even beat it, I'd assume he probably went into the whole thing half-assedly with his mind made up before he started playing, but that's just me.

It's a job. It isn't "for fun" or a "hobby." When you have a job, you do it right, or your ass deserves to be fired.



I don't need your console war.
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.
You're power hungry, spinnin' stories, and bein' graphics whores.
I don't need your console war.

NO NO, NO NO NO.

rocketpig said:

Everyone loves bad movies, even many reviewers I follow. On the other hand, not a single one of them has ever written a review that awards a trainwreck movie a perfect score. People may say they like them but when they break them down into a review piece, there's no way they ignore the massive flaws in dialogue, story, acting, etc. and give the movie a 10/10 because "they like it".

Loving a trainwreck movie really has little to do with not seeing its flaws. In fact, loving the movie is usally based AROUND seeing its flaws and laughing at them.

Evil Dead 2 is the greatest movie ever made, and one of my favorites. It's a "bad movie" despite having like a 100 percent on rottentomatoes.



I don't need your console war.
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.
You're power hungry, spinnin' stories, and bein' graphics whores.
I don't need your console war.

NO NO, NO NO NO.

ZenfoldorVGI said:
rocketpig said:

Everyone loves bad movies, even many reviewers I follow. On the other hand, not a single one of them has ever written a review that awards a trainwreck movie a perfect score. People may say they like them but when they break them down into a review piece, there's no way they ignore the massive flaws in dialogue, story, acting, etc. and give the movie a 10/10 because "they like it".

Loving a trainwreck movie really has little to do with not seeing its flaws. In fact, loving the movie is usally based AROUND seeing its flaws and laughing at them.

Evil Dead 2 is the greatest movie ever made, and one of my favorites. It's a "bad movie" despite having like a 100 percent on rottentomatoes.

O_o

Evil Dead 2 is not a bad movie!

Of course today it looks strange but back then people loved the movie. It's actually a cult film.

 

Oh and btw torillian Snake on a Plane was really good.