"I am a very considerate person. If I want to go out all night on my miniature golf course and shoot lizards, well, no reason to keep the neighbours awake..."
I've never read a review of an Xbox Live game and therefore have never purchased a game on the back of one. I've just downloaded everything that sounded remotely interesting to me and played it - if I like it I buy it.
I'm guessing - with xbox live games being relatively small and quick to download - that most other people will do the same.
defsdoor wrote:I've never read a review of an Xbox Live game and therefore have never purchased a game on the back of one. I've just downloaded everything that sounded remotely interesting to me and played it - if I like it I buy it.
I'm guessing - with xbox live games being relatively small and quick to download - that most other people will do the same.
Yeah why read someone else's opinion when trying it out for yourself to see if you like it won't cost you anything other than the time to download the demo?
defsdoor wrote:I'm guessing - with xbox live games being relatively small and quick to download - that most other people will do the same.
You may be surprised to know then that some people are *already* treating that review as if it was gospel. Some people for whatever reason seem to rely on magazine reviews to tell them what to like even though with games like this they can easily download it for themselves and have a go.
Some people get so famous for doing famous things that
they have worse things to deal with than complete
nutcase/idiot strangers having an opinion on things they create.....
.......like getting shot by nutcase/idiot strangers.
With every game you are always going to get a number of people who don't get it or simply don't like it and with something as extreme as SG then this is even more so the case.
Asking someone to review it who, I'm assuming, doesn't normally like this sort of thing anyway, strikes me as a hugely incompetent editorial decision as you're never going to get an accurate, objective review, merely a dismissive comment aimed at the genre as a whole.
Well now, this is a turn up. I've never seen a review score as low as that in OXM. And, after the initial shock wore off, I find it strangely encouraging.
It is an acid test, isn't it? A quick glance at LLamasoft's back catalogue and Yak's CV quickly demonstrates that this is an enterprise that doesn't chase the mainstream. Like any true artist, Yak has a creative vision which he is singularly unprepared to compromise.
Not that the works are the videogame equivalent of the half-cow-in-formaldehyde challenge to public sensibility of inscrutable modern art; these are games that everyone should understand and play. It is their loss if they don't, because a little bit of effort and comprehension will be rewarded beyond belief.
Llamasoft creates games based on a singular aesthetic, one that assumes a certain level of perception from the player/viewer. Perception to understand that underneath the supposedly simple, if abstract, shoot 'em up exterior, there is a pure world of depth and finesse - one that might not be understood straight away but, once you get beyond the threshold, becomes hyper-real and wonderful. Perception (and vocabulary) to understand that the sound effects, the aural atmosphere, aren't 'sophomoric' or naive or unreadable - they are hugely clever and informed; an antidote to (or perhaps a hangover from) the millions of generic gun clicks and K0MPUT0R beeps of other games. The inclusion of Dalek-cows, WWII bombing runs and burping is not the work of a child, but an intellect with the perception to understand the purity and simplicity and the ecstatic truth of a child's perception. The same way that Picasso, a phenomenally accomplished painter, spent most of his professional life trying to achieve the purity and joy and perception of a child in his work.
I understand how hurt you are, dear Yak, by such a terrible review and score. Because you make your games with love, none more than SG, and you want people to see and understand and enjoy because you have infused your creation with these things specifically for this purpose. If you were courting the mainstream it would be a killer blow. But you aren't, are you? You're outside the big silver skyscraper dressed as an ungulate, armed with a water pistol, humming Beethoven's Ode To Joy backwards through a ring modulator. And no, some people aren't going to get it, looking out at you through the mirrored glass, thinking that the joke's on you.
Fuck 'em, because you're up there with the great and the good. There's no one else who could lay claim to being the gaming equivalent to Tom Waits or Captain Beefheart. In fact, there's no-one else who's even trying. But you are seen and appreciated and you will be vindicated when the praise (and the revenue) for Space Giraffe comes in.
Factory's no place for me, boss man leave me be.
Xbox Live Gamertag/PSN ID: Barbellion
Wii Console Number: 7017 0974 8271 2157
It's owned by Future who license the XBOX name from MS, they don't control it
hmm, well doesn't monsieur yak write a column for edge?
that one that was widely reported on in the press when he slagged off the ps3?
/walks away whistling
from looking at these replies i think it's worth pointing out that future are exceedingly tight with their freelance rates, generally it's about 10p a word for all rights forever - so reviews have to be written at warp factor 19 in order for the writer to feel even slightly like they aren't being fucked over, i reckon if they paid more & were nicer to people generally this stuff wouldn't happen so much, & the people working there would feel happier to boot
from looking at these replies i think it's worth pointing out that future are exceedingly tight with their freelance rates, generally it's about 10p a word for all rights forever
From all the things I've read and seen here, it looks like the reviewer just didn't get it at all. That just shouldn't happen to a reviewer, especially one who's working for the Official 360 mag. The damage is done, there's no way around it. Let's just hope it's nothing too significant regarding sales and overall perception.
I'm really looking forward to playing the game myself. If I think the reviewer just "didn't get it", the mag's going to get a long and detailed e-mail about the issue. You just have to have more responsibility and knowledge in a mag like that.
Take care guys & try to relax: