Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Heavyarms55, he's a "gaming youtuber" that made a video about how game critics are nitpicking and biased.

I definitely wouldn't call it a fake review. As with most news that isn't blatantly satirical (like The Onion), it does have a probability to be at least somewhat biased depending on the reviewer's tastes. I believe stuff should remain as unbiased as possible when it comes to reporting, fact gathering (ALL the facts, not just incomplete stories where everyone reacts with outrage before learning all sided), and commentary. If a reporter, reviewer, etc. can't handle a topic in a professional, unbiased manner, the piece should pass to someone who can. I wouldn't trust myself reviewing a shmup, for example; while I'd try to approach it from a fair angle, at the end of the day it's a genre that just doesn't appeal to me.

While I've disagreed with some of the reviews here, I wouldn't say any of them were false by any means. The Astral Chain review seems to have many parallels to other reviews I've ran across.

@StableInvadeel That's an interesting way to think about Them. XD Even though I hadn't played Majora's Mask until a few months ago, I was always fascinated by the design. The cow abductions are typical alien fare, but those appearances...awesome!

@NintendoByNature ...I think I'll steer clear of it then. Thanks.

@RedderRugfish I'm inclined to agree with the idea, but the problem is that is hard to talk about. Companies like Nintendo want to put that "9/10 from IGN" and "4.5/5 from Game Informer" and whatnot into their marketing. And I think most reviewers are more than happy to provide those numbers when the can because it generates more interest in them as well.

For us readers, the system you describe would be almost universally better than an abstract number. But it doesn't generate the attention that the abstract number does.

"HAPPY FACE from GameXplain"

I’ve always thought applying a number or score to something at the end of a review of any sort is silly. It’s ambiguous at best, and, in my opinion, undercuts all the work that went in to the review. It’s the sizzle that cooks the steak though, so it will probably always be around in some form or another.

My unfeasible dream scenario regarding game reviews would be to have a staff large enough that several writers could provide thoughts on any given game. It’s pretty easy to pick up a writer’s preferences (or areas of specialty) if you hang around a site for a while reading reviews, and I would find it interesting (even in blurbs at the end of a review) to find out what other people thought of a game. I do enjoy the pros and cons now.

I thought the Astral Chain review was excellent. I read it late in the day, saw the number of comments and didn’t even bother looking. Damo seems to get some heat around here from different sectors, but I’m always thrilled to open something on NL and see he wrote it. A review from him is sort of a rare treat these days. I think Mitch also does really thorough reviews, and it’s been cool to watch him grow over the years. Chris Scullion as well. Excellent work. I’d enjoy their thoughts in every review, but it’s just not possible. At any rate, if the majority cared more about the words than the number, we’d live in a better world, and we’d be served better journalism.

There's something to be said about playing a game or reading a book for the second time. The first time you don't know what's actually important, only what you think might be, based on the story you've seen so far. I've been re-reading The Expanse books by James S. A. Corey. Some of the best sci-fi I've ever read by a landslide and I'm dying to read the final book. But it's amazing how many details I brushed over the first time. Almost nothing this guy wrote, over the span of 8 books, was a throwaway line or irrelevant detail. There are things seemed like just minor character building or background details that ended up being majorly important several books later.

I'm a total sucker for stuff like this. I love big deep narratives and in-depth fictional universes. It's why I love JRPGs in gaming and why I love big "expanded universes" in books and movies.

@StableInvadeel Well, original or not, I honestly don't care what others think. Like I said: the previous name was born out of necessity, and the reason for that is that I didn't want to be known as Thanos52713 or whatever other freaky anomaly site registration forms suggested to me, because plain Thanos already existed...

And so, TheRealThanos was born. I used that name ever since the early 80's, in the arcades, on home computers and so on, so I predated any idiot that wanted to use the name online, so back then, emphasizing that with "TheReal" both seemed cool and appropriate, but over the years, you become a little wiser and more grounded, not too bothered anymore with what's cool or not, and it started to annoy me more and more, so ultimately,
I decided to combine the name Thanos with the Latin equivalent of the meaning of my first name, and the triple X at the end is rather self-explanatory. Although for me, it's also simply an emphasis on the Rex part: sort of like an XXL version...

On a side note: obviously, I'm just having a bit of fun with you changing your name all the time. If that's something you like or need to do, then by all means. I'm glad you're always keeping the "eel" at the end, though. Certainly helps with the identification process...

@Tyranexx Well, apparently we have another thing in common, then. I don't like (most of) today's nonsensical horror/slasher movies, but old skool horror, or legend and lore based movies are often interesting and entertaining to watch.

On a side note: I wanted to warn you about the comments section on that Astral Chain review, but I see that RedderRugfish and others already beat me to it. Knowing you (well, as far as one can know anyone online), you REALLY don't want to be part of that. It was almost as abstract as it was absurd and offensive. It took every bit of restraint I could muster not to dive in and verbally destroy the offender, because I knew that would only add oil to the fire, so I'm glad I ultimately managed to reign myself in...

@bimmy-lee I think most of us will probably have had a door accident or two in our lives, and I wouldn't be surprised if we've still got a few to come, before we step into eternity...

I can cross off the glass door bump, the "door came off the hinges" thing, the "door knob came off/broke off" thing, multiple instances of "I bumped my head on the top beam of the doorway because I didn't duck far enough" (a "nice" aluminum door rail in a caravan), the "I tripped over the threshold and into the screen door" thing and the "I slammed the door too hard and broke one of it's inlaid glass panes" thing.

And I probably forgot a rather large handful of other door-related mishaps...

@bimmy-lee Damo's problem is he created a lot of bad faith with a period of heavy clickbating, so a lot of people, myself included always see the cynical avenue with any of his content. Technically his content is very good...but it's one of those "once fooled, always suspicious" kind of reactions. It's been great seeing Ant get directly involved again...that's something I never thought I'd see.

@Heavyarms55 I'd add that Nintendo, more than most companies (Sony as well) tends to create an issue because they are very restrictive in who they even open dialogue with in their press contacts. Most publishers, as long as you're a legit outlet they talk to you. Nintendo (and Sony) you have to have the "right" outlet, with the right metrics, provide them proof of metrics, prove you're a dominant site, and then they generally have to like you specifically otherwise they grant you no access at all. So effectively, there's an unspoken handshake, with both of them, that "we'll only deal with press outlets that silently, tacitly agree to be part of our marketing efforts." Which may factor into why both of them have only games that score incredibly high, consistently.

@StableInvadeel I think it wasn't just some guy saying "this review might be fake", so much as the masterful troll baiting of the post, along with a series of follow-up posts indicating troll intent. The post was specifically designed to derail the review. Ant's response kind of said it all that the post went up 5 minutes after the massive review and is literally impossible to have read it, digested it, and have posted a reply based on that. (The response was "I'm a fast reader.") The point of the post was trolling and disrupting a review the site spent a lot of time on. I think I'd have gone for the insta-ban if I were Ant. But then like whack-a-mole they just come back (which I suspect is exactly what happened here anyway.)

@RedderRugfish I so agree. I remember a review in a Game Informer for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (this was years and years ago) where they gave it like a 6 or 7 on the basis that "it's great but some people won't like it." If that's the criteria, every game should get a 6 or 7! Reviews are supposed to be, as much as is possible, objective, to provide a reasonable barometer to an uninformed consumer. Anyway, it's truly baffling.

Movie reviews suffer similar problems, even though movies take far less time to consume. Reviewers are expected to review a lot of movies in a short window and their frustrations inevitably bleed over into their writing. Many classic films were hated when they were first released (The Shining), and many films that were beloved upon first release are now hated (most blockbusters). And some critics are just contrary for the sake of being contrary (coughPaulineKaelcough).

I think Dunkey's videos on game criticism were pretty damn spot on, personally.

@NEStalgia "once fooled, always suspicious"
I prefer the more poetic "the boy who cried wolf"...

As for it being "masterful" trolling: all I saw was blatant insulting of a reviewer. We both may not always agree with Damo, but I've never been able to catch him at outright lying in any of his articles or reviews, so regardless of it being trolling or not, I can understand that the site crew jumped in on it, because it was a clear-cut case of not done, and that's putting it VERY mildly.

Could be a returning felon, though, seeing as the profile was relatively new. Either that, or it truly is a new user who isn't really aware yet of the fact that American brashness and/or candor is frowned upon, on a UK-regulated website...

@ThanosReXXX I'm not as good at figuring out the returning felons as Wilton and a few others have been (they opened my eyes to a few!) but in this case I'm pretty confident it's a certain PlayStation fan that's had a string of recurring aliases recently, each of them detected fairly soon. I notice his other recent one appears to be silent at the moment....hmmm...

The country of origin keep changing though....

It has the right writing style, argumentatively passive demeanor, polite but always needs the last word in a passively argumentative way, and finds something to complain about with absolutely everything (unless it's PlayStation.)

So I feel like Switch is on a cart powered with nitrous...but it feels like the twins are kinda dropping off. I understand they have announced successors but it feels like the well is drying up a little early.

Also I've started recording my Japanese speaking...Woo... train wreck... however I'm noticing bad habits a lot quicker.

Six Pack Link BOTW coming right up !

@NEStalgia Yeah, I noticed that behavior as well, and not just in the Astral Chain article.

As for how these losers keep being able to return, is beyond me. I'd expect that even with them making new profiles, it would still be tied to the same IP address or provider, and there's a couple more criteria that could be used to identify people, as you may well know.

Smart people could of course use VPN's and what not, but even those aren't ironclad if you REALLY want to find out who's behind them, and if you have the means to do so, obviously. But the average game site user won't even be using stuff like that, so any counter-measures they might have taken, to not be discovered (if any at all), should easily be bypassed.

And yet, even when people do get banned, they still manage to simply create another account and go their merry way...

Quite baffling, in my opinion, and I'd say that there's still some work to be done on that front, by the site's admins.

@ThanosReXXX That's a hard problem to deal with. They can always generate new email addresses to register. IP tying only makes a fun challenge for the troll sort and makes life a nightmare for rule abiding members (I participate in one (non-gaming) forum that is very restrictive like that. In registering, it blocked my name for no apparent reason, I can't access it from behind corporate VPNs, and carrier nat on wireless networks sometimes flags it sometimes doesn't it, so I get inconsistent access. So I have to schedule time to even reply to people when I'm not on a secured platform, and thus make myself more vulnerable.) It's done an ok job of keeping trolls out...but it's doing an excellent job of keeping actual participants out. IP filters really don't work. Or rather they work, and allow convenient access for only a portion of the real membership. The crafty can work around it, and too many good people get caught in the too-smart-for-it's-own-good attempts to identify through obfuscation.

I think the only way to really deal with it is, unfortunately, extremely tight moderation with zero tolerance one-warning policies etc and overly heavy handed control of discussion. I've been on a few of those forums, too. On one hand they do have far less problem with trolls, since trolls really don't have any fun just being banned instantly all the time even for the tiniest infraction. OTOH, it makes for a terrible forum, because everyone is parsing their own words constantly, trying not to set off any overzealous modding by breaching the tiniest of the loosely defined myriad of rules.

There's no great way to do it...though some of these trolls do get a bit too much leeway. Endlessly goading the site admin, even if politely, in that Astral Chain review, probably warranted one of those "one warning" bans.

@Ryu_Niiyama I think that's normal. As soon as successors are announced, all consoles drop off a cliff. Nintendo's included. Publishers start lining up their efforts for the next console, any strong push from first party to win supporters halts cold, everyone on all sides is just waiting for the better product, and doesn't see much point in sinking more money into the current.

That's the one good thing streaming and gen-less consoles can do...eliminate that awkward cycle.

@NEStalgia Yeah, I know it can be a hassle, both for site owners and members, but with a good set of rules, and a three strike system, it should be doable, in most cases. I don't like how these newcomers and revenants disrupt this site. I want them gone, by any means possible. It's annoying as hell that, while we even can't accidentally plant an f or c bomb, or say "shoot" with an i instead of two o's, these first class a*holes can happily continue to have their way.

On a side note: that work related scenario you described, is one I've been subject to several times. There was either complete restriction of all but the most boring of websites, or the gates were only temporarily opened during lunch break. So, initially, I simply kept private browsing as something for when I got back home at the end of the day, and later on, when smart phones became more common, I just used that to browse to my heart's content. Charged my phone at the office as well...

On a second side note: so, it finally happened: I officially lost faith in human kind. Once you're at that point where even spammers can't be bothered to at the very least make some effort to make a site-relevant topic anymore, and start posting threads asking for crude oil trading tips, then you know that the collective IQ of the entire planet is slowly but surely reaching an all-time low...

EDIT:

Ah... seems like the page was already removed, after Joeynator3000 had already locked it first. Oh, well...

@ThanosReXXX - I opened a huge door right into my face just last week while distracted by my kids. One of my funniest mishaps came when I got sent to my room as a kid. I tried to slam the door so hard it would knock pictures off the wall, but the handle came off in my hand mid pull, and the door quietly clicked shut before I could stop it. Naturally, I immediately assumed I’d die from starvation trapped in that room, but I was also too mad and embarrassed to call for help.

@NEStalgia - Huh, I’ve been reading here a while, but I don’t remember the clickbait period. Not saying it didn’t happen, maybe I just blocked it out, or never got around to clicking in the first place. The only time I’ve been annoyed with NL was last fall during the launch of NSO. I can forgive some of the confusion of facts because it didn’t seem Nintendo were communicating clearly, but there was so much leaping to conclusions, click baiting, troll lathering, and finally an ugly flogging of a dead horse that it left a really bad taste in my mouth and factored in to me just taking a break from the site and mostly only clicking on reviews.

@bimmy-lee Oh it was bad for a little while. The site is mostly an amazon ad space or knee jerk articles to rile up clicks but it is much better than it was right after Tom left. I've pretty much stopped coming here for "news"... I just like the forums (and I participate much less even in that respect as well) and the comment sections (I read the articles I post on of course...). Damo can be a little hostile even if you aren't calling him out so the nonsense that happened yesterday was not surprising. (the poster was wrong but Damo and Ant should have either let it go or been more neutral in their responses).

@NEStalgia I don't know I feel like the twins were a bit underwhelming this gen. I'm not really talking about games that I don't like as I never try to use that as a metric when discussing consoles, but I feel like there were more, AAA mediocre games or controversies than success. Like I don't really get a sense of excitement from people when they talk about the twins beyond the standard shiny graphics and console wars nonsense.

@bimmy-lee You mentioning that door story reminded me of another one of my own: I was left home alone, probably aged 12 or 13, and I was playing a game on my home computer. But I couldn't beat the game, or the high score, don't exactly know anymore which, but either way, I had anger issues back then, so I burst into a rage fit, and threw something in the general direction of my door.

Except, I forgot, that in most rental houses, doors aren't exactly made of the most sturdy material. It's basically just a wooden frame with some pressed wood-fiber plates stapled/glued to them, so next thing I knew, there was a fist-sized hole on one side of my room's door.

After I recovered from the initial shock, I quickly came up with a "plausible" scenario, because my parents would be home soon, so I had to explain what happened, obviously. I just told them I tripped, lost my balance, and landed with my elbow into the door. My father frowned, but said nothing, and my mother always thought I was the most honest kid in the world, so she accepted that explanation.

But I think you can probably imagine how all of that went down, from being angry, to being scared, to having to face the possible wrath of the parents, knowing that even though they weren't the strictest of people, they still didn't take any crap from little old me or my sister...