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LOPcagney

Gametrailer's "Timeshift" Review is...

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...utter crap. I don't know why this gets to me as much as it does, but this review just speaks for how utterly absurd and jaded video game reviews have gotten in the last few years (as mentioned in this thread).

It's extremely shallow to say something like "As in most first-person shooters, the story is pretty inconsequential, mere window-dressing to explain away some of the game's more creative aspects." But what's even more ridiculous is that GT then gives the game's story a 6.8 our of 10. Now, I know this is a common complaint about video game reviews; that they're too generous and, while a movie reviewed at 4 out of 5 stars is considered exceptional, a video game at 80% is viewed a lot more critically. The whole point of scoring multiple aspects of a game is defeated in that each score is ultimately a watered-down product of the overall experience. Gah! :frusty:

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didn't we cover that whole grading thingy extensively.

anyway... I don't really like full motion reviews, specially not when crammed into 5 minutes.

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Another detestable Gametrailers.com review, this time of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and for an entirely different reason. I switched it off after in the first minute or so, they began uttering things like 'unless you're a crazy whackjob, you hate terrorists' and 'the antagonists are easy to hate'. This may speak for the overtly facile world view and generic shallowness of both Gametrailers.com and CoD4. Ha, I'm not wasting my good braincells on that pap!

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Another detestable Gametrailers.com review, this time of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and for an entirely different reason. I switched it off after in the first minute or so, they began uttering things like 'unless you're a crazy whackjob, you hate terrorists' and 'the antagonists are easy to hate'.

I actually thought, or hoped, that you were exaggerating with those quotes. Seems that you were not.

This game apparently also gets you "as close as you can possibly be to something that far braver people experienced."

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Their favorite perk is "martyrdom", so they're obviously a bunch of pinko wackjobs.

I'm kind of depressed on actually listening to a gametrailers review. I sometimes use them to get a look at a game, but man... are they all a long, drawn out way of saying "If you press these buttons, it does this. Also, this game is really pretty"?

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I can understand WWII or Vietnam video games, but isn't the Iraq War just too current and sensitive? I agree with Rodi. It seems silly and even insulting to try to glorify patriotism and war through video games.

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It was a little more nuanced than that. Of course I am absolutely against glorifying war, pushing your enemy into simplistic, abstract notions of Evil, etc. For a government this is of course a viable solution to the situation, because they gain nothing by humanizing their opponent, but everything with making them into figureheads or animals. But my reaction to this review was brought about by the evidence of how much normal citizens were spreading this crap. Citizens not directly caught up in a conflict have nothing to gain by doing what the government does with propaganda (because that leads to hate and strife) and everything with the opposite (because it leads to understanding and support, and a nicer world to live in). To then hear the jerk in that video enthusiastically, and casually, throwing around terms like 'hate'; as if it were the most normal thing in the world to hate something, to hate your enemy, is extremely appalling.

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I found it a bit ironic how they talked about the evilness of suicide bombing right before mentioning that their favorite perk was one that detonated their corpse when they died. Did nobody proofread this?

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How does the whole play-a-Middle-Eastern-ruler-until-he-gets-assassinated bit fit into this?

Europeans' naivety towards current American attitudes is variously immensely depressing and uplifting.

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This is pretty much an example of why I stop going by sites reviews etc, I still watch them just to get a sense of what I'm in for. A new multiplayer demo of this game was released today and it was pretty fun, it contains 14 maps I believe.

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