ObjectiveGameReviews.com - A Subtle Journey of Discovery

[BadHat]

You should start a sister site for games editorials called objectivegameopinions.com.

[TychoCelchuuu]

You should start a sister site for games editorials called objectivegameopinions.com.

ahahahah oh man that's really good. Sometimes I want to quit my day job and do all these things.

[feelthedarkness]

I want to start a spin off site that targets these people's actual needs: "doesitworkokay.com"

[TychoCelchuuu]

I spent 20 minutes this morning trying to discover why media uploads to my website were broken and had narrowed it down to a changed PHP setting on my host's server (after having ruled out other things, a process which required disabling and enabling plugins, altering my .htaccess file, and uploading a smaller image to ensure that this worked) only to realize (about 30 seconds before I was about to send a support ticket I had written, which carefully documented the steps I took and the thing I believed was at issue, to my host) that the "Mirror's Edge" screenshot was the first image I had ever tried to upload with an apostrophe in the filename. I removed the apostrophe and Wordpress stopped freaking out.

WEBSITES ARE FUN

[subbes]

So... Wordp can't deal with properly escaping apostrophes in file uploads?  

 

php

[TychoCelchuuu]

Yeah, the PHP that makes thumbnails out of things chokes on apostrophes, from what I can tell.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Thank you elmuerte for giving me the idea to review The Stanley Parable Demo and give it an 8. That's not quite how I ended up doing it, but the review of the demo is up.

[TychoCelchuuu]

My site just got a hit from someone who Googled "reviews are not objective." That feels pretty good.

[subbes]

Thank you elmuerte for giving me the idea to review The Stanley Parable Demo and give it an 8. That's not quite how I ended up doing it, but the review of the demo is up.

 

[Erkki]

I want objective reviews of Debaser and Citizen Kane. (maybe should have posted in the drunken thread!)

[Erkki]

I know nothing about music so this review probably sucks and may even be wrong:

 

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Santa Esmeralda is a disco version of the flamenco song about a person who has good intentions and doesn't want to be misunderstood. It features string, percussion and wind instruments. The tempo doesn't vary a lot.

Santa Esmeralda's version of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood is ten minutes and thirty seconds long and starts with castanets and other percussion instruments playing. A guitar kicks in in a few seconds. About a minute in, a male voice starts singing, mostly about the eponymous desire to not be misunderstood.

The vocal keeps going for about two minutes, after which the song turns mostly instrumental, with occasional vocals still mixed in. In the middle of the song, other instruments go quiet and only percussion plays again, as in the beginning. The guitar kicks in again and the castanets become silent.

At about 6:40 into the song the male vocal starts moaning, whining and saying "oh, baby", then at 8:00 starts singing in the same way as in the beginning of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.

 

Objectively: 10/10

[Joewintergreen]

[TychoCelchuuu]

We also got linked in Rock Paper Shotgun's free indie game column today. Fun times in Objective Game Reviews land!

[Joewintergreen]

also you've got a quote on InFlux's store page http://store.steampowered.com/app/246980

[TychoCelchuuu]

EVERYTHING'S COMING UP TYCHO

2 down, literally every other game to go! Thank you Lacabra!

[Joewintergreen]

<3

[SilentBtAmazing]

Honestly I think the more recent reviews seem more refined - good work!

[TychoCelchuuu]

So now that this thing has been up for about a month, with 54 published reviews and more in the pipeline, it's time to transition to Phase II (of at least 4 planned phases).

Phase II is when I start asking companies for review codes. I'm doing this despite already having a backlog of existing codes (which I'm working through - I'm almost done with The Bridge and Thunder Wolves reviews, for instance, and I reviewed LaCabra's game and Actual Sunlight already) because having actual topical reviews rather than, for instance, a Company of Heroes 2 review is kind of important in terms of being slightly more relevant.

I'm writing the first review code request email right now - right now I'm packing in stuff like "you may have seen us on Kotaku or Rock Paper Shotgun" and linking to those things, but I'm wondering if the "hard sell" is a little too hard. Oh well - no harm in trying, right?

I'm thinking I'll split requests fairly evenly between indie devs and AAA devs - I expect the indie devs to get back to me and they could use the publicity, which is good, whereas AAA publishers will probably ignore me, but from the point of view of the site I think AAA reviews are sometimes better because I can be snarkier about shit they fuck up without feeling as bad, plus more people have played them so there can be in-jokes that would be lost on people who haven't played a game like Anne Hathaway: Erotic Mouthscape or InFlux.

So, wish me luck! And if there's a new game you want to review, and you've either already written a review for the site or you want to write one to show that you can HANDLE THE HEAT, let me know and we can try to get you a review copy, because why not?

[TychoCelchuuu]

"Seriously, you're the worst type of games writer..."

[BigJKO]

People seem to have a very subjective reaction to this, an entirely objective review site.

[Bjorn]

Wow.  Apparently you hit a nerve.   This is my fav:

 

Many of the actual experts on games, which I will restate for the purpose of vindictiveness, most game reviewers are not, are capable of making qualitative judgments about a game on a basis of the game's contents and furthermore are capable of actually summarizing details about the function of the game in a perfectly objective manner, which is a necessary prerequisite to even attempting to make qualitative remarks in a critical fashion.

[BigJKO]

He's working "to establish a new critical theory for games", so obviously this bothers him a lot.

[Hermie]

What a fascinating person! That Wario book looks nuts, I kinda want to spend my weekend going down this rabbithole...

 

 

To pick another example, which I happen to be an expert on, the Mirror's Edge review

[BigJKO]

He's an expert in picking examples, for sure.

[Justin Leego]

I'd say that was an outstanding letter of application, were it not for the fact he expressly ruled himself out at the end.