barely fatal

Breakfast: Salami Omelette
Weather: Warm
Tag line: “Open your backpack, please”

It was only 3 blocks from our hotel, so we had no trouble finding Central Park. We sticked to the south end of the park and went past Wollman Rink and The Dairy over to the east side, enjoying the sun and relative quietness. After an hour or so gallivanting we reached the Met, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They had some really nice Egyptian artifacts (including a temple) and the American Wing was very interesting, too. We spent a fair amount of time there.
After that, we continued to walk uptown on Fifth Avenue to see the Guggenheim Museum. I didn’t want to visit it, but I wanted to see the famous architecture. Well, of course the Guggenheim currently gets a total makeover and it looked more like a construction site than anything else. So all I got was one lousy photo, oh well.

We then crossed Central Park again to get to the west side. We saw the Obelisk and climbed up Belvedere castle (castle is a very, very big word) and had a look at the place where John Lennon was shot. Then we visited the Museum of Natural History. I really wanted to see the dinosaur collection and the earth and space exhibitions. They had some really cool stuff and some older, dusty pieces. A lot of kids ran around with questionnaires, obviously researching for their science classes. It was really a lot to look at, and my feet started to scream for some rest.

Yet we took a short – or not so short – detour to the riverside to have a look at Jersey and the Hudson River. The sun was coming down and the atmosphere was great. On our way back to the hotel we saw Lincoln Center and all the famous Opera houses. On Columbus Circle a red carpet, a lot of police and an agitated though smallish crowd waited there for some celebrity of sorts, but we didn’t bother to wait and see who it was. We decided to not go out that night; we could hardly walk anymore and I was just too tired, with the jet lag and night without sleep. We went to bed early, so we would be prepared for the expectedly long waiting lines in the Empire State Building the next day.

There’s one thing that’ll never change, or at least not very soon: Whenever you go on holiday, you first have to get there.

In our case, we started on Monday, first stop Amsterdam. The flight was a little bumpy, but overall nothing special. The transit went smooth and without any trouble. On the second flight it was loud and cramped (I couldn’t sleep), but at least the food (Chinese) was excellent and the entertainment was okay. I watched two movies which I thought would not suffer much if I watched them on that flickering, tiny screen: Rocky Balboa and Epic Movie. The first one was exactly what you would expect from a Rocky movie (not too bad, actually) and the second one was exactly what you would expect from the guys who made Scary Movie (it was funny – *not*). I also saw an episode of The Office, the American version – oh well – I need to see the UK version now and see if it’s any better.

We touched U.S. American soil at – I don’t know, maybe Eight, Nine p.m. local time? However, it was goshdangitslate o’clock in Europe and I wanted to sleep, badly. Of course, before that we had to pass customs and the terrorist/nazi/drug addict/dictator tests (I didn’t tell them I liked violent computer games, you never know) and we did so bravely. We finally hopped on a properly licensed yellow cab and about half an hour later we arrived at The Wellington, 7th Avenue North, 55th Street West, Manhattan, NYC. Still alive, maybe just a little pale and surely a few grams lighter (of sweat). Dude, those taxi drivers, they da real sh1t.

Turns out, the hotel had a very nice lobby and friendly staff. Turns out also, the room wasn’t too comfy or luxurious, but bigger than expected: we got a free upgrade to a suite. Now we had a living room that we’d never use, a kitchen we’d never use (with one single plate in it, what a blast) and two TVs, of which we used one, frequently. Gotta live the American way. It was very clean though and seemed quiet enough. Until we switched off the telly, that is.

New York is an extremely noisy city, that be told. The police sirens you hear in every single cop show? They’re real. As are the trucks and construction work that is done at night. Well, lets just say we didn’t get much sleep. Due to that and due to the jet lag, we got up early the next morning and went searching for a deli, to have our first American breakfast.

More interesting stuff … tomorrow.

I’m really, really tired. So more tomorrow.

Game reviews are always interesting posts, more often then not its nothing more then a large number of fancy words picked specifically to try and give the reviews’ author credibility in the eyes of the reader.

Stage one being completed the author then move on to try and put his/her point of view (however wrong or right it may be) across in a way that the largest number of people (or at the very least others that think like him/her) would agree with.

People that perform reviews for money are the culmination of this tact-full and complex form of professional BSing.

Am i upset about something ?

Hehe no not really, i just see the patterns (and no… before you ask I’m not paranoid either, well no more then most anyway ) in the reviews i read in magazines and web sites. There’s always an underlying agenda to every post, even if its just as simple as the reviewer having been PKed in game or not having had the patience to actually sit though a game session and just basing the review off of some screenshots and movies he once saw.

At this point i would like to say that “in my day reviewers were honest and could be trusted” but truth be told that’s not even remotely true. Its always been like this as far as I’m aware and deep down everyone knows it

When all is said and done the reviews themselves aren’t particularly useful either. They tend to go into things such as “how pretty are the graphics and what other game is it comparable too” “how good is the sound” “how does the interface look” “how many quests does it have” so on so forth.

These are all areas of interest but at the end of the review they don’t tell anyone weather or not the game is worth the box it comes in. Yet, more often then not this is what one sees in a review.

• Good graphics
• Nice sounds/music
• Smart Interface
• Quests ( a quest is a side story at best. It is not, and should never be, the main storyline)

These are the main ingredients most look to when reviewing a game (at lest the reviews I’ve read) and that’s the problem. There the key ingredients for a short movie, not a game!

All the graphics in the world with the best sound around wont make a game good unless it can draw people into the world with a compelling storyline (and no i don’t mean quests, although having plenty of them that are fun to do never hurts)

The KoTOR series is a prime example. graphics/sound/interface are all average but the story is quite good. Its also starwars so that helps a bit, brand recognition and all that.

I recently picked up a game released in 2005 called “Advent rising”. The PC version is actually very fun (it was first released on the XBOX and that didn’t work quite as well, which caused no end of problems) again we have average graphics/sound and a minimalistic interface that does its job quite well. You actually play the game rather then the interface so that’s always a plus

The storyline is the key, its a shoot-em-up and you cant influence the course of the story (i like the new trend some game companies have been adopting of allowing for the player to make a few decisions, adds replayability and immersion) but the story is still there (well a third of it is anyway).

“Advent Rising” was planned as 1 of 3 games, were the story would unfold across all 3 titles. I say “was” because the original XBOX launch was a dire mistake for the company in question. The game wasn’t ready, it lacked polish and had bugs. In this day and age this isn’t surprising, game code is to big to stamp out all the bugs and polish depends on funding. No PC user really expects a PC game to be truly finished but console gamers are a different breed. They want it quick and they want it perfect (begs the question of why game companies want to focus on the console market at all considering the integration of PC’s into most peoples lifestyles in this day and age. But that’s a point for another article).

This resulted in the, quite predictable, bashing of the game and it being reviewed into the garbage bin. By the time the PC version came out the games reputation was shot to pieces and sales were less then stellar. So the future of the trilogy is uncertain at best. Which is a shame cause i really wanted to see how the story ends

A second game I recently obtained, of which ill forgo mentioning the name, also has a decent graphics/sound/interface combination but suffers from a crappy story. At the end of the day it isn’t worth the cash i payed for it, which says a lot considering it was a buy one get one free deal (and it was the free one)

That one had a good review by the way… go figure.

And what is my point ?

Firstly. Don’t judge a game by its review!

Secondly. Reviews should be about whether or not the game is fun, include the details of how it looks sounds and plays of course but tell people how fun it is and why. Game reviewing is all about personal opinion.

Last but not least. Read the following points:

• Nothing is ever perfect
• My opinion is not law
• Just because i like it (or think it) it doesn’t mean everyone else does
• Developers are people payed to do a job, not cater to your ego (unless that’s the job)
• Companies exist to make money, accept it and move on.

If you disagree with any of the above points do everyone a favour and never try to write a review

 Well i think I’ve rambled on enough

PS – This isn’t an attack on all reviews, some are actually pretty good, thou more often then not not all that informative. This post is aimed at the truly worthless reviews of which examples are plentiful. Just thought i would add this little disclaimer.

PPS – Oh yes… and this is my personal opinion