The Buzz: You Got Game Review

Reviews for Half-Life: The College Years.

"I don't get it…" Veigaard

Sometimes for The Bee to be creative it is risky business. If somebody will not like his stories or his wise words or his reviewing, The Bee can get stung on his emotion – ouch!

Don't panic, however. Put away your defibrillator, because The Bee is 'hey-okay.' Everybody must take critic, and of course it is same deal for video game makers. They make a game for many months or years, and then when a game reviewer gets it in his grip, he can make comments as…

"…Iron Man becomes an absolute slog. It's the worst kind of rapidly developed tripe." – Edge, Iron Man

Ouch!

"As a simulation of life on a submarine, it is excellent, because it captures the dripping tedium perfectly." – Pocket Gamer, Submarine 3D

Oh no he didn't!

"I just hope that 3D Realms understands that if this game doesn't turn out to be history's greatest contribution to human culture and the cure for at least one type of cancer then I and every other reviewer on earth are going to saw its bollocks off." – Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, Duke Nukem trailer

Welcome to heartbreak hospital!

I know what you are thinking: it is not fair! If somebody uses a long time to make something, we should all congratulate them for it. Bravo! Iron Man is perhaps not my thing, but thank you all the same! Submarine 3D is lovely aqua game, despite blameless diversity of opinion!

Duke Nukem is taking ten years? That has not 'decade' my interest in playing it – I'm sure it will be excellent game (though possibly not to all tastes.)

Maybe reviewers should not make aspersions, because if they say a game – or a fan fiction story! – is not good it will create a negative impression about the game for the consumer. The Bee has worked in reviewing, and often game companies say things such as, "I will not give you this game because it is much fairer for the consumers to form their own negative impressions – after we have got our money."

Of course if a publisher knows a game is good then he says, "Please review our game to tell everybody it is good, because it is good, see for yourself!"

"Why don't you just tell them?"

"What are you talking about? Nobody will believe us, we are the publisher!"

Wait - I'm confuse!

Serious though, reviewing is always controversy. It is alleged that excellent Gamespot editor Jeff Gerstmann lost his job because he awarded Kane & Lynch a score too low to make Eidos Interactive happy. (It made them rage.) (Alleging.) In adding, industry bonuses are calculated with review scores instead of sales, and EA has talked in public about that it wants to increase its average score on Metacritic.

All of this, and many authorities such as game industry e-bible Gamasutra has published article claiming no links between game selling and game scoring. This rings of truth. There are many games such as Psychonauts, Giants, Thief and Sacrifice – and many more – that they don't shift wildfire units but the critics love them so much! Nobody listens!

It is crazy world!

But the critic has a job. He is like the sign language clown in the corner of the television, except instead of translating popular teenage drama programmes he translates lies to truth.

Of course he can be wrong (The Bee is looking at Veigaard!) or of course you can disagree with him and still be right, but that is still always his job, to protect and serve you. Maybe he is not perfect. Maybe evil commerce or lazy zombie consumer herd overpower him, but he must try, because if he is steering just one consumer away from Iron Man and into Psychonauts, it is like making high-five with Jesus.

It is dirty, low-paying, cheap, easy, cushy job, but somebody must do it!