The Art of Erik Stell

A friend and coworker of mine share similar interests as they pertain to the gaming landscape, and we converse about it often. While our opinions agree in many aspects, in some ways they do not. Originally, one of them was Gamespot.com

Now he believes that Gamespot follows the mantra of “Big money = Big Reviews/Previews”, and as it turns out, it is possible that he is correct. I have been a regular visitor of that site since its earlier days, (before Ziff Davis got their grubby little hands on it) and for the most part I have had no quarrel with the results of their reviewing/previewing process. My friend believes I am too trusting, and I believed that he was too cynical. Originally, I opted to leave it at the old truth that said ‘Perhaps the truth can be found in the middle’.

A new game is lurking on the horizon, titled “Lost Planet”. Its being hailed as the “next big thing” and all reports from Gamespot has this listed as being the next killer game. As a gamer, I nodded appreciatively for the information, and resolved to keep my eye on its development. As a result, when the playable demo was released, I happily loaded it up, expecting to be impressed. To quote Charlie Brown’s sister: “What a fool I was.”

The game is not bad, in the sense of horrible, steaming pile of offal bad, but it’s not the second coming its touted to be. Visuals are on par with what they should be; given with what the xbox360 platform is capable of. The game play itself is, in my mind, standard fare for a game of this type: Third person viewpoint, run around, shoot it if it moves. However, when I exited the game, I didn’t have the feeling of wanting more. At no point did I feel a sense of soul satisfaction that I have in other games. This is not Halo, nor is this Oblivion or Gears of War. It feels like a game that belongs in the PS2’s library demographic of good, albeit not great games.

To sum it up, all I felt was: meh.

Yet, Gamespot insists that this game will be awesome. From what I have seen, the now tired Call of Duty franchise has more appeal. So I am left to wonder where the voice of reason, sanity, or overall competency is with Gamespot. Perhaps my friend is correct, and there is a more clandestine operation in progress here. Perhaps we need to be repeatedly told that the game will be good before it magically becomes true. Perhaps the very words of spell are in fact numbers that appear on a check, made out to Ziff Davis.

Or, maybe my friend is not a cynical as I had originally thought.