Dougie, my man! So you’re a troll on multiple boards! Some might say that’s pathetic.
Sorry you don’t like me, Dougie. I think you’re a delightful ball of dough, and I’m rooting for you to get the attention you so dearly crave.
As to your commentary, yes, Play was Dave Halverson. But to say that’s all it was shows your ignorance.
But we can be discerning.
Lemme see… Socrates is a man, all men are mortal… hmm.
I get it!
Play loves shitty games!
Because it’s not true. It was more an attempt to be ha-ha funny with a zippy one-liner than it was a statement in fact.
Play had a lot of great coverage, and it gave space to titles that were decidedly under the radar. It was certainly flawed, but to say it had no merit or value for any rational human being is, again, an untruth.
Anyway, I am sorry to see it go. And I look forward to the triumphant return of GameFan, which should send the anti-Halverson folk into a collective spasm.
This is really the core of it. Halverson’s problem is that he’s a fan of the medium. While it’s great to have games boosterists, they aren’t needed within the game industry, they’re needed on the edges of the industry when addressing new audiences.
For Halverson, a game gets an 8/10 just for being a video game.
It’s a pattern that’s very familiar to people who are marginally interested in anime and have ever looked for reviews of anime series on the internet. My rule of thumb is to ignore the 9.x, and remember that the decimal point is the actual review score. Unsurprisingly, Play featured anime reviews, too.
Final Fantasy 7: “…quite possibly the greatest game ever made.” – GameFan Magazine
I. Cannot. Wait.
That sucks. Play was the only magazine I’d somewhat kept up with over the years.
Wasn’t so much the quality of the writing (which was fine) but I liked that they also covered Anime and PC gaming AND they had really great screen shots on that nice glossy paper :)
Don’t know about Heather… her writing was always too overly enthusiastic… a bit on the juvenile side… she would have been great at Gamepro.
I’d say about half-and-half. As far as critical content goes, Play is essentially useless if you’re not Dave Halverson. Or Dave Long, I guess. I think we can at least agree that Play’s target audience was Daves.
Play had a lot of great coverage, and it gave space to titles that were decidedly under the radar. It was certainly flawed, but to say it had no merit or value for any rational human being is, again, an untruth.
It’s an exaggeration, but I wouldn’t say it’s totally untrue. Play had one of the nicest layouts of any game magazine on the stands, but it was always really hard to read some of the slavering fanboy copy even in the previews and exclusives. As mentioned above, the staff wasn’t too bad but as soon as you hit a preview of one of those under-the-radar titles from Halverson, it was tough to wade through the sycophantic prose to get to any actual information. Most of the time I would give up halfway through, look at the exceptional screenshots and scan the sidebars and that was it.
And let’s not forget that simply being highlighted by Play was hardly any indication of quality. This is the magazine that gave cover stories to Advent Rising and Bullet Witch, after all. In fact, I think Play’s breathless coverage of Advent Rising was one of the main reasons I flat-out stopped trusting them to even deliver useful preview content. There was just no temperance to the gushing enthusiasm if Halverson was into something.
Anyway, I am sorry to see it go. And I look forward to the triumphant return of GameFan, which should send the anti-Halverson folk into a collective spasm.
Yes, clearly we should all trumpet the rebirth of the magazine that gave us console wars, import worship, the 7-9 system and evangelism as a form of critique. Woohoo.
We need more critics that tear apart video games nowadays. They are usually more enjoyable to read. And even better, they should do retrospectives that denigrates your “favorite video game”. Especially the ones that end up in those top 100 video games of ALL TIME, because your mother bought them for you 25 years ago.
So Tom needs to talk about Deus Ex more often?
The easiest type of review to write is a bash review. I’m afraid that I’m a bit like Dave Halverson myself, from the sound of things. I’ve not read through a single one of his reviews that I can recollect, but from the sound of things his crime is being enthusiastic about and daring to enjoy certain video games even when the forum heroes say that the game sucks. I’ve found myself in that role a few times myself.
If that’s what it takes, man.
Yeah, that’s why bash reviews are usually more enjoyable to read. :D
I have no problem with people praising video games. However, when a person is reviewing a video game, people are depending on them to determine if that video game is worth their time and money. We need more bashers.
The problem is your tastes and mine may not coincide. So asking me to determine whether a game is worth your money is not really possible. I can only tell you whether it is worth mine and why and it’s up to you to decide if those are things you might enjoy or not.
And that’s what I want from a reviewer. Just with a bit more venom and anger.
No we don’t. We have more than enough of those, just like we have more than enough fanboys. What we need more of are intelligent, thoughtful, insightful reviewers who are capable of actually understanding the thing they’re writing about and analyzing it in a useful and interesting way.
It’s considerably more than that. It’s not that he’s enthusiastic about certain games, he’s constantly praising every single game ever. As other’s have said it’s a spoogefest, every single time. There is no objective content of any type. It makes his reviews pointless, everything is a 9.7+.
That’s simply not true. Reviewers can easily make critical and objective comments that can inform people about the quality of the title. You’re right they can’t say if others will like it but they can inform people enough so that they can make an educated decision.
Exactly, something that Play rarely had.
EVAH
Yep. Hire a bunch of console-addict kids who work for peanuts to write for you instead of a respectable games commentator whose opinions aren’t constructed via fandom and a seven years-old’s vocabulary. Good choice!
Way to go, Foxstab. I now like Play a little bit more.
Honestly, most of you folks are what’s wrong with the game industry and game fandom in general. Your ignorance is astounding, and you’re close-minded and dismissive to boot. Oh, and you’re also deathly afraid of ever admitting someone else may have a point. It’s a buffet of boorish traits!
I thought Quarter to three was a bastion of civilized discussion. Clearly it is not, not by a wide margin. Aside from the bleating and finger-pointing, you’ve got your overfed trolls, I see, and I guess all that’s missing is the console war nonsense…
And, for the record, you’re wrong about the qualifications of the Play staff.
Sweet! Six posts in, and MC Safety is melting down!