It has been an utterly fantastic week in gaming, while playing the recently released Phantom Pain I've also been working away at the review, which I'm very happy to say is finished and on the site for your perusal and pleasure. It's a big one and will require some reading but I hope you guys are starting to see now that I try and give you an alternative to a score: I not only an opinion from a PC gamers point of view but I also explore the issues that have surrounded the game for a few months prior to launch. There are so many things I had to cut from my review to avoid spoilers but trust me when I say, you absolutely need to play this game.
I know that some gamers just want a number so they can make a quick decision and go about their day but there are problems inherent to scoring systems, not least that so much gets missed and abbreviated. It also seems like any game that doesn't hit 80% gets instantly dismissed by the majority of gamers and this is a dangerous habit to get into, everyone is different and you could be skipping your favourite game of all time. I've seen so many titles that while have some fairly substantial flaws are still excellent games and totally worth the time to play. I think that part of the reason for this addiction to Metacritic and scorecards is that we simply don't have enough hours in the day to keep up with the tsunami of releases: I often joke with my friends about our ever increasing list of games we've picked up but will never play.
In my own personal gaming I do look at and use review scores to gauge how a game is doing but more and more I'm seeing gaming review scores as negative. In fact I've been thinking this for a while and catching up with YouTube yesterday I listened to a video by Total Biscuit covering this exact thing. He also talks about how gamers and professional reviewers are kinda looking for different things: in essence they are coming from different places. It's a really interesting video so check it out.
I've had Mad Max sat here since downloading MGS:5 and apart from a cheeky hour I haven't touched it, so this week I'm going to try and prise myself away from Phantom Pain for at least a day or two and start my Mad Max review. Due to circumstances I'm a little late to the party and most reviews sites already have their opinions out on the net but this won't put me off having a look. It's interesting seeing how the main review sites have been quite critical of the game and yet gamers seem to be having a blast.
I shall also be putting in my order for a webcam and microphone this week, it's taken a few good research seasons to finally decide on what I need and given my very tight budget it's a fine line between quality and blowing my spare cash for the next three months. One problem you may have noticed on the videos I've already produced is not only is the headphone mic poor quality but my PC fans are making a right old racket so I decided I need a mic that could also plug into my iPhone: that way I can record the narration somewhere quiet. The idea is to start producing videos reviews along side my written reviews and see how we go but for the foreseeable future the written content will take priority.
Thank you for everyone who visits my site on a regular basis, I love writing reviews and articles but it wouldn't mean anything if they were not being read and enjoyed by someone. The internet is a big place to try and stand out so if you do enjoy something you see here please tell your friends, re-tweet my 'twitterings' and most of all keep checking back for new content. Have an epic weekend guys and gals,
Peace out,
Genophix