Topic: The Weekend in Gaming
Ah, the joys of the long Labor Day weekend, the parties, the barbecue, the football and the gaming. I was able to fit most of these things into my three day weekend, but mostly football and gaming. But as far as this blog goes, the only thing that matters is gaming, and there was quite a bit, although it was pretty much concentrated on a single game: Enchanted Arms.
Now it has come to my attention over the past week that Enchanted Arms has been subjected to some less than flattering reviews by various online review sites of various (and somewhat dubious) reputation, that has led many an unwitting patron of such web-sites to believe that this RPG has nothing to offer 360 owners. I would say that this is not the case at all, and a great disservice by the game reviewing "intelligentsia". Enchanted Arms is, in fact, a fine example of the genre it represents, replete with a few minor enhancements to the standard formula. Yes, it is true. Enchanted Arms is definitely worth a purchase for fans of the Japanese, linear RPG and all of its conventions.
It seems that many reviewers have decided to base their reviews upon some fantasy ideal that they have created and that exists solely in their own minds instead of doing their jobs and reviewing the game upon its own merits and what is expected of games in their respective genres and by the expectations of gamers that enjoy playing games in those respective genres. Not every game has to redefine a genre. The fact that a game does not make some great leap that is imagined to be necessary by today's game "journalists" doesn't make the game average or deserving of poor reviews. Enchanted Arms is not for everyone, but then again, neither is whatever flavor of the month game that video game publications and web-sites would push onto the unsuspecting public either. Truth is, no game is for everyone.
What I would suggest to game reviewers is that they attempt to strive for some sort of impartiality, that is at least paid lip service to in the mainstream media, and try to stop doing such a disservice to gamers that might not know better than to believe whatever biased, advertising money driven crap that they spew forth in their print and online publications. Attempt to review games for the genre in which the game purports to be, and don't complain that it doesn't redefine said genre. Games should be fun and interesting to the market for which they are released first, and foremost, and if they happen to be the greatest, most creative, genre breaking piece of work since Pong, then that's an added bonus. Get over Grand Theft Auto and Half-Life 2. Those games were good, but not every game is a third person action game (and that is what Grand Theft Auto is, not some imagined new genre) or a first person shooter, and not every game needs to be.
Tags: review, video, game, games, enchanted arms, rpg, Japanese, Japan, X-Box, 360, xbox, journalist, half-life 2, grand theft auto, HL2, GTA, fun, gaming, editorial
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