#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JohnSollitto

Reviews are a tough subject in the gaming world. I know I’m jumping right out of the gate here after not writing something video game related for a while here but I’m going full-frontal journalism on you. It’ll be awesome. Reviews, they’re hard to do and they’re important because some people base their purchases off them. So, naturally, it is a very heavy responsibility for reviewers to take up and shoulder.

Now, there are some people who do not take it seriously or are too cool to do their job right. I’m not going to name names here, but there was once a reviewer who gave a game a 2/10 without even playing the game. You read what I’m typing? HE DIDN’T EVEN DO HIS JOB. HE JUST LOOKED AT THE GAME AND SAID, “THIS LOOKS LIKE CRAP,” AND GAVE IT A BAD SCORE. That kind of stuff pisses me off at the complete lack of professionalism that it displays.

I understand, it’s a chore to play a video game. I mean, really, having so much fun and sitting down for hours playing a video game must be taxing on a person over time. I get it, it happens to us all. But to blatantly not play a game, give it a shit score, and be a part of a large media outlet that will most assuredly be read by the publisher and factor into the decision of future plans for the property is just bullshit.

But, more to the point, this brings forth the age old question that many journalists like myself have had many a time. I’ve brought it up at G4, my own outlet, at E3 with other people there covering the event and even at PAX. I’ve even brought in developers and people I’ve interviewed into the discussion.

Do reviewers have to finish a game to review it completely?

Let’s look at some examples. “Duke Nukem Forever.” Oh yeah, that game. While it may have been the crudest game to come out in a long time since “Leisure Suit Larry,” “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” and possibly even “Bulletstorm,” that could not save “Duke Nukem Forever.” However, it was the exact game that people were asking for, people just didn’t realize that they had grown up and they might not actually like Duke Nukem anymore because the humor was dated. Still, they asked for a Duke Nukem game and got it.

I played the game. I got about halfway through the game when I realized, “Oh my god. This is the entire game. It’s not going to get better is it?” So I wrote my review. I was a little more forgiving than some other people to the game, but everyone else said the same thing. It was a bad game. It was badly made, and it didn’t get better.

Now, take “Borderlands 2.” That’s a lot of game right there. I mean, easily 50+ hours. I cannot finish a game like that in a timely fashion to review it fully. I mean, with school, work and other activities in life, I really can’t do it. Now, gaming sites and outlets that make their living doing this stuff, they should be playing it all day and night to get the review out. No question. They might even beat it. However, someone like myself who has limited time has to play as much of the game as possible to get a good grip of it and review it to the best of their abilities, or risk the review not being relevant.

For games like this, I judge where to stop in a special way. Certain games will have unlockable skills or abilities that you get over time in the game. In “BL2,” you get to carry four weapons at a time after a certain point in the game. To me, when you’ve unlocked all the spells, or weapon slots, or skills or what have you, that is the point the game where the developers are saying “This is the full game from here on out. The rest is just story and exploring.” At that point, I review the game. I try not to give spoilers about the games I review because not everyone can beat a game in a week. It just isn’t doable and people like to play through the stories. That’s why they bought the game in the first place. However, I comment on whether it’s written well or fits in with the others and yadda yadda. No specifics.

I believe that you don’t have to complete a game to review it well, but you do have to play it for more than six hours or get to a point where the full game is unlocked for you. That’s just being professional and seeing the range of the title. However, others I know would argue that you have to finish the game. “What if something happens at the end that fucks it all up? What if you get special stuff near the end that is different than the stuff at the middle?” True, those things happen. No doubt, but I will play the games all the way through when I have the ability to. And I won’t comment on anything I haven’t seen or come into contact with myself for honesty’s sake.

It’s a difference in opinion, but it’s still professional to do either or. What is unacceptable is just writing a game off before you even play it and costing the company a sequel. That’s just wrong and an insult to the hours a person put into making something. It’s like saying, “Oh, I won’t go to this art gallery because I don’t like anything that person has done. Have I seen it? Oh, no, but I don’t like it.” That’s rude. And stupid. And you should feel bad. You know who you are.

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

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#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (War Games)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

Alright, let’s talk about something that’s been on my mind recently. As you know, I do a lot of game reviews for my sites and I see a lot of games. That’s just how I roll. But lately I’ve been seeing a LOT of the same when it comes to shooting games and I think the media and somewhat gaming culture has finally recognized it too in the last few years.

SHOOTER WAR GAMES ARE EVERYWHERE. And by “shooter war games” I mean games like Call of Duty or Battlefield 3, those types of games. But WHY are they everywhere? That’s really what struck me a month or so ago when I was looking at everything.

First I started to look at WHEN those games really began to appear. I’m no historian and I’m not using the Googles or the Wikipedia here but I wanna say somewhere around 2003 or 2004 is when these types of games began to get developed. Historically what happened around that time? Two or three years before that were the September 11^th attacks. Now, this is gonna get a little philosophical but bear with me.

So, you have a bunch of gamers and developers who just saw our nation get attacked, right? They’re mad. They’re confused. They’re scared.  They don’t know how to interpret these feelings. Not only that, but there’s a whole generation of people just like them who feel the same way. What do they do for a living? They make videogames.

Much like other forms of media or art, videogames show social trends. So, when the nation was confused and in some respects geared for a fight, so were these artists and programmers and developers.  What comes out in 2007? Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, in which the United States is embattled against a fictitious Middle-Eastern enemy and where U.S. troops are killed by an atomic explosion and must hunt down the makers of the weapons of mass destruction in some Eurasian-Russian country.

So this statement sort of makes it sound like the game devs were trying to capitalize on our national/social climate. While this might be true in some respects, I think what was really going on was that the developers and producers were trying to express their feelings and try to illustrate what might actually be happening overseas to further aid in the understanding of the national condition.

Am I saying that Activision and Infinity Ward made this game to help us better understand the plight of the War on Terror? No. What I am saying however is that I think these guys were trying to show what it MIGHT become if we continued down our current path and create a similar situation to illustrate the horrors of war that our troops were facing. On the other hand they might have just wanted to make a kickass game and they totally did. No question there.

But, lookit this now. Couple years AFTER CoD 4: MW is released, the country’s confusion and mistrust around the War on Terror begins to rise and the Bush administration is falling on hard times with the people. No one wants the war to continue. The enemy has now become the American resolve for war. The enemy within. Eh? Eeeeeh? THEN in 2009 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is released and in that game AMERICA is attacked and this time it is the ENTIRE country. I mean, Whitehouse on fire, Washington Monument with holes in it, the works. Very crazy. The enemy is now in the U.S.

So you see where I’m going with this? I think the popularity of these games was due to the social atmosphere of the country and how gamers were feeling. Now, why war games? Well this is simple, in my opinion. As a species we have a predisposition to AVOID pain. Think about it. After we’re attacked there are a LOT of people who enlist to go fight overseas. Some of the most COURAGEOUS people in the world are soldiers. And the rest of us have this feeling of wanting to be a part of that struggle and fight, but we are naturally afraid of going over there.

Game developers are included in that. So they make games about war in a fictitious setting where we fight a fake enemy like those who “attacked” us. It was a way for people to “feel like they were there without actually being there.”

Of course the games are fun and people like them, that’s a given. But I also think there is this psychological aspect to them that people aren’t seeing and really, that might be driving it a lot more than people think.

Lately the games have been taking things more towards the “war at home” feel. To be honest, it’s getting kind of scary. Tom Clancy’s newest project, Rainbow Six: Patriots, is going to be about domestic terrorism and counter-terrorism units fighting people who are regular citizens just like you and me. In 2010, THQ delivered the game Homefront, in which Kim Jong Il died, his son took over and invaded South Korea and Japan, then attacked America and invaded our nation in some crazy Red Dawn­-esque fiction. I freaked out when Kim Jong Il died in real life because according to the game, this was ABOUT the time that it happened and his son went into power in the game.

So I guess what I’m saying is that when you look at games like Call of Duty and you think “Oh it’s just another shooting game and it’s making our kids get all violent,” maybe you should think about the idea behind the game rather than what it is at face value. Sure, I could be TOTALLY off with this whole idea, I mean, it is a COMPLETE possibility, but all those classes I took in school really got me thinking about this stuff and I just wanted to share that with you.

This is a weird article to do before the holidays but I wanted to talk about it so…there ya go. :P Be safe nerds and nerdettes, and have a happy, happy holiday.

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (Love where you work)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

Occasionally, and by occasionally I mean like once every full moon of the third month, I get asked about my time at G4. When that happens I get one of those fuzzy-framed-nostalgia-filled flashbacks. Working at G4 as one of the Legendary Unpaid X-Play Interns was both magical and eye-opening. A lot of what I learned there has translated to my work at the Game Creators Vault.

Let me begin with my initial interview. I got all purtied up, wore a nice shirt, combed my hair, the basics when you go for a job interview. The guy who interviewed me was WAY cool, really laid back and he made me feel really at ease. We talked a little about my writing for IGN and for City of Heroes, what I wanted to get into, and what kind of games I played.

Time passes and I get a call that saying I got the position and basically started right away. My first day? Play a bunch of videogames and record my time playing them, then go help Michael Leffler (the comedy producer of G4 also known as Drunk Link of any of the other hilarious characters on the show) film one of the Golden Mullet sketches. Seriously, first day I was playing videogames and doing a G4 sketch. It was a dream come true.The offices of G4 are pretty amazing too. I mean it’s a bunch of cubicles, but still each one has some crazy videogame paraphernalia or comics all over the place, games systems everywhere, G4 TV programming playing at people’s desks, costumes strewn about. It was glorious madness. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so at home in a place than I did at G4.

Funny thing about G4, they share a floor with the Style Network since they’re both owned by NBC Universal. So occasionally you’d get someone leading clients or talent through the halls and you’d hear “And this is G4, you can tell by all the toys and dolls on their cubes,” to which my friends would emphatically mutter under their breath “They’re action figures!!!!”

So amidst shenanigans of all sorts and fun times playing videogames I actually got to see how their programming was set up and how their shows got put together. They get their games like a month in advance so they can film all the appropriate footage for the review ahead of time, then the footage is logged down in the editing bays. That footage is paired up with the voice over of one of the hosts and the text they say is written up by one of the reviewers. There’s at least five or six reviewers doing stuff for X-Play so they can do multiple games at a time and work on different packages for the show so there’s always programming.

For the Vault, since we can’t get games ahead of time, we try to buy them the day they come out and then cap the footage at my place or Anders’s place. Then we try and shoot a multitude of videos on a weekend where Michael (or from this point on Megatron, since I call him that) will take them to his place and edit them. It takes one to two weeks for Megatron to edit a video cause we’re all students and I understand that he’s got stuff on his mind. Plus Megatron is the man and people ask him to help them with projects all the time so I let him slide cause he’s boss.

Now, the ONLY thing I did NOT like doing at G4 transcribing interviews. Seriously, that was the only thing I didn’t enjoy about my job and I did it maybe twice. I just don’t like it because I want to know what they’re saying and not have to take notes on it. Kind of like watching an educational movie in school, you just want to watch it not do the worksheet.

I got to go into the editing bays and see how the packages were put together, how the scripts were written, I got to even write some mock scripts of my own. Heck, they let me write an article myself that got published on the website in the Feed section! It was AWESOME. I didn’t just make friends in X-Play, I made friends with the Attack of the Show team as well as the website crew.

The thing I took away from G4 was to enjoy your environment. I mean seriously, I can’t explain how STOKED I was to go to work EVERYDAY. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment. They had to tell me to go home because I wouldn’t leave. I played videogames for work, I hung out and talked about comics at lunch, and I got to wear a raccoon costume and get beat up by Morgan Webb. (click here to watch the video)

Honestly, if you love the environment you’re in, you’ll get work done. It won’t feel like work at all. Time just seemed to pass without me even realizing it. I’ve tried really hard to make the guys at the Vault feel that way. I want them to love working on the site and with me. I want them to enjoy it as much as I do. Whoever you work with or whatever you do, make sure you do it in a place that you enjoy being in and are doing something you love there. Just make sure it’s not the toilet cause that’s kind of weird.

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (Finding Your Zen)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

I was having a conversation with my sister the other day on the Facebook machine and she said something to me that really struck a chord. Jackie, my big sis, has always been one of my closest friends in the world, and I’ve always taken her advice to heart. While we were talking she said one of the most important things she wanted was for me to find my peace, to stop and find a way to let myself be.

Lately I’ve been really involved with work and school and chugging along in my life. Things have just been going really well and I’ve wanted to capitalize on that momentum and really push myself to do the best that I can.

Jackie was worried I wasn’t taking time to slow up and really take some stock in my life and make sure I’m happy with who I am. That’s very important, but to be honest, I’m not the kind of person to slow things down when I’m doing stuff. I’m always doing SOMETHING. If I’m watching TV I’m thinking about the Vault too or shuffling cards. If I’m writing I’m listening to music. Even when I was a kid I was kind of a spaz. But the idea Jackie had, letting myself be, that was the key thing I took from her.

I started really seeing how to do that while working in my dad’s shop. There’s that old saying that working with your hands shuts off your mind and really allows you to be at peace, right? I have no idea who says that. I think lumberjacks say it. Yeah, lumberjacks, that sounds right.
 
Okay, point is, they’re right. When I was working on signs or banners and whatever I really started to feel calm and at peace with what was going on in my life. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain. Things started to fall into place in my head and I was able to look at them in a whole different perspective. I started to really value all the things that’d happened to me lately and find all the good things in my life.
   
Now, I’m not saying you all need to go out and start making signs. You need to find the thing that Zens you out. Sign making isn’t the only thing that Zens me. I mean, part of the reason I’m in video game journalism is because video games calm me down. I get angry? I play some violent games. I need to take my mind off of something? I play something like Skyrim and hunt for supplies to make a bunch of armor. Because I’m always doing something, being engaged in something I like or that’s fun or that requires little work Zens me out.
   
Now, what does that mean in relation to you? Since everyone isn’t the same finding your Zen is a bit of a personal thing. Some people like to meditate, others do crafts or take up some sort of trade. Heck, I know some people work out cause it calms their storm. The point is that you need to think of the things that you like, all those things you really enjoy about life or really enjoy about yourself, and start exploring those.

It’s like that Sound of Music song! But instead of raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens I think about stabbing a dragon in the face and driving the Russian army back from the coast of New York. Totally different but eerily similar in effect. Trust me. Writing has the same effect too which is why I like working for this site.

Eccentricities aside, this is kind of a therapeutic thing. I mean I really learned a lot about myself and was able to actually cool myself off from an argument with my parents by Zenning out. You’d be really surprised what you can accomplish internally and personally when you just kind of let yourself be. Also, if by letting yourself be you end up doing something in the process and it gets completed, then it’s a win-win! Right?

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!