Aerial Antics - 52 Words

Aerial Antics is a game based solely on flying around in a jetpack, usually with the aim of getting from one platform to another. Unfortunately the act of flying around, something key to the game, is too awkward and the steering is too vague and imprecise for this game to be enjoyable.

Meta Reviews

For the assignment of Meta reviewing Gun, I used reviews from Gamespy, (http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=642410) Gamerfeed (http://pc.gamerfeed.com/gf/reviews/993/) and also IGN. (http://pc.ign.com/articles/665/665543p1.html) The reason I picked these three reviews is because they give three varying accounts of the game so hopefully this will mean that the styles of review differ between articles. I also only reviewed PC port of the game, not the console versions.

The first review, from Gamespy, features an excellent introduction. Just as the article claims Gun receives bonus points for not featuring "Nazis, aliens, terrorists, robots, gladiators, zombies, demons, or monsters of any kind" then this review receives bonus points for featuring an entertaining opening which quickly grabs the attention of the reader. From this opening the review branches out to talk about the plot of Gun, without giving too much away, as well as drawing comparisons to the Grand Theft Auto franchise in that they both boast of having open ended gameplay. In terms of the way the review is broken up, the paragraphs tend to be clearly split up between positive and negative. An example of this being that the review mentions the mini games and the sorts of things you can do, and then the next paragraph is spent discussing the lack of depth within these mini games.

There is a very different feel to the Gamerfeed review then there is to the other reviews. The layout is distinctly different in that you are shown both a quick review, the pros and cons and even the conclusion before a more in depth review. Personally I don't like this layout as it encourages people to not bother reading the in depth review and just take a quick look at the conclusion to ascertain whether the game is any good or not. If the reader was determined to read the actual proper review however, then they would read a fairly decent review. It is similar to the Gamespy review in that it draws parallels to Grand Theft Auto and also comments on the relative originality of the
"Wild West" setting that Gun has, yet also does manage to comment on more things about the game, such as the amount of well known actors lending their voice to the game. Indeed, this review claims the audio work on Gun to be its best feature and claims the voice acting to be "phenomenal" and " quite possibly the best we've seen" This reviews main gripe about the game is about the poor port of the PC version from the consoles and marks the game down quite considerably for this.

IGN provide the final review and very impressive it is too. This review is the only one to point out that all Neversoft (the makers of Gun) have done for seven years is make skateboarding games, with the successful Tony Hawk brand. Therefore they try to draw comparisons with Gun and the Tony Hawk series to make sure this point is not lost on the reader. For example in the box at the end rating the game, in the presentation section they say the following, "Standard Tony Hawk like menus." Again also, several comparisons to Grand Theft Auto are made, with the storyline you can dip into at any time, as well as the mini games and open ended gameplay. The review covers a lot of ground and is very comprehensive, one problem I have with it despite this is that it tends to give away too much of the story which means there won't be a great deal to surprise you if you bought or played the game on the strength of that review. Overall IGN do a great job in stretching out a review for a game where in the end they essentially tell you that Gun is an above average game, perhaps worth a rental.

Overall I would place the IGN review as the best, followed by the Gamerfeed review and then finally Gamespy. My rationale for this is that the IGN review is by far the most comprehensive and after reading this review you would be in no doubt whether Gun was the game for you. I feel that the Gamespy review is rather formulaic with its approach of mentioning a feature then simply moving onto another feature, to me it seems a bit disjointed. It has an excellent beginning but sadly runs out of steam rather quickly.

New games journalism review

New Games Journalism can be described as a “revolution” against the structure of most video games magazine or website based reviews. A NGJ style view would not be considered a review in the usual sense of the word; instead you will find personal anecdotes and references to pop culture. It could be compared to travel writing, as the author of such a piece will comment on the events and challenges that the gaming environment poses them, in a similar way to how a travel writer may comment on challenges and personal experiences. Crucially then, a NGJ review may not give away too much about a games merits or indeed its failings as it chooses to focus mainly on the players own in-game experience. Can this be considered as a saviour for an ailing business (Sales of video games magazines have fallen over the last few years) or simply as pretentious, non relevant journalism?

Well, certainly the latter can be argued to be true simply by looking at which games sell the most. Look in the games charts and you will probably see familiar franchises such as Fifa, Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Burnout. Regardless of the great reviews a game may get, if it isn’t familiar it probably won’t sell well. Beautifully crafted works of art such as Ico on the Playstation 2 received excellent reviews across the board but Sony hardly shifted any copies of it. Another example of this could be Darwinia, an excellent game sadly pushed to the sides by a stream of franchises people already feel at home with. My point is that games journalism needs to come a long way before people consider it essential to look up a review of a game before they buy it. No matter how many average scores Fifa Soccer gets, it will still sell excellently and usually on the back of boasting a few more kits then last year, or the chance to play in the Bangladesh second division. People like these types of games, they are within a person’s safety zone, they are familiar. New games journalism is not familiar. That being said, it does lend itself well to certain genres, particularly MMO games, such as Planetside. (See Jim Rossignol’s piece Going Planetside) Here the experiences are not guaranteed and everyone will come out of the game with their own individual story to tell.

Casting an eye to the future I honestly am uncertain as to the future of NGJ. I feel that the games industry as a whole would have to change for it to become relevant enough for the majority of gamers to take notice. There will always be a niche for NGJ; of that I can be certain and as I said above, it can lend itself well to certain games.
However, as long as the big franchises rule the charts then a simple review breaking down graphics, sound and gameplay is perfectly adequate, people only want to know what is tacked on this year that they didn’t get in last years version.