Essentially, instead of hanging back and being sensible -- sensible in knowing that me creating a blog is pointless and will change nothing -- I just thought "Eamon - Fuck it" and will do whatever I can to help salvage any honour in what is the wilderness of gaming media at the moment. That's probably a kind way of putting it, mind, since it's more akin to a festering wretch-filled hellhole in reality, with gaming "journalists" relentlessly contributing an infinite amount of bullshit and drivel to every gaming related website, blog, or magazine in existence.
I'm not educated to any level of college or university degree, in fact my basic GCSE grades are well below standard, and my main designated role in life should be to hang-round on street corners smoking cigarettes, tucking Adidas tracksuit bottoms into my pulled-up socks, and threatening unassuming and law-abiding citizens such as Gerard Butler. Somehow, even with a less-than-pleasant upbringing, I've managed to evade turning into a complete waster, and have instead morphed into a waster that videogames. Quite the achievement round these parts, let me assure you (currently the most ambitious goal of my people is to learn the craziness of not only the English language, but using it to make words too). Throw in bouts of OCD, fear of social embarrassment, and misanthropy, and you have the makings of a guy who spends far too much time playing games.
So much time, in fact, that I'm here now blogging to my-fucking-self on the internet in some hope of contributing something tangible for gaming journalism that isn't corrupted by lack of experience, foolishness, ego, bias, or idiocy.
Even with my lack of academics, I aim to write down my thoughts on gaming on this ere blog. My written skills might not be as colourful as some moron over on Eurogamer, but I'm hoping that the actual meaning and point of my words are enough to overcome my shortcomings. In essence, I'm trying to make gaming media be more about informative, accurate, and unbiased opinion and criticism and eventually expect gaming journalists on the whole to contribute more meaningful work so that both developers and gamers can reap the benefits.
This is how it is, don't you see?
As it is, too many journalists write or say things that undermine the very concept of critiquing to the point that other forms of media make a mockery of it (e.g. films; refer to Rotten Tomatoes to see my point) and as a gamer I'm sick and tired of it. I'm sick of going onto a website, seeing mass advertising banners, reading a review of said game that does nothing but list its features without any opinion input what-so-ever (or having an opinion that doesn't differentiate from the masses at-all), and then noticing a nicely inflated score tagged on the end.
Without getting too much into at this stage -- since we're still on the introduction here, not an essay -- I just want to point out the main thing that seems to have defined why gaming reviews and journalism is so bad. Essentially, most people working in the gaming media are no different to you or I - they're gamers. Problem is, they need to be more than 'just gamers', they need to be professional critics; their mindset when reviewing games should be of critiquing, not playing it as-if they're a bog-standard gamer. I don't come to a review to know what a 'gamer' thinks -- I got Amazon.com user ratings for that -- I come there for informative criticism on whether the game is a good piece of design or not. It's like asking me to go look at a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci - I'll come back and say "it's good", but what fucking use is that to anyone beyond me or my friends? What you really want is for an established art critic to view it and then give you their professional opinion, and that's what's severely lacking in gaming at the moment.
For however long I deem this blog relevant, I'll contribute further to this notion of bad reviewers while also posting my own reviews of games old and new. Again I stress my academic ability with words and literature isn't what will make my posts relevant, it's the core meaning and opinion that should enlighten readers. I'm not saying I'm going to have the most valid opinion on games out there, but with all the points above, I sure as hell can't be any worse than what it is now. In any case, I'm more than confident my taste and views on gaming are more refreshing and consistent than what most gamers currently get, so once a pattern emerges with my reviews it'll become easier to know how I roll. A fair warning though - Big publishers, guns, explosions, tits and shooting people in the face over multi-player definitely don't guarantee success from me, which I know is a rare fucking thing these days. I play and appreciate roughly 80% of the different game-types out there, so I'm also confident I can keep a good handle on what's relevant and worth reviewing now and in the future. Anything from Strategy and Hack 'n' slash games, right through to hardcore Role-Playing and Beat 'Em Up games, I have most things covered.
Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. It still feels incredibly stupid writing this thing knowing full-well that no-one is going to read it, but my hope is that in the future my reviews and opinions will be widespread enough that eventually people will come back to this first post and so my words aren't a waste of time. In any case, these opening posts will help explain my methods of writing, my reviews and how my thoughts are going to pour out in the future.
Okay then, let's get dis shit started.
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