A Week In Gaming With Adam Cook

Wow, a lot can happen in a short time folks!  Back when I wrote my first “A Week in Gaming with…” I was getting into the throws of the site happenings, and now I’m the Community Manager, though I still of course am a writer and contributer.  But a lot can happen, and since then we’ve welcomed another two writers, both friends of mine (Jim San and Tony Windebank) who I’m really pleased to see become a part of the site as I always find their opinions interesting and enjoyable to hear, I think you will as well.

My new job basically entails “managing” the “community” (no…really?) which really means I promote the site via any social media I can whilst playing a large part in the forums (which you really ought to register and post in), running competitions and the like.  I also appeared on the latest GodisaGeek podcast, which I thought was excellent fun and a damn good laugh!

Last time around I talked about Xbox LIVE and parental settings, but this time I want to talk about something slightly closer to home, reviews and reviewing.

Just lately there’s been some “controversy” surrounding certain articles that have been published on the site (Halo Reach, COD Black Ops, Castlevania) and I have to concede that I find myself slightly baffled at the reactions that we’ve recieved.

It’s not exclusive to GodisaGeek either, visit any half decent gaming forum and you’ll find an “Edge scores thread” (or similar) where people get to vent their frustration and outrage that a certain publication hasn’t given the game they love (even though they’ve not played it yet) the score they deem it worthy of!

What I’d like to remind people of is that reviews are a personal opinion, usually by someone deemed “qualified” to write about the content in question, but nonetheless, a review is just one persons opinion.  Recently I gave the title RUSE a score of 7/10 whereby I recieved comments that people felt the game deserved an 8 or 9.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I like the game, but that I was reviewing the copy provided to me which happened to be on Xbox 360 and in my opinion a console is not the best place to play an RTS unless (as I stated in my review) it was on the PS3 with the new Move controls.  As it happens I have a copy of the game winging its way to me on PS3 as I write this, meaining I will be going back to it and trying it again with the MOVE controls. If I feel that functionality deserves a higher score, I will indeed write an addendum to my review explaining that fact, with a new score to match.

Secondly, (and the other thing I’d like to discuss in this feature) I’d like to say that a 7/10 is still a bloody good game.  A lot of other sites may not use the full scale in a xx/10 system, but we at Godisageek.com DO use that full scale.  I refer you to the recent Ninenty Nine Nights 2 review by Robin Parker as evidence to that fact.  Not so much with RUSE, but generally with scores, getting upset or angry that a game got a 7/10 and not an 8/10 seems a bit of a waste of energy, either way the game is good and worth your attention but again, please remember that the score is a reflection of the reviewers personal opinion.

All of this isn’t a case of me not wanting to hear others thoughts on our content, I really love reading other gamers thoughts, from the sublime to the ridiculous…I absolutely adore it.  I’d just like to appeal for calm a little and ask people to think before they get personal about things, and start getting abusive.  It’s unneccesary and honestly, it’s rather silly.

I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on anything gaming related, that’s why I spent so much time promoting and contributing to the GodisaGeek forum, so please come on over and talk to us, even if it’s constructive criticism, as I don’t think any writer worth his or her salt would ever claim to be above that kind of thing.

Finally, I’d like to add a further congratulations to Adam Neaves for winning the Plants vs. Zombies competition and also add a thank you to Ember at PopCap Games for providing the prize and generally being so accomodating/helpful.  Stay tuned to the site though as this is just the beginning, in weeks to come we’ll have some cool SEGA t-shirts/bags to give away and some Halo related items as well, but to be in with a chance of entering every competition you’ll need to be a registered user of the forum.

Apologies that I didn’t talk too much about any games this time around, but in truth we’ve got so much content coming up in the coming weeks (including features on MOVE, a Flight Control HD review, a HAWX 2 review to name just a few items) that you’ll definitely be getting your fill of games content here at GodisaGeek.com

I hope you all have a wonderful week and are enjoying Reach (I am!) and Move (I am!!) along with all the other wonderful things out right now, it truly is the best time to be a gamer! 😀