[Aj_]

I don't much like kotaku, I think some of the anti-Microsoft, pro-Blu-ray articles have been based completely on BS, but I agree with this article. many previews, and even reviews, are game marketing.

It's also the case of sites wanting to encourage game development, so looking at every game preview in a positive light, ignoring all the nagging fears and problems that are so apparant. They're afraid that influencing the developer before release will screw up the game, and it's true, some times good games are ruined by feedback and commity. Yet, sometimes when a game really sucks, it's really neccessary.

Previews should be about hopes and fears. Right now, they're just about hopes, and game sites employ glass half full people. Retailers and publishers should not look at previews to determine anything.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

I am yet to read a SINGLE preview where the previewer comes out and says that the game looks like crap.

I haven't read a preview that harsh myself, but Edge's previews can be fairly critical, their recent preview of Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure comes to mind.

Originally Posted by Spiwak

Also, I don't think I've ever seen big coverage of a game that did turn out to be "crap"....disappointing maybe, but not complete crap.

*cough*50 Cent: Bulletproof*cough*

Or should I mention Daikatana?

Personally, I'm sick of coverage some obviously derivative games get, it's not like there are no interesting, original games to write about. Yet magazines are always full of previews for yet another bland FPS, RTS, GTA clone or whatever. I'm against biased bashing of those games, but maybe they shouldn't get so much spotlight. Just do a news item about them or preview them once, don't keep writing about them over and over again. And if you do preview them, at least have the guts to say "we've seen this many times before".

I'm not saying that every good game has to be innovative or that innovative games are good per se, but if a game obviously doesn't cut it and it's clear everybody's talking about it just because the publisher is pushing it - who couldn't tell 25 to Life wasn't going to be anything special? - have the dignity to say so.

Anyway, some more discussion here.