A couple of people have pointed me to Something Awful's Five Worst Gaming Articles of 2005 list. Zack Parsons did a wonderful job of proving that you can be both an asshole and right at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I love SA and I friggin adore this article. But man, he's harsh. I suppose sometimes you need a bitch slap to keep things "real", and who better to deliver it?

The five worst are used to show major flaws in today's game journalism from suck-up reviews as illustrated by Planet Gamecube, to sensationalist previews by GameSpot, to the rambling antics of Tim Rogers, to (shudder) pretentious non-reviews as illustrated by Kieron Gillen.

The best of the bunch, by far, is Zack's review of Gillen's review of Darwinia. First let me say that I still can't make up my mind about Kieron and New Game Journalism. On the one hand it is incredibly elitist and pretentious, but on the other hands current game magazing journalism is, for the most part, crap.

So I suppose pretentious, self-aggrandizing twaddle is much better than poorly written, confused slop, but I'm still not a huge fan of either. And apparently, neither is Zack. From his review review:

The grand finale of this article actually appears just before his little festival of excuses in his rambling and parenthetical review. The first time I read it I laughed at how he's such a huge asshole. Then I read it a second time and I wanted to cave in his face with a shovel.

There are a few other problems which I don't really consider problems. Speaking generally, it strikes me already that its reviews are going to be brutally mixed, though the writing will tell as much - if not more - about the limitations of the reviewer as the limitations of Darwinia.

"If you don't get Darwinia then you're an idiot." Congratulations on inspiring my personal boycott of this game, Kieron. If you're the sort of person that gets Darwinia then the game is for cunts.

When he's right, he's right.

The Five Worst Gaming Articles of 2005 [Something Awful]

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