The problem with professional gaming reviews

So you've been blogging for a while, you may have made a name for yourself, you may have applied or been approached to write for a gaming site and they'll pay you to blog about games! Yay the dream is reality! I'm happy for you, we all are because as readers we get to see you do all the work of investigating into games that we don't have the money to pay for right away and so on.

However recently something has been getting on my nerves and it's only really hit me now because the MMO I've been waiting for 3 years is finally out and I've been gleefully playing every day, for at least an hour, knowing for once my character won't be deleted. Yes I'm talking about Aion. :D

What's really bugging me is something I have been aware of for sometime but has not offended me before because mainly it was something about games I didn't care so much about. It wasn't about something I was a downright fan girl of and I think at this point I can say that because I'm going to love this game no matter how long I have to wait in queue and however great my hatred for personal shops will become and ect... So what is this thing? It's the picking apart and dissecting of an experience.

MMOs are not static games you do not go out to the store and buy a product that will always be relatively the same, which may be expanded upon with more content but generally every time you go through a part over and over it's always predictably the same, as far as role playing games are concerned. But like the label says on your favorite MMO box: "Game Experience May Change During Online Play". You buy an MMO for the experience for the fact that you will be playing with and against others just like you. Community and interaction with friends and in this case even enemies are a fundamental part of the game and to me it seems like this aspect is something we've taken so much for granted we just sweep it aside. Instead focusing on features and technicalities and personal expectations of what we're looking for in the MMO we're trying out.

And I'm guilty of this in the most supreme way. I've played MMOs at launch to 'try them out' to see what fuss was about, to maybe find the good things some people were looking forwards to. But in the end abandoning the game for some rather poor reason which usually no matter how much you try to rationalize it ends up being because; "It just didn't do it for me".

And you know what that's fine, please do tell me this isn't your cup of tea, please tell me you personally won't be playing and would rather play WoW, WAR, AoC, Eq2, EVE, whatever floats your boat! However do not be using your personal tastes to explain why we should all be tired of certain mechanics and why something doesn't work because it's not wholly original. Something does not need to be new to function how it's supposed to. Do your homework and put things in perspective. What were the goals of the developer? Have they achieved them? I dare you to tell me NCsoft failed in this in any way.

When you pick at all the parts of a game like this you dilute what the whole experience is about. You lose focus on why you'd even want to play an MMO. And to me this is where Aion truly shines, it just has everything in the right places; my favorite way to nuke mobs with combo chains, wonderful music, atmospheric sounds and details like spider webs, squirrels and chickens running from you, flocks of birds taking to the sky, butterflies and will' o' the wisp things floating about, a great weather system, interesting quest lines with humorous characters, a crafting system I can sink my teeth into and still don't fully understand yet. It's the whole package brought together that makes this such a fun place to be, and this isn't true of just Aion and why YOU should play too, it's true of most any MMO. The difficult part is figuring out if you personally like the overall experience or not.

No it's not enough to say the game isn't that good because it's just like something else you've played. That's irrelevant to the bigger picture because people who really want to play this MMO are people who don't want to play the other one you're comparing it to in your head.

Ultimately if you are being paid for writing and reviewing new games be darned sure to be fair and understand the nature of MMO launches, otherwise you are what I despise the most in modern media; a sensationalist (see Eurogamer). And if all you have to say that's negative about a game is that it lacks soul, please don't be wasting my time. It's an online game, it's soul lies in it's players. (If you know who I'm talking about, please do know I actually really enjoy and admire this writer, but this truly bugged me)

And actually yes let's go more into that the crux of mmo gaming, the other players. Since when is this genre supposed to hand you everything... ? Wait don't answer that.. :( Should we not be encouraged to interact with others, in you know a massively multiplayer game? Whether it's browsing someone's wares, or defeating the enemy and racking more points at their detriment isn't what this whole darned thing is about? To engage in the community somehow while being immersed in a different world? That's the game's soul, that's where the fun is and unfortunately somehow it's where the focus has been lacking recently, we worry so much about being innovative and wanting something so different then what we've had so far the criticism goes through the roof when a game just like the others but in a shinier wrapper comes along.

Let me make a prediction. One of the next BIG launches is going to be Star Wars: The Old Republic. And that game is going to engender some glowing reviews and some downright nasty ones too. Because this is what apparently the MMO community at large wants, a solo able MMO with cinematic and very personal story progression. Which it will have, but at what cost? Can you hear the massive whines already? Because I think I can. I'm going to bet those complaints will be about features that people thought they wanted too.

Not every MMO or game is the same, it's not because one has too much of something you don't care about anymore that it automatically makes those features not enjoyable for others (In Aion's case more of the same is exactly what was expected...). Emotional opinions like mine I think are fine on a personal blog like this one, but if you are getting paid to write this stuff I'd love to see more actual journalism concerning facts and light on personal opinion. And no professional opinion is not the same as personal ones. I can write about pears and say how they taste tangy and at once sweet and make delicious pies, while personally totally hating pears and think they are too sweet or too bland. Just as an example. :P

So in conclusion what I'm getting what is the problem with professional gaming reviews is often the reviewer will fall into the trap of luring the reader and use emotion and personal taste to play around with our own tastes and reactions. And honestly I am tired of that, if I want a personal opinion I'll read someone's blog or journal.

Which raises another question, does professional blogging exist at all?