I have a fury tonight
My post about Walking Dead caused a rage from late 2012/early 2013 to resurface. At the beginning of the year the phrase “game changer” was tossed around like an angry college girl’s iPhone. Every site and critic was applying the label liberally and I disagreed humbly with all of them. And by “humbly” I mean I went to every site and spammed walls of text in protest to each pretentious assertion that GTA5 was going to change the landscape of gaming. That this new Call of Duty was something we’ve never seen before. That FIFA 2013 really, really let you control the players this time.
The list goes on.
Critics once disguised the fact that their reviews were just ads; bought and paid for marketing. The beginning of 2013 marked the era of pissing in your mouth and calling it rain.
My fury resurfaced because The Walking Dead was on that list of “game changers.” I refrained during my previous post from ranting about a seven month old quarrel.
As you can see, I’ve changed my mind. My nerd rage has boiled over into its own post on the subject of “Walking Dead: The Game Changer.”
I have nothing against Telltale Games and actually enjoyed The Walking Dead.
But every review makes this game sound like the second coming of a (potential) Sega Console.
But Andrew, zombies are a revolutionary design idea and character driven stories and adventure games have never been done before. “Story Driven Games” aren’t a thing you constantly talk about to the point of sermon. What the fuck are these “Lucas Arts, point-and-click Adventure games” you keep name dropping? Who is Tim Schafer anyway? Do you still have that Kickstarter Link for that Neverhood guy’s game? /end sarcasm.
I’m sorry, IGN. The Walking Dead is business as usual for Telltale Games and a drop in the bucket of great adventure games.
Perhaps what all those other reviewers mean by “game changer” is that the Call of Duty crowd will now run rampant for the next adventure game… and that is impressive.
I suppose an apology is in order:
Bioshock Infinite,
You really are an awesome game. I said a bunch of bad stuff about you earlier on in the year. We still have our disagreement about the “rushed ending” but that doesn’t make you any less awesome. In fact, you’re probably the game I’ve enjoyed the most this year. The nature of your narrative seamlessly woven into highly polished gameplay and an ending that HAD to be experienced as a video game are true game changers.
I hope future games can learn from your mighty example.
Love,
Andrew