What is Videogame Musing?

So how does this differ from dozens of fine videogame review sites that litter the internet?

Well most review sites have three types of articles. You have your review of course; the preview and the general interest article. Let’s see how these work.

Let us take a real game Avatar Fly (XBIG) that was recently released. The preview of said game would go something like this. (well exactly like this it turns out)

“Ninja Fever has released a new Xbox Live Indie Game. "Avatar... Fly!" lets you master the sky in stereo 3D. Did you ever wanted to fly with your avatar? Now you can! Master the sky reaching all the rings and demonstrate your flying skills to the players all over the world. Will you reach the Top of the Hall of Fame? "Avatar... Fly!" also gives you the chance to play in stereo 3D with the standard cyan-red glasses. This addictive game is the first step of the Ninja Fever team in the stereo 3D area, while keeps doing hard work to provide the user with all stereo visualization standards.”

Wow I would want to play that… which is the purpose of a preview.

The review might read the following

Avatar Fly 4/5 If you long for Superman 64 on your Xbox live account fear no longer it is now available and in 3-D to boot. Those that have missed the challenging Superman flying through rings levels from that Nintendo classic can have all the excitement with your own custom superhero. Avatar Fly is only held back by a lack of Co-op play and limited level design. Still a great 42^nd effort by the boys at Ninja Fever.

Eventually the game may make it in an general interest article titled say “Why do All Avatar Games Suck” where the same site bemoans the obvious fact that some numb nuts took one of the most mocked parts (Superman flying through rings) of one of the most mocked games (Superman 64) and turned it into an Xbox Live Indie release complete with the overused Avatar crutch and even more dead horse beating 3D instead of creating dynamic game play.

So you see the quandary… All games are great in the preview; even reviews on many sites (though certainly not all) serve up tepid if you like flying through rings and are impressed with latest trends Avatar Fly is for you verbiage. It is only after a certain amount of time has passed can we talk about what shite the game is.

Videogame Musings is… well… different. We will have occasional capsule reviews (because I am often to lazy to write a proper one, as any fans of Illustrated Journal of Cinematic Diversions can testify.) We will also review the reviews. When a major web site releases some self serving tripe or an incredible incompetent review (The Escapist’s review of Just Cause 2 is a good start.) I will be here to parse the disaster for your reading pleasure. Heck I will even alert you to such goodies as the worst performance on a podcast ever (Jem Alexander Sony rep on Eurogamer.net Podcast #10)

In addition I will write poorly researched articles such as

Is the new Gran Turismo really Duke Nukem Racing?

Why I will never be a real games journalist (I liked Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights better than Psychonauts for example.)

Why Saints Row 2 was a better game than Grand Theft Auto 4 (Reason number #14 I will never be a real games journalist)

Who is hotter Abbie Heppe or Morgan Webb (Simply an excuse for a gratuitous photo blog)

Ridiculously dated articles such as “The 2600, Intellivision and Odyssey 2 battle it out”

And plenty of other free flowing gaming related nonsense…

Well I hope you enjoy and feel free to comment on such missives as if EA had released Backbreaker as Madden Football 2011 people would have attacked the studio with torches and pitchforks.

I’m looking forward to it.

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