I think I found the most pretentious video game review site ever.

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ensouls

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Feb 1, 2010
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That wasn't a review, that was someone trying to either write a two page joke or sneak a video game into their high school English assignment.
 

nbamaniac

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Hmmm i found myself replacing every interrogative sentence with 'penis' and every declarative sentence with 'vagina' and the resulting read was still better what I have read earlier.
 

bobfish92

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Feb 2, 2011
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Firstly, its a horrible review, however provides interesting ideas - its just the ideas are coated in polished sleeze.
Secondly:
Sigh.
Games are a medium. A medium cannot be art, hence games cannot be art, the same way a blank canvas isn't (unless you're from the tate modern). Its all down to the content/message to determine what it is. Maybe secretly everything this guy is saying is what Rockstar actually planed, maybe its not, but as with everything someone will find deeper meaning, even if its not and he isn't a giant troll, the game is art to him as he found depth to it and social commentary. Artistic merit is perceived through the eye of the viewer.
 

iamultraman

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That was disgusting. Woof. Normally when people say something is pretentious, it's often just plain, honest commentary coming from rather intelligent people; the pretentiousness is only assumed because honesty is not considered wholly professional. Extra Credits is not pretentious, Zero Punctuation is not pretentious; it's just honest people who give honest opinions, which I suppose bothers some people because not everyone wants to have opinions forced on them. That's not a bad lifestyle. But those guys aren't forceful.

This writer is forceful. He forces you to adhere to his strange logic, and forces you to adhere to the emotions he felt during his time of gameplay. That's wrong. A critic never does that. A critic does what I mentioned above. This guy is a total hack. The thing is, I understood his point. Yeah, the game's not realistic. No game is. Understandably if you roleplayed as Phelps you'll definitely get an existentialist breakdown. But you look here. If you're concerned about how a realistic a story is, how it portrays the real world, then you're no artist, because no story worth its chops describes the real world. They do describe themes we observe in life and they describe symbols we observe in life, which ultimately describes life more than if we wrote about every detail on existence. Storytellers write about what life means through images and anecdotes, metaphor and humor; story-telling is taking a theme from your own life and making it seem familiar, making it as effectual to your listener as it was to you. That's why I accuse this man of not getting it; he concentrated way too much on the game's ability to craft a world, rather than the game's ability to craft an experience. I know he didn't get the game. I know he pulled this out of his ass. And that makes me angry. It's one thing to simply say a person's work is bad. It's another, obscene thing to take that work, to interpret it so as to deface the author's original intent (thus insulting the author), and to say it's bad afterwards.

As for those who did like the review; why. Whyyyyyyyyy
 

userwhoquitthesite

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Thrust said:
You know what ? I actually like this guy, he does have SOME valid points, and seems like we shouldn't take him too seriously.
I agree! This wasn't pretentious, it was whimsical. An interesting, if dark, interpretation that I think makes the game work better. L.A. Noire has a non-plot with an unlikeable main character in a sea of unlikeable characters. The police force is a cliche playset of characters so stock you could make soup with them.

Film noir has always been a formula genre and I am willing to give the game some leeway, since it at least tries to be original. But let's leave the story and characters behind. The gameplay in L.A. Noire was... lacking. The inability to choose your actions really hurt the game. Now, I understand the design choice in NOT allowing Rockstar fans to whip out a gun at any moment and shooting the coroner in an attempt to be ironic. However, In all the various street crime scenarios, I was wishing I had a larger way to interact with the world. The bizarre contextual abilities of Phelps become increasingly irritating. Why do I have to take ten endless seconds to line up a magical "warning shot" when I can fire my gun all day long at them? Why can't I shoot a runner in the leg to slow or stop him, allowing me to take him in alive? Speaking of taking people alive, why is it that tackling only works on some people? I chased one guy into a box and I was literally AT HIS HEELS the entire time. I'm not saying that the gang of dudes with tommy guns and BARs is gonna be taken alive. I'm fine with some encounters only playing out violently. Some of these gunfights could EASILY be defused with less restrictive gameplay.

The makers of this game may have made a gorgeous little game, and the facial animation was impressive, but the actual game suffers for a clear focus on art design over functional gameplay elements. I don't have any real complaints over the clue-hunting, despite impatience with false clues. I did, however take tremendous exception to the schizophrenic nature of the dialogue in interrogation sessions. Many times, I had no idea what option to choose, because the subject of discussion was entirely different. Any Mass Effect players remember the conversation choices being mere suggestions of the dialogue Shepard would then issue forth. L.A. Noire builds upon that premise by having the various question options often have ENTIRELY different trains of thought attached.

I dunno. I had enough fun with the game to finish it to its wholly unsatisfying conclusion, so it has some merits. But it's still a mostly failed experiment.

So any attempt to liven this mess up or lend it a flair of artistry? I say go for it. I'm gonna bookmark this site now.
 

Haukur Isleifsson

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Jun 2, 2010
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BGH122 said:
Viking Incognito said:
50 out of what?
Out of what? Out of what?!

"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.

"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.

"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.

With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.

"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.

The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.

My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.

Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.

I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.

I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.

"Out of what?" the question squealed.


Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
Damn man. It kind of hurt reading that. Know you were trying to sound pretentious and all but this just crossed some lines.

But on topic: I really can't see what's so bad about this thing. It is a straight forward prose formed around a neat little idea. Sure some of the words were a bit longer or rarer than you might be used to but its pretty plain English.
 

BGH122

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Jun 11, 2008
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Haukur Isleifsson said:
BGH122 said:
Viking Incognito said:
50 out of what?
Out of what? Out of what?!

"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.

"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.

"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.

With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.

"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.

The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.

My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.

Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.

I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.

I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.

"Out of what?" the question squealed.


Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
Damn man. It kind of hurt reading that. Know you were trying to sound pretentious and all but this just crossed some lines.
Haha I was so pretentious that it was offensive? That's a newly discovered skill!
 

no space

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Dec 30, 2010
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I'm not seeing the problem here. Most of us seem to want games to be considered art. This is what comes of that. This isn't a review, despite what may be said. This is a critique. This is a analysis. This seems "pretentious" because it's not reviewing the game, it's reviewing what the game is. I don't think the number score means anything at all. God, now I feel pretentious just talking about this. What have we done.
 

Ericb

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Alex Cowan said:
Saying that, I'm one of those artsy types (Yes, The Great Gatsby has wonderful symbolism, thank you), and I see a value for this style of critical analysis in the video game industry. One doesn't go looking to someone with a degree in English Literature to answer the question "Should I buy x book?", one goes to them for an analysis of themes, an exploration of character and authorial intention, rather than the arbitrary fault-finding of commercial reviewers, and this is the function that this site holds.
That site reminded not a little of Insert Credit in its heyday. I actually miss that kind of videogame's critique.

As someone a few posts before already weote, we already have more than enough of "consumer reports". I'd much rather have someone try and fail spetacularly at originality than be successful at mediocrity.

Alex Cowan said:
Saying that, the fact that they feel the need to tack a review score on the end seems completely arbitrary and worthless - that would be like a critic doing an extended analysis of, say, Wagner's use of motif in Tristan und Isolde only to turn around and rate the opera out of 100. Especially considering how precise their scores are... (they gave Bulletstorm 73. Why 73? Why not 75? What specific 2% worth of the game were missing that you felt it just didn't quite hit 75?)
That's how I feel about review scores in general. Specific points discussed have much more value than numerical points.
 

Haukur Isleifsson

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Jun 2, 2010
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BGH122 said:
Haukur Isleifsson said:
BGH122 said:
Viking Incognito said:
50 out of what?
Out of what? Out of what?!

"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.

"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.

"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.

With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.

"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.

The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.

My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.

Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.

I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.

I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.

"Out of what?" the question squealed.


Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
Damn man. It kind of hurt reading that. Know you were trying to sound pretentious and all but this just crossed some lines.
Haha I was so pretentious that it was offensive? That's a newly discovered skill!
Yeah it is kinda impressive. But the truth is that this kind of thing CAN be done well. It's only pretentious if there is no real thought behind it. Which I am assuming applies to your otherwise fine writing.

I think the problem with "pretentiousness" quite often lies with the reader/viewer/player. Cause if you can't comprehend the thought behind the piece in question you might be tempted to believe that there was non.
 

Grabbin Keelz

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Aw man, for a second there I thought you were gonna say The Escapist.

I love how he's asking Cole questions like he's gonna jump out of the forum and answer them XD
 

BGH122

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Haukur Isleifsson said:
Yeah it is kinda impressive. But the truth is that this kind of thing CAN be done well. It's only pretentious if there is no real thought behind it. Which I am assuming applies to your otherwise fine writing.

I think the problem with "pretentiousness" quite often lies with the reader/viewer/player. Cause if you can't comprehend the thought behind the piece in question you might be tempted to believe that there was non.
The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result. I was basically engaging in reductio ad absurdum: taking his unreasonable questioning of a prompt to the extreme by questioning the very concept of 'quantitativeness' and, by extension, numeracy to reveal that no such thing existed and our very reality is therefore illusory.

I was basically taking the piss of his desire to appear profound, regardless of whether or not the profundity made any sense.

Although people on this thread reckon that his site is a joke site after reading a few reviews, so I might have actually created a backfiring parody.
 

Ericb

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Sep 26, 2006
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BGH122 said:
The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result.
So fiction is not allowed to be interpreted, just read as it is? Or do you maintain this stance only towards videogames?
 

Haukur Isleifsson

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Jun 2, 2010
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BGH122 said:
Haukur Isleifsson said:
Yeah it is kinda impressive. But the truth is that this kind of thing CAN be done well. It's only pretentious if there is no real thought behind it. Which I am assuming applies to your otherwise fine writing.

I think the problem with "pretentiousness" quite often lies with the reader/viewer/player. Cause if you can't comprehend the thought behind the piece in question you might be tempted to believe that there was non.
The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result. I was basically engaging in reductio ad absurdum: taking his unreasonable questioning of a prompt to the extreme by questioning the very concept of 'quantitativeness' and, by extension, numeracy to reveal that no such thing existed and our very reality is therefore illusory.

I was basically taking the piss of his desire to appear profound, regardless of whether or not the profundity made any sense.

Although people on this thread reckon that his site is a joke site after reading a few reviews, so I might have actually created a backfiring parody.
Ah but you can always say that you were doing that after someone calls you out on your pretentiousness. ;)

And yeah I get that you were kind off making a point by not making one. So in a way there was probably some thought behind the whole thing. And I personally find it entertaining from time to time to arbitrarily apply real world logic to fiction to see the absurdities that we have come to accept as the norm.
 

BGH122

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Ericb said:
BGH122 said:
The thought behind it was really just a parody of the reviewer's obstinate decision to absurdly interpret a frickin' fictional world as if it were a real world and then question the result.
So fiction is not allowed to be interpreted, just read as it is? Or do you maintain this stance only towards videogames?
That wasn't my point. Fiction is most definitely allowed to be interpreted, but only within the context of the fiction. It isn't a valid criticism of a scene to say that 'this scene doesn't match up to real life expectations!' because such a criticism is arbitrary to the scene unless its intent was to match up to real life expectations.

It would be akin to saying "Hang on, this scene doesn't have magic and goblins!" and then interpreting it based upon the presumption that it should; the scene as set by the fiction's creator, with the rules of the creator, provides the rules which one must use as guidance in criticism.

For instance, if I write a magic realism story in which time flows backwards bar one man's perception, it isn't a valid criticism to say "But why is only that one man? Why is time flowing backwards?" the laws of the scene are set by it alone. It would be a valid criticism, for instance, to point out if some characters were inexplicably and incongruently unaffected by the scene's laws, but that is because we'd be arguing within the laws of the scene and not by imposing our own laws on it and then criticising the resulting incongruence. In the former example the author's error has led to the incongruence, in the latter it is our imposition and/or misunderstanding that has led to the incongruence.

Haukur Isleifsson said:
And yeah I get that you were kind off making a point by not making one. So in a way there was probably some thought behind the whole thing. And I personally find it entertaining from time to time to arbitrarily apply real world logic to fiction to see the absurdities that we have come to accept as the norm.
Well that's fair enough, one may seek whatever enjoyment one wishes from a fiction. However, to then proudly declare that the fiction doesn't make sense or seems odd because of how the reader has chosen to view it isn't valid literary criticism. I think this harkens of the following quote from earlier:

Haukur Isleifsson said:
BGH122 said:
Viking Incognito said:
50 out of what?
Out of what? Out of what?!

"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.

"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.

"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.

With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.

"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.

The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.

My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.

Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.

I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.

I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.

"Out of what?" the question squealed.


Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.
[...]

I think the problem with "pretentiousness" quite often lies with the reader/viewer/player. Cause if you can't comprehend the thought behind the piece in question you might be tempted to believe that there was non.
(I've left the original text there so people can follow our discussion if they wish, otherwise our discussion will sound arbitrary and pretentious and then we'll sound like hypocrites!)

where you point out that being unable to derive the motivations of a piece can detract from its credibility. I think this is partially true, but I think it's probably truer to say that being unable to derive the rules of a piece breaks the credibility.
 

Chase Yojimbo

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Sep 1, 2009
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I have read bad writing before, but this is a new grade of bad writing. It doesn't flow, it doesn't keep the reader attracted, and it certainly doesn't keep them enthused to read another word. I found myself skipping bits of the review because I was sitting there bored out of my mind. It was grey writing.

On top of that, his review is pointless. It has nothing to do with the game at all. Once in a while he brings up things that involve gameplay but... that's it. Usually a reviewer tries too group them, or at least goes from worst problem to least worst problem.

I found the perfect example for this! It is like he is trying too write poetry, but its bad. I'm an amateur writer and I can write better than this dribble.
 

AstylahAthrys

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Apr 7, 2010
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What shoddy writing. It's obvious he's trying to be all artsy and fancy with his style but it mostly ends up being too wordy. A common mistake, I think, with people who haven't really worked on a style for too long and they try to pretend that they have this master over the English language. His sentence and paragraph structure was just so off, and the purple prose! Oh lord, the purple prose. Just because you know big words, doesn't mean you have to shove them in every five seconds. It just makes you sound pretentious.

I've.. I've edited a lot of papers in my day. My AP English class had us write one essay a week for an entire year. I blame that.