Morrowind: A sermon about hype (Warning: Attempt at Yahtzee-esque humour)

[tiredinnuendo]

So, and here I just want to clarify, you wrote an intentionally bad review, and by bad, I mean that you wrote with bias, had too few good examples of gameplay, and your use of humor was comparable to a warcrime. Then people commented negatively on it. Then you wrote a second one that most people just skimmed because it was basically the same thing in polar opposite. Then you stated that you proved something by all this?

Well done?

- J

 

[WingedFortress]

...That plot twist felt more tacked on than if EA did it themselves.

 

[Drong]

I got bored at work and re-wrote some of your first review, i've never even played the game though did thourghly enjoy oblivion so i did not change any of the actual informative content just the metaphors and stuff (please don't take any offence at it i was just having a play around), anyway here it is even more vulgar and disturbed (it's one of those days)

First things first. I know this game has been reviewed quite a few times and I know its mentally handicapped younger brother Oblivion has been as well. I know this, and yet I embark on some kind of retroactive faeces flinging adventure in stating what has already been said.

So why do I do this you ask? Because I want to vent my frustration about something that I've noticed from my hobbit hole of a study. You see, over the years I've seen games come and go like tarted up professional celebrities/whores (oops sorry that was the same thing last time I checked), and the one thing that's always stuck in my craw is hype.

You see, when Morrowind first came out it was treated like a mixture between the second coming of Christ and phallus made entirely out of precious jewels. I remember waiting in eager anticipation so I could play, nay, experience Morrowind and even made several upgrades to the 'thing' in the corner cowering like an abused housewife.

I waited outside my local games store, and over the course of a week got to know the sales staff, and they got to know me as the guy who licked their store windows. The day finally came and I took the game home with all the anticipation of a groom taking a virgin home from the alter. However, once I installed the game, I was in for a shock. Much like the husband discovering his new bride was an unchaste wench with warts and a nasty rash on her holiest of holies.

Sure, the world was big and it was pretty, but you couldn't see the whole thing without dying about trillion times.
It seemed wherever I went and whatever I did, I was murdered by everything from huge freaking monsters to a twig with delusions of consciousness. If you've ever played Morrowind for more than five minutes, these next words should have you rolling about the floor in the foetal position. Cliff Racers.
You go outside a main town for more than three seconds are you are set upon by screeching death from above. Running wouldn't help, because these things seemed to stick to you like shit on Velcro. Nipping outside to find a certain plant? Cliff Racers. Venturing to Mount Doom? Cliff Racers. Popping off to kill some farking Cliff Racers? Conspicuous absence of Cliff Racers.

But, hey, the most annoying enemy ever invented wasn't enough to throw off my youthful optimism! What's a couple of Cliff Racers and certain death when I had this awesome game to explore? At least I think it's awesome...it's what people have told me is awesome.
Suddenly, I became determined to enjoy this game. I studied up on game strategies so I wouldn't die every time I travelled from town to town, I bought protection and divine intervention spells to get me out of trouble, and I bought 20 cans of Red Bull so I wasn't distracted by sleep (though It did bring on a minor seizure)

I pushed through the annoyingly vague quest directions such as "the place you are looking for is near a rock" and bugs that would have my character floating one minute and then spinning about like an epileptic panda on crack the next.
What finally broke me however, was the combat.

"What the hell!? I totally hit that guy!", a familiar catch-cry to all of those who have played the game. For some bizarre reason, Bethesda thought it would be endearing to have the player swing a sword in first person, hit your enemy and not have ANYTHING HAPPEN.
I realise this is an RPG but for chrissake! If you're going to use a first person perspective, you CAN NOT have a player hit an enemy for no damage. It will start riots in the street, people will void their bowels in letterboxes and economies will collapse as the IT nerds on which modern society is based start to feast on the flesh of hobos.

A part of the addiction in gaming is offering incentives for the player to keep on trudging through the same fights over and over again. If there is no payoff for a particular action, a player will become bored with it very quickly. When this happens in something as integral as combat, it's going to piss some people off.

Some of the weather effects were astounding however, like the rain or looking up into the night sky, but why oh why did there have to be dust storms? Note to Bethesda, if people don't like it in real life, they're not going to like it in their game.

"But I liked this game!" some of you will undoubtedly whine at me. Indeed, some people have fond memories of an expansive world full of life and character, and indeed I do concede this game has some good qualities.

It's huge, there's stuff to explore and lots of quests. One gets the feeling however, that the gaming community will gloss over the bad points of a game if they've been told to.
You see, the reviews for this game before it came out like that hot piece of jail bait at the debutante ball, were great. They praised the game for providing a huge playground in which to indulge their fantasies (though not the jail bait part?at least not in the UK release) from the safety of their own homes. They admitted there were a few flaws, but ultimately this was an experience to be savoured (again not the jail bait?although).

I went into this game thinking, 'hey, a few flaws. For the game of the year I can deal with that'. What can I say? I was young and naïve. If a strange man offered me a copy of Morrowind to climb into his van, I might expect a catch.
Ultimately, that is what Morrowind feels like. It lures us in with promises of candy and fun and then leaves us with a obliterated sphincter and a bad case of anal leakage.

Let this be a lesson to you. Don't believe what the reviewers tell you. Do not buy a game based on somebody else's judgement. Rent it first or play a demo for chrissake! If you go into a game expecting the world of it because some guy told you it's good, or expecting the worst because it was savaged in the press, you are going to be disappointed either way.
In fact, DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW.
Shit, too late.

 

[wilsonscrazybed]

Words and stuff.

Yea, um... Okay, you've successfully proved that amateur reviewers have no credibility because they aren't held to standards by an editor. Really I don't think this merits any further discussion since most major game sites have editors.

 

[hailmagus]

You?ll note that the thread title is tagged with ?warning: attempt at yahtzee-esque humour?. Instead of putting people off from reading the thread, it actively encouraged them to read and comment on the review. When compared to the more level headed reviews I have done in the past [/quote]

actually, i read this tag because it had the name "morrowind" in it. i don't give a shit if it has yahteez's name in it.

 

[Gigantor]

I'm...at something of a loss. I had a sneaking suspicion that you might be up to something like that, but the problem is these things don't come across all that clearly on the internet. There was no way for other people to know you hadn't just been writing badly on the first review, then changed your tone to win some support for the second. If you write a sentence like "it uses a superb game engine of audio-visual delights in order to draw the player into its world and uses challenging gameplay to keep the player suspended in verisimilitude" how am I supposed you're not just writing poorly, or have that you found a new word today and want to show it off?

Both reviews were poor in their own ways, but I think you're getting a bit melodramatic. This has always been the way of the world as far as reviews are concerned, and anyone who buys something or doesn't on only one persons say-so, especially these days with the internet so nearby all the time, is clearly a bit of an arse either way.

Maybe the review would have been okay if you'd just bypassed all this Pop-Sociology business and included the good and bad aspects of the game in one piece? Like WCB, this is what editors are for: they give a bit of perspective on things.

And the Yahtzee-esque thing: the difference is Yahtzee is funny when he does it his way. Your review, putting intention aside, was not: this is what pisses people off. If you wrote an entertaining review people wouldn't give two tosses if it were any kind of -esque under the sun.

Plus:

It seems to me that if you hate a particular thing, it is better to ignore it than publicly whine about it. So now I'd like to ask a question, and I don't ask this in the spirit of meanness, I'm really just curious.


Why do you comment on such things, rather than ignore them? Do you believe that by commenting, you are helping toward eradicating the thing you deride? Does the relative anonymity of the internet have something to do with it?

I think it is better to air your grievances in public, not just in computer game discussions, but in most things in life. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: you need to discuss these things. If I don't like something in life, I'll say so, internet anonymity or nay. Today my tutor got Edmund and Edgar mixed up when she was trying to describe King Lear to someone who hadn't read it, so I corrected her. Would it have been better to not mention it and let someone go away with entirely the wrong impression of the play? I wouldn't have said so.

Hope that helps.

 

[Hey Joe]

I wasn't actually intending to write in a yahtzee-esque fashion, just an overwhelmingly negative review. I just chose the style because it was something I hadn't dabbled in yet. I wanted to ascertain why other reviews at the polar opposites of opinion (good, bad) got lots of page views and comments whereas more balanced reviews got diddly squat.

The writing style (as bad as it was) sadly got more attention than the content of the review sadly, but that in itself was interesting. Why do people respond to bad writing more than they do to good writing?

I could have opened a OT topic concerning the relationship between reviewer and consumer, but the same points would have gone around and around. These reviews seemed like a good way to observe the dynamic in action.

 

[rougeknife]

You?ll note that the thread title is tagged with ?warning: attempt at yahtzee-esque humour?. Instead of putting people off from reading the thread, it actively encouraged them to read and comment on the review. When compared to the more level headed reviews I have done in the past

actually, i read this tag because it had the name "morrowind" in it. i don't give a shit if it has yahteez's name in it.[/quote]

Same. I read Morrowind, I click. I read, I comment, and try not to profess my undying love for the game in a fashion that is creepy.

 

[bulletproof12]

morrowing is and was awesome. starting up though has got to be one of the biggest pains in the ass ever. the game is very fun once you get some spells and learn what you can/cannot do. one thing that really annoyed me though more then cliffracers was all the damn walking. yeah i loved the epic size of the game. but the neverarine missions where you walk to a tribe way the hell out there, do some long side quest and walk to the next one was horrible yet awesome.

 

[Gigantor]

I wanted to ascertain why other reviews at the polar opposites of opinion (good, bad) got lots of page views and comments whereas more balanced reviews got diddly squat.

I would suggest that reviews on this forum will tend to be polarised because, as amateur reviewers, we all buy our own games and fund our own habits. No publishers send me gratis copies of FIFA '08 or some such thing, which I suspect I would give a rather more middling opinion of. The games I review will be ones I have liked in the past; the games I buy, I buy because I've read enough reviews to know I'll probably like them. Again, a positive review will probably ensue. There's not really any mystery here. It's easier to get passionate about a crapola fest or a brilliant nugget than it is to write something engaging about something average for the hundredth time. I don't plan on living long enough to invest time playing middling, average games, let alone write reviews about them.

As for responding to bad writing more than good writing; personally it's just the way I'm wired, baby. It's pretty easy to slip below what I expect of writers, but more difficult to rise above it. When I read a good piece of writing I just think 'Ah. Bully for that person.' When I see a bad piece of writing I can either, at best, help the person in the future, or at close second, rip the piss.

Part of the problem here was using Morrowind as the catalyst in your experiment-as you know, it's quite well beloved in the these here forums. Like I said, you got a lot of views and a lot of wrath because you just picked up on the perennial Morowind criticisms, making you look uninformed. And, yes, any review with 'Yahtzee-esque' in the title will get reviews, just because people like watching people die on their arses in the attempt.

Anyways, bed times. It's been interesting.

 

[ComradeJim270]

I'm sorry,I really am, but this review seems to be just dripping in ignorance and irrationality. It almost reads like well-done trolling.

I'm not going to deny that combat in Morrowind sucked, but to say 'NOBODY SHOULD EVER DO THIS BLAH BLAH BLAH' makes you sound egotistical and self-righteous. I do that in my reviews, too, but I make it clear that I'm doing so, and it's often done in a humorous manner. You don't appear to be attepting humor when you say this sort of thing. By the way, you CANNOT hit an enemy for no damage in Morrowind. You can miss an enemy, or you can hit and do damage. There is a difference. False claims are not part of any good review.

You also criticize the challenge in the game in what strikes me as a falsely objective manner. Some people, myself included, loved the fact that his game would kick their asses. You act like the difficulty will put everyone off. This is espcially bad in terms of reviewing because you can also change the difficulty in this game. Last I checked, there are 201 different difficuly levels, -100 to 100, with the default being '0', or right in the middle. -100 is about as challenging as using the toilet.

You also talk about dust storms. What you say is so jaw-droppingly stupid that I won't even bother to analyze it.

The worst part, though, is that his game has been out for AGES, yet you completely ignore the modding community, which is HUGE and has already addressed your every criticism of the game. That strikes me as irresponsible and staggeringly narrow-minded. Hell, the game is so easy to mod, you could probably fix these things yourself.

If you want to preach about hype, don't try to do it in a review. If you want to write about hype, do an essay or something about hype. This review is just asinine. I won't say it's stupid, because you seem intelligent enough to do better. But it is asinine.

 

[qbert4ever]

The writing style (as bad as it was) sadly got more attention than the content of the review sadly, but that in itself was interesting. Why do people respond to bad writing more than they do to good writing?

Well, I think it has to do more with what the general public thinks about the game. After all, if I got a megaphone and went to (insert busy street corner here), shouting about what a bad presidant Bush is, then I'm just another face in the crowd. But if I start confessing my undying love for old GW Bush, then people are going to start calling me out on it. It all has to do with what the majority thinks. You go with them, no-one cares. You go against them, and it's a huge stinkbomb. Ergo (smart word!), since Morrowind is popular, the bad review gets more comments.

Also, I find it awsome how even after 14 hours of you explaining what your reviews were meant to do, people still think that they are legit and feel the need to chew you out about them.

 

[ComradeJim270]

Wow... having now found the time to read through the whole thread, I have to say I am impressed. Very interesting, especially if you look at it from a bit of an ethnomethodological perspective.

I think the problem with video game reviewes is an interesting and complex one. For one thing, video games are MUCH more subjective than movies or books. To watch a movie, you sit and stare. To read a book, you do the same thing with the added activity of turning pages. But a video game demands participation, and the way in which one participates is different from one game to another. This makes video games extremely difficult to review. A movie that is hard to watch will be hard to watch for pretty much everyone. A game that is hard to play may not be hard to play for everyone, and some may like it even if they do find it hard to play.

There is also a conflict of interest looming over many professional reviewers. Most of them receive their paychecks from publications or websites which are funded by ads for the very games they review. I don't believe for a second that Jeff Gerstmann's firing had nothing to do with Kane & Lynch. You have to remember... when you look at a site like Gamespot, you ARE NOT their customer. The people who paid for those ads you see? THEY are the customers. Know what you are? The product. They are paid by their cutomers to show you ads.

With a magazine which you buy, you are a customer, but so are they. A magazine about movies does not have this problem to the same extent, because they reach a wider audience and can thus have a greater variety of ads.

On top of that, there is little accountability. Do you ever see what a movie critic says about a movie before spending money to see it? I know that if I want to see a movie, I have a look at that. How do I decide which critics to pay attention to? It's the ones who have most often given a review I ended up agreeing with. I see who the critic is, not what publication they work for. The opposite seems to be true of most people who pay a lot of attention to game reviews. They pay attention to where they see the review instead, so if a gaming rag has four good reviewers, and one that's full of shit, a lot of people will treat all reviews from that source as being fairly good. Even if they are aware that a reviewer is biased or just incompetent, the only way to find that out is to buy the games that person reviews, which, compared to buying a movie or book, is VERY expensive.

Further reducing accountability is the fact that gamers tend to be tech-saavy and often use the internet to voice their criticisms. Thus, if you get online and point out problems in a review, you may well find your voice drowned in a sea of asinine remarks, 4chan memes, and atrocious grammar. Even if you send in a masterfully written letter, it may never be seen by anyone but an editor or two, if they even get around to it.

To be honest, though, I think many gamers are every bit as guilty, here, for being so shockingly guillible, for dangerous groupthink, and for their astounding inability to learn from their mistakes in spite of the fact those mistakes can cost $59.99 US plus sales tax.

 

[Mr Scott]

Though Morrowind is filled with head-aching faults; IE cliffracers - dieing; the real shortcoming is the replay value. Once you've finally found the "abstract weapon artifact" for the umpteenth time, you finally decide you won't do it again, even if you try to fool yourself with the whole "doing it with a different class/race is different," thing you finally realize,it is not different.

Furthermore, the magic using area of the game (whether played on a PC or the Xbox) exceeds clunky, the next Elder Scrolls, Oblivion has it right IE; an extra button for spells- besides having to switch from "fairy-godmother" casting mode, the spells (other than the ones you make yourself) are fairly ineffective, for instance any mage-starting-character's flame-bite skill.

The ineffectiveness of initial weapon attacks, or worse (marksman weapons) are minor, and leave permanently once your first level curve: level one. After the first level it's the platinum-paved road: easy street. But, maybe it's because I've only beat it on god-mode.

The visuals, at the time, were beautiful, and to placate others, buy it and get mods for it, and play it, it's good! (and fun)

 

[Melaisis]

3'd [http://3scapism.com], despite the controversy of the actual article. Seems you hit a rather large nerve with some people here, Joe, but its all good in terms of publicity. Its up on 3scapism with little more than pedantic editing on my part. TBH, I enjoyed this thread rather more than I do just a plain old vanilla review, but that's just my own opinion. I'm more of an Oblivion man (it was 'low fantasy' and had Sean Bean in it) myself, but the hype around Morrowind is, even now, slowly pushing me into investing in a copy.

 

[Hey Joe]

I'm more of an Oblivion man (it was 'low fantasy' and had Sean Bean in it) myself, but the hype around Morrowind is, even now, slowly pushing me into investing in a copy.

You definitely owe it to yourself to check out Morrowind. It still holds up pretty well despite its flaws, but if you're not into hardcore RPGs, you're not going to get the whole experience that Morrowind offers. It's like Oblivion, but with the difficulty scaled way, way up.

 

[moosehq]

Bollocks, I was just about to write my own review of this game and it seems it has already been done a number of times. Damn you for being so good morrowind.

 

[Muphin_Mann]

Ben "Yahtzee" is whats wrong with the world today.

I personaly like the guy but every thread i read someone seems to thing the are the heir to his throne. THis particular thread admits that opinion. Heck, i had a friend who said *my* humor was a but like his sometimes. I had my humor for a lotta years before finding out about this dude. Actualy, its worse than that since i often wear a hat that looks like the one his little line-character often has on(again, years before).

I agree that the game has a tendancy to not let you hit people and throw cliff racers at your ass every five minutes, but that isnt an excuse to dislike it. Play with cheats for awhile to learn the ropes.

I myself "invested" many hours and went to the toruble of beating the game and both its expansions. (and since i beat the main quest without following it i had to *permanatly* sacrifice about 200 hitpoints, that where never seen again) I think you need to overlook combat with a game thats about exploration and atmosphere. To get a sense of what i mean you can run through some of the deadric shrines and sixth house bases and then read up on H.P. Lovecraft. I did. When i read Cthuhlu what popped into my mind was "ascendant sleeper". Nyarlathotep was Dagoth Ur. The Deadric Shrines where the places with abnormal geometries. Totaly about the vibe and the process od discovering that ever single dungeon was unique. Its not an action rpg.

 

[Tigerzed]

I must say having played TES3:MW and TES4:OB I did find Morrowind to be more challenging. Oblivion had Patrick Stewart doing the voice of Uriel Septim, which was my favorite part of the whole game. My main problem was that all the caves and dungeons and gates seemed to be pretty much the same, even the expansion dungeons were all very similar to each other. The lack of any levitation was disappointing as that was my favorite part of TES3. So now I have gone back to TES3 after finishing Oblivion, and I must say, not having to worry that my old Xbox will have the red ring of death makes playing much more fun.