I love this site, I really love those guys (and would date them if I was a girl), but I sometimes struggle to read the staff's reviews. They're very well written, each of the four has a distinct and engaging style and I don't want to come off as if I'm hating on Giant Bomb in any way, but the reviews are all so damned long that I simply stop reading halfway through. I can read a fifteen page article on the objectification of females in gaming on Gamasutra or whatever, but sometimes I feel the GB reviews are just far too long and wandering to properly read.
I hate internet users with short attention spans as much as the next man, but honestly can't blame someone for starting to avoid reading the game reviews on here. Jeff's Fallout 3 review was over 2,000 words. That's insanity! Half the reason is the in depth descriptions, which would be understandable were it a magazine where inserts of info could be used, but the game has a damned wiki page right next to it, why do we need this level of detail? It adds virtually nothing to the appraisal of the game, something which, when I'm writing a review, do my best to avoid. Alright, point out negatives with the game if you want, but don't give us an enormous and irrelevant history lesson that, if we're reading this site, shouldn't need to be given. A good example is the SSFIITHDR review, when in the second paragraph he rattles on:
"HD Remix is, as the name implies, an updated version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Super Turbo was the last in the Street Fighter II line, and it's a game that built upon (and repaired) a lot of the changes made in the previous game, Super Street Fighter II. Super and Super Turbo essentially rebuilt the Street Fighter II experience with new moves, new characters, and newer, more powerful hardware underneath the hood. Some of the changes were positive, but there was definitely a downside, too. A new announcer and a lot of new character voices appeared here, and some of them were downright awful. Also, the CPU opponent got way more difficult, to the point where you could only really enjoy the game if you were playing with a similarly skilled human opponent. On top of all that, the Street Fighter II series had already been around for three years by the time Super Turbo was released. I don't know what you were doing in 1994, but I was sort of done with Street Fighter II and getting into other fighting games, so I never really gave Super Turbo much thought."
Even Jeff himself recognises this, and backtracks with: "OK, that's probably a bit more history than you actually require." This would be fine were it an isolated case, but it appears in most reviews on the site. Now, I'm not trying to say I'm a better writer than the GB guys - they're superb blokes and have done a mark up job on this website, which is probably my number one resource for gaming stuff at the moment - I just can't abide the way they review games here. It's more of a pet peeve to be honest, I know a lot of you will like that specific way of reviewing and I realise this post will get negged into oblivion, but that's just my two pennies. If you're going to reply, please make it constructive and don't just call me a super douche without thinking about it. I also acknowledge the point of "GTFO if you don't like it"/"don't read the reviews then", so don't waste your breath. Cheers if you made it this far into my hypocritically overlong post ;)
[Congrats J-Man, R-Dog, B-Rad and... Vinny on your excellent website, I love you all very much, so please don't take this as an insult if you see this.]
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