EA exec disses Gears of War, Eurogamer pats back
Did EA Montreal GM Alain Tascan really believe he could get away with bad mouthing Gears of War for lacking innovation? Dude, c'mon, you work for EA; its bread n' butter is copy-pasting last year's game (and somehow making it worse in the process).
The problem here is that 'innovation' is being tossed around as a magic substance that makes a game superior. But what is innovation? How do we measure it? Are Gears' cover-system tweaks innovative? We think so. How about its active reload minigame? Sure, we haven't seen that before. Aliens threatening human existence in a post-apocalyptic shooter? Of course not. But how would Tascan know that? By his own admission, he's never played the game.
Aside: Tascan also bad mouthed reviewers for praising Gears. He did however applaud "two very brave UK-based journalists" who dealt Gears 8/10s -- sadly, low scores in the twisted world of games reviews. One of those outlets was Eurogamer, which picked up on Tascan's rant and used the incident to herald its own "brave" work with a link-back (in the original post; now edited). But once commenters created a stir, upset by Eurogamer's display of hubris, the site removed the link in an attempt to save face. Tsk tsk.
