KyleOrland
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Media Coverage covers review scores, gives 'em an 8.8
Video game scoring, always a controversial topic. Whether it's kvetching about the seemingly arbitrary numbering employed by some outlets or pondering the off-balance 70-average scoring system used by most reviewers, it seems that review scores are always under fire. So it's only fitting that GameDaily's Media Coverage – penned by our very own Kyle Orland – takes a stab at the mess and comes back with a thoughtful look at the role of review scores in an industry that rewards PR for good reviews ("To use average scores to judge marketing effectiveness is the same as saying they're trying to figure out whether the 'payola' worked or not," says freelancer Greg Sewart), and using aggregate review scores to greenlight sequels. Take note that Kyle is too humble to even mention his own Games for Lunch project, where he spends an hour each weekday playing games to determine if they're worth playing for, well, more than an hour. No review scores here, just his first blush at any given game. His latest bon mot comes courtesy of Def Jam: Vendetta – "Rappers doing what they do best. Wrestling!" – and that says more than any review score we've seen.
Kyle Orland eats games for lunch on new review site
With cinematics and tutorials galore in modern games, it's a wonder that we ever get around to the actual gameplay. Maybe that's why Joystiq's own Kyle Orland has started Games for Lunch, a unique videogame review blog that judges games on the first hour alone.Every weekday, Kyle sits down with one game, for one hour, and writes a play-by-play transcript of his experience and opinions. At the end of each review, Orland rates the game by deciding whether it's worth playing for more than an hour. The reviews are succinct and snappy, and they demonstrate just how much gameplay actually makes it into the first hour of the games. Already flush with pages of content, and updating daily with new reviews, Games for Lunch is worth checking out, if only for that magic hour.
VGMWatch tackles the "what's a blogger" question
We often get caught in the debate over bloggers versus journalists. For starters, I think we have to be clear that the definition of journalist is a rather broad one so, depending on which definition you subscribe to, bloggers either are or aren't journalists. When we post a (rather awesome) picture of a Zelda tattoo, there are no cries that such a thing isn't newsworthy (often the contrary), while a 4 hour-old press release is met with cries of "OLD" echoing acoss the comment forms. Clearly the metric for calibrating such a distinction is loose at best. So it is in this mess that Kyle Orland, of Video Game Media Watch, finds himself while answering a reader's question: "I understand that bloggers don't really see themselves as journalists per se, but what, exactly, is their role?"Orland frames his response with two examples: one from this very blog and a series of posts (1, 2) concerning the backwards compatibility of our much-beloved Psychonauts; the other concerns the slap-fight between gaming-blog Kotaku and gaming-megasite IGN. In all, Orland presents some interesting commentary on where blogs fit into the larger gaming media and offers this rather potent distillation of our role:If journalism is the first draft of history, blogs are the first draft of journalism. You can look into the sausage factory and see all the swirling rumors, competing theories, and developing bits of conventional wisdom that go into making a delicious story, in close to real time. This is one main reason why they've beome so popular so quickly - people love taking a peek behind the curtain to see the emperor, um, making sausage.Orland's example illustrates both the advantages (delicious sausage) and shortcomings (what's in it?) of the format. As the most popular gaming blog on the internet, we work hard to maintain our credibility through discriminating story selection, proper sourcing, timely and transparent updates, and accountability via our open comment system. And, while we strive to keep errors to a minimum, if something is erroneous or misleading, we can count on you guys to let us know. And if it's old, we're sure you'll let us know that too.
