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[.Pennywise]

And I'm talking political skew.

You know, you're looking forward to a game , or maybe not but you just cross around some info for this game. And before you realize, you just end up in a bath of political stuff and opinions that have little to nothing to do with the actual game, like gameplay...

Earlier today previews for Atomic Heart were embargo lifted so most sites released their own preview of the game. Shall we take a look a Polygon's "preview" (you can look up for it, I'm not linking to it):

​

Yeah, a 10 paragraph "preview" where half of them are just political callouts to war, Russia, developer's integrity judging and a bonus jab to the people getting excited for the game (you know, you that want to play the game, hey do you have the stomatch to support all this bad stuff I've just called out? Are you really comfortable?), oh and of course don't forget to point out to publishers supporting the game like the game's publisher or MS' Game Pass.
Not to mention the very title of the "preview" is already a really clear callout to political stuff, purposely putting Russian instead of Soviet Union.

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And I'm not even telling you that you should be ashamed of reading or watching this. Or that you should or should not watch, read or support this kind of takes. You do whatever it pleases and fits you. However, there are some of us that just want to play games without political stuff shoved down our throats. We want to really know if a game has good gameplay, what it plays like, if it's innovative or not, how did the graphics look, its optimization, etc etc etc. And we're not interested at all at a political trojan horse disguised as a videogame review/preview/overview.

This has already happened (Cyberpunk and others), it's happening (Atomic Heart) and will still be happening in the future (Hogwarts Legacy). So, for the sake of just talking gaming, in a forum that's dedicated to gaming, that's really open to discussion rather than ban people left and right, BUT that has political discussion banned from it: should we start tagging skewed pieces of gaming media? NOT BANNING, just tagging would be enough for people to decide if they want to take a look into it or just pass on it, or at least know that that really bad preview or review score has little to do with the actual videogame.

 

[GenericUser]

Are you not mature enough to simply not read those previews/reviews?

 

[AV]

I'm already bored of hearing about JK Rowling from both ends of the spectrum. I just want to play my wizard game.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Well, you could just avoid Kotaku and Polygon for starters.

And then... hm, no, I think that's about it.

 

[Kacho]

We should definitely shine a light on them but nah, it doesn’t really matter. Sites like Polygon and Kotaku have their audience and those are the people that eat this shit up. Most of the internet will mock them.

 

[64gigabyteram]

Nobody posts their reviews here anyways so we probably shouldn't. Cringe tag is enough for this stuff

 

[ANDS]

I'm already bored of hearing about JK Rowling from both ends of the spectrum. I just want to play my wizard game.

A. Fucking. Men.

. . .to the OP. No. Such a tag in and of itself is "political" and highly subjective and at the end of the day, what are you going to solve? And your example is a really bad example. Not engaging in CP77's cop quests because of the ongoing - non-violent - debate surrounding police brutality and minorities in America is dumb. Pointing out the gigantic elephant in the room that a game is being developed by a country that is currently in an OVERT war of conquest is pretty reasonable. . .particularly for folks who have ties to the regions in question.

 

[Rykan]

It is completely normal and rational to discuss the political themes of a video game when politics make up the core of its identity. It is downright insane to claim you don't "want to play games with politics shoved down" when you're talking about a game that is quite literally a commentary on political ideology. If you don't like politics in video games, maybe not play games centered around communism?

 

[Punished Miku]

People do. But no one can be trusted to accurately tell you how to think or be 100% fair on this. So like all things, just read it yourself. But I've never minded if people throw out accusations of political bias in reviews, because a lot of the time it's extremelyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy obvious.

 

[TonyK]

Those first paragraphs of the preview are disgusting and the most racist thing I read recently.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

People in Russia not speaking out against Putin???? Stop the presses!!!!

 

[Fbh]

I dislike Polygon as much as the next guy.... but it's Polygon, at this point you should know what to expect from them

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

Maybe a top 5 poll of decent trustworthy sites and only posts reviews previews from those. I dunno.


I dont partake in reviews etc. If a game seems interesting enough I'll watch some YouTube feed. FWIW.

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

At this point If CNN post a preview there's going to be 200+ replies.

 

[Kuranghi]

I'm against violence against people except if they're really annoying then maybe I'd do that thing where you knee the back of their knee, or a light headlock until they decist with their irritating machinations.

 

[Scotty W]

It’s 2023, and we STILL don’t fkn have trigger warnings for reviews. I literally can’t even. Literally shaking rn.

 

[.Pennywise]

Nobody posts their reviews here anyways so we probably shouldn't. Cringe tag is enough for this stuff

I mean, review threads do. It's the point of it, to put togheter all the reviews out there.

I know it's Polygon, but it won't be the only one.

Are you not mature enough to simply not read those previews/reviews?

Ummm. Is too hard my OP to understand? Because that's the point, to no waste time reading/watching (p)reviews that end up being a score based on stuff that has little to do with the game.

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And again, not asking to ban anything. Just a skewed word next to the review so people know that said review is more of a crash course on political correctness than a videgame review.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Imagine reading "critic" reviews. How sad must your lives be? Just watch a youtube vid where you can clearly see gameplay and everything, not some dumb ass articles lmao. Jesus

 

[.Pennywise]

People do. But no one can be trusted to accurately tell you how to think or be 100% fair on this. So like all things, just read it yourself. But I've never minded if people throw out accusations of political bias in reviews, because a lot of the time it's extremelyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy obvious.

Yeah that's the point. I mean, where do we draw the line? Sometimes it's just way too obvious they crossed that line miles ago, just like this preview of Polygon where half their preview is dedicated to something not related to the videogame per-se.

 

[Punished Miku]

Yeah that's the point. I mean, where do we draw the line? Sometimes it's just way too obvious they crossed that line miles ago, just like this preview of Polygon where half their preview is dedicated to something not related to the videogame per-se.

It's just something you have to do on your own, but people should feel free to criticize reviews. Anti-woke people can go overboard as well so I'd never trust a tag from someone else.

 

[.Pennywise]

Imagine reading "critic" reviews. How sad must your lives be? Just watch a youtube vid where you can clearly see gameplay and everything, not some dumb ass articles lmao. Jesus

There's video reviews? Also, some people don't like to be spoiled. You won't get a full overview of a game with a few minutes of gameplay. There's plenty of examples of games that started like GOTY material and then become quite bad, and it's true the other way around also.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

I'm already bored of hearing about JK Rowling from both ends of the spectrum. I just want to play my wizard game.

it’s so ridiculous. Like, I want to see how the game reviews, but I’m going to have to be extra careful about the reviews because for sure some sites are gonna bomb it purely because of the book author. It’s like, I *just want to know about the game*. It’s not rocket science, and that shouldn’t be controversial.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Also, some people don't like to be spoiled.

I've never been spoiled by proper youtube reviewers like Karak and if they do have most let you know, or censor parts on the screen. You will get more information from Karaks reviews than any Kotaku/IGN video ever. Wtf are you even talking about?

 

[Exede]

No, i don't care

 

[Jennings]

If you aren't interested in reading about a politically charged game, maybe avoid politically charged games.

 

[.Pennywise]

I've never been spoiled by proper youtube reviewers like Karak and if they do have most let you know, or censor parts on the screen. You will get more information from Karaks reviews than any Kotaku/IGN video ever. Wtf are you even talking about?

That's still a review, which was my point.

 

[.Pennywise]

If you aren't interested in reading about a politically charged game, maybe avoid politically charged games.

So... Atomic Heart must speak a lot about 2023's Ukraine-NATO-Russia war right? Oh no it doesn't, it just the setting we got a lot of times but this time we can shove political stuff not related to it...

 

[The Cockatrice]

That's still a review, which was my point.

 

[DeepEnigma]

The never seem to write about issues with China. Huh, funny that.

 

[BbMajor7th]

What a dismal bit of reportage - no-one musters more than an eyeroll when the latest American FPS is greased up in enough jingoistic diarrhea to clog a storm drain, but a Russian team risk a Wolfenstein-esque reimagining of Soviet era Russia and they're channelling 'Russian exceptionalism'. The kind of condescending, xenophobic, guilt-by-association dross that can only be shat out by western, centrist, middle-class elites.

 

[jaysius]

In 2023, people need to be able to be more critical of sources they consider. This is part of the process called information literacy, the reader needs to consider and filter sources based upon possible issues that it might present. You need to use your own judgement here.

After reading this preview that is wasting much of my time on drivel, I will continue to ignore Polygon as a source of previews for gaming. This is not a preview that is offering value in the first 3 paragraphs, it's not talking about the subject at all but using a preview as a soap box. Personally I would disqualify this source as something worthwhile.

We don't need tags to tell us something is a waste of time. The company the person is writing for should have told them that all those 3 paragraphs were purely fluff and had nothing to do with the actual product being previewed. The editor of that company failed to do their job properly. It's not pertinent to the actual content which is a futuristic game about killing robots.

If you're worried about how much time you've wasted on an article, then learn how to skim articles before hand to see if any flags appear, this one quickly has many, such as the countries that have nothing to do with the game itself appearing, so it made me look closer at why they were talking about said countries, and made me realize the lack of value in this source.

It's important to judge sources not only for gaming news, but also for real news too.

 

[AJUMP23]

Everyone has bias, it is your job as a person to discern it.

 

[mxbison]

We should start caring less about reviews in general.

It's just another (paid) opinion.

 

[Drizzlehell]

We should start caring less about reviews in general.

It's just another (paid) opinion.

In most cases it's also an opinion that's more informed than average casual gamer's. I get that average game reviewer may seem like a scrub to people who spend more time playing videogames and shitposting on gaming forums than they do on going outside, but that doesn't mean that his take is any less valid than yours.

It's like getting pissy about a movie critic slagging your favorite movie. Like, dude, pipe down. The reason why he's getting paid to do it is because, for one, he's a better writer than you, but also because he watches way more movies than an average moviegoer and therefore, comes from a more informed place when it comes to judging certain aspects of those films.

 

[48086]

I recommend not reading reviews and just watching actual gameplay from previews or streamers. Most likely, most people reading a review know more games than the "journalist" writing the actual review.

 

[Shut0wen]

Lets be honest this game is going to be shit, everytime i see this game i get scorn vibes, to the thread at hand, what exactly did polygon post that was wrong because the only issue i take from that thread is the developers own statement which actually condoned russia without naming the country, obviously wasnt good enough for polys OP but whatever

 

[mxbison]

In most cases it's also an opinion that's more informed than average casual gamer's. I get that average game reviewer may seem like a scrub to people who spend more time playing videogames and shitposting on gaming forums than they do on going outside, but that doesn't mean that his take is any less valid than yours.

It's like getting pissy about a movie critic slagging your favorite movie. Like, dude, pipe down. The reason why he's getting paid to do it is because, for one, he's a better writer than you, but also because he watches way more movies than an average moviegoer and therefore, comes from a more informed place when it comes to judging certain aspects of those films.

Relax. Just saying people should stop trashing games (or hyping them to the moon) because of review scores.

And what does 'more informed' matter if a reviewer likes/dislikes a game and you don't? It's just another opinion.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

USE METACRITIC WHEN TALKING ABOUT REVIEWS SCORE.


individual reviews are not worth it.(in the context of the big picture)

 

[Evolved1]

And who here is the great arbiter of truth and purity that will make these unbiased determinations?

You need someone to tell you polygon are a bunch of dipshits?

Use your own brain.

 

[Mozzarella]

I'm not against it, i prefer reviews to reflect on the games first and foremost. But i dont know who is the goodguy™ who will do that job, i am not interested in reading them to begin with to find out their context.
When it comes to game reviews what i tend to do is look at the overall journalist score, watch a gameplay video, more importantly watch a Youtuber review it the likes of ACG, Skillup and few more, and then look at the overall gamer score as well.
Combining all that should give me a somewhat good estimation if the game is worth it or not, and even with all that some games end up disappointing me and vice versa.

 

[semiconscious]

i'd say that what you just did regarding this particular article (letting it speak for itself) is much more effective than tagging...