The Worst Review Of All Time

[StriderKyo]

So I'm idly wondering if Dragon Quest VIII is gonna be any good. I have a nostalgic affection for the series that VII hit me over the head and mocked me with, but VIII looks like an attempt to join the 21st century. I google for a review, and Insert Credit comes up - that's cool, sometimes they've got some really insightful reviews.

And then sometimes they let a guy ramble on like Abe Simpson for no less than 12,000 WORDS (no really, I checked) about everything he's ever read, heard, thought, or just plain made up about the Dragon Quest series. This makes W33man's adjective gangbang Baten Kaitos review look economical by comparison. (No disrespect, W33).

Here is a sample of the pain, roughly 3000 words in:

It goes like this: Westerners don't understand Dragon Quest. They don't understand it because the games have been, historically, renamed Dragon Warrior, which implies that the game is about a brawny tough guy who eats dragons for breakfast rather than the journey undertaken by a man seeking a dragon for reasons of loyalty to his king. The game was renamed, originally, because of an old copyright issue with TSR, makers of the "Dungeons and Dragons" games and books. There was a module called "Dragon Quest." Yuji Horii, Dragon Quest series producer, knows this, because that's where he got the name for his series. However, much like manga artist Monkey Punch's hero Arsene Lupin III, who is much more well-known in Japan than the character of French suspense novels who inspired him, Horii's Dragon Quest is infinitely more than some mere fantasy book full of airbrushed art depicting women in metal brassieres.

Good thing he worked in that quick little reference about manga artist Monkey Punch's hero Arsene Lupin III who is much more well-known in Japan than the character of French suspense novels who inspired him. You know, so we can relate to what he's saying.

Sometimes he forgets what he's writing about and starts reviewing other games instead. This paragraph is a true classic of game review literature:

At a bar in the town of Hamelia, a woman in a red dress ("woman in a red dress" is just one of the man kinds of townspeople) is drinking at the end of the bar, alone. You talk to her. She says, "What? You have a problem with a woman drinking alone?" You talk to a guy at the other end of the bar. He says, "Look at that woman over there in the red dress, drinking alone. Real mysterious. I wonder what's up with her?" The answer is that there's nothing up with her. She's just a woman in a red dress drinking in a bar in a basement of a town on a boring little island. Yet she makes the whole island, right down to the name of the town, memorable to me, even now.

WTF!? Yeah, that's some design genius right there. Thanks for sharing that memory. Of Dragon Warrior VII.

This is the whole review:

Click if you dare!

I defy anyone to read the whole thing. It is a test of both mental endurance and one's faith in humanity.

I gather the guy liked it, since somewhere at the bottom of the first volume he declares it the best game of 2004 (yeah, I know). But I don't think I actually learned anything about the game itself, aside from a nearly word-for-word transcript of its first few hours.

I did learn that the series has failed in North America solely because they put the wrong picture on the front of the first game, which angered little league players. And that Chrono Trigger was "nothing more than the rather undeserving king of a genre of games to be played only by the most loserly of losers." I don't know what happens on page 3, but things can only go downhill from there.

I'm sure you could point to all kinds of Gamefaqs reviews that just read "GTA yoo rape hokers yore momz will be mad LOL mad propz" and say they were worse. But this is coming from a site with some kind of standards, which even features professional writers. And it even stoops to telling you how your barbarian gaijin mind is too coarse to understand the subtle and intricate plot of Dragon Warrior 1 and its 6 paragraphs of text. My mind runs out of RAM halfway through every paragraph and I lose track of what he's talking about. If anyone can actually come up with something worse, I'd be frightened to see it.

And what's worse, it seems to be contagious. I couldn't just say "look at this review, lol," I had to write this whole essay detailing its faults. This shit's dangerous.

Offhand, can anyone who's played the import tell me if Dragon Quest VIII is any good?

[Takumi]

DQ8 is a great game. They have changed the menus for the US release, but the text based ones never bothered me :/

There:s tons of optional quests and bosses if you like that, or you can just beat it once and be done with it. I played the import and will pick up the domestic to see the changes.

[Jeremy]

It's got 12,000 words AND a Lupin reference? I don't know if I should hug him or sue him. Maybe a light taser shot will work. "the sky, the sea, the continent, and the cursed princess"... and a review bigger than all of them put together. This is the extent of his opinion - "I'm calling this Game of the Year 2004." - 12,000 words brought down to an actual sentence of worth.

[Revoltor]

And what's worse, it seems to be contagious. I couldn't just say "look at this review, lol," I had to write this whole essay detailing its faults. This shit's dangerous.

I see you're not a fan of NEW INTERNET GAMES JOURNALISM.

Shit, just read any Tim Rogers review.

also:

NEW GAMES JOURNALISM --
Our seven-point manifesto on why it's shit
"New Games Journalism" is a way of writing about games centred around how GREAT the writer is, how long he can write for in one go and how many books he knows about and films he's seen.

It is also a big, stinking, cesspile of used condoms and nonsense. Here's why.

7. THE WRITER IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON
Look, we can write immensely long, self-indulgent pieces of piffle with lots of imaginary conversations in, but that's not what people need. Music journalism is about saying if a record's good or not. Film journalism is about saying whether a film's worth no quid, six quid in a shit cinema, or twelve quid in a good one with a big screen and a further £17 on the DVD next year.

Games journalism is about saying if a game is worth £40 or not. It is not about referencing the works of Jean-Paul Satre when reviewing Need for Speed Underground 2. Doing that makes you look like you're still working on the University newspaper.

If you want to show off how good you are at writing sensitive dialogue, do a book. If you want to bum your favourite blog writer, send him an email. He's almost certainly as frustrated and lonely as you and will therefore embrace the opportunity for a decent (or even sub-standard) bumming.

6. NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH YOU WANKING OFF YOUR FRIENDS
And if they did, they'd want to get a video of it off Bittorrent, not follow a series of links referring you to congratulatory articles written by the the only three people that are in your special wanking club.

5. INTERNET PUBLISHING IS THE FUTURE
Yes, and you know why? Because if you submitted any of these wanky, self-important puff-pieces to a magazine they'd send you away and tell you to do it again properly, in 13,500 less words, and in a way people can understand what the point of it is without needing a personal knowledge of the writer's hobbies, interests and political leanings.

4. So put it on your blog...

3. Get your university friends to all link to it from their blogs...

2. Have a wank while thinking about how many authors you've just referenced in that 15,000-word review of Kao the Kangaroo 2 no one's ever going to get to the end of...

1. Then shut up and go away.

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2005_0...12349666393149

[Andy]

This is not the first of the great Tim Rogers. This man has crashed my fucking computer, on multiple occasions. With his text.

[PKBMax]

I'm confused....

"Everything in Dragon Quest VIII looks like a cartoon. This is a good thing, as well as an original thing. Forget Jet Set Radio, which looked like a cartoon because it was going for an original visual style. Forget Zelda: The Wind-Waker, which looked like a cartoon because it could. Dragon Quest VIII must look this way. It is essential to the future of videogames that it look the way it looks."

Essential to the future of videogames?

[PKBMax]

That said I have to argue that this review, from the same guy, is far worse --

http://www.insertcredit.com/reviews/...an3/index.html

[MarsKitten]

How a review should be written:100-1000 words about why or why not this game is worth the price point and time spent playing. If writing for an in-crowd, use gaming conventions, terms and refences, if not, don't, and avoid buzz words either way.

This review also fails at basic journalism: it does not communicate its message nor make the reader want to read it.

[Revoltor]

Fuck all that noise.

<GAME TITLE>
<GAME GENRE>
<YO THIS SHIT IS HOT/NOT HOT (CIRCLE ONE)>
<3 SCREEN SHOTS>
<OMFG STAR RATING OUT OF 5>

Proceed to make millions.

[Giga Power]

I see you're not a fan of NEW INTERNET GAMES JOURNALISM.

Count me in as well.