Thursday, September 4, 2008

Dying is Easy



Comedy is hard. Which is why I have the utmost respect for the work that Yahtzee puts into his weekly shows. I have watched every one of them and await each new one every week despite the fact that I don't really own a console or know most of the games he talks about. When I heard that Eve Online was next on the chopping block, I eagerly awaited his thoughts on my latest muhmorpigguh obsession.

Let's get one thing straight. I really couldn't care less if he likes a game or not. Anyone who bases their decision to play a game on a ZP review deserves whatever fate awaits them in their choice of gaming purgatory. Much like the roast of a beloved celebrity, I was anticipating many belly laughs as he skewered one propped-up facade after another.

Only there wasn't much laughter to be found at all. Okay, I admit I chuckled a bit at the nerd reference and the Coke/Pepsi thing. I knew he was only going to be playing a 14-day trial, but the whole thing sounded like he played the game for a few hours, got his ship blown up in a mission, then when he found out he didn't have the skills or money for a new one, promptly said F it and wrote his review. There's a reason Eve gives you double the usual 7-day trial offered by competing MMORPG's and you can even get a 21-day trial from Steam if you go that route. It's because Eve Online absolutely is capable of bad first, second, and even third impressions.

But still, where was the guy who persevered through Condemned 2 to discover the much funnier rot in the second half of the game or the one who paraded around AoC as a naked Stygian Necromancer? I wasn't really expecting him to do research to uncover such comedic gems as patches that kill entire operating systems or devs who cheat ingame for their corp buddies. But a few comments about the unfairness of PVP, market machinations, or even the boredom of mining would've shown he at least played the game in question.

Heck, even something about Jita lag would've been nice.

5 comments:

  1. Darn, you're absolutely right. He missed a ton of juicy stuff he could have exploited. Instead, he fell in the usual "boring" review that many fall into when they've only played the 2 week trial.

    Not as funny when you take these arguments into perspective.

    Thanks for bringing them up.

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  2. I still don't understand how you can do a review of Eve without joining a player corporation and investigating alliances. Its like doing a review of Pac Man but neglecting to eat the power pills in the corners.

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  3. Well, I can understand his reluctance to join a corporation. Despite being in numerous guilds, supergroups, and even outfits over the years; there's something about the name corporation that gives one pause before deciding to join it.

    Also, if I knew I was only going to only play a game for two weeks, I wouldn't feel like it would be right to join a corp under those circumstances. But that's just me. Yahtzee was probably just being his anti-social self.

    Otherwise, yeah, player run corporations and alliances are where the fun is in this game.

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  4. Hmm did you consider that it might in fact be VERY TELLING that he *didn't* even bother to into the expected comedy about the stuff you mentioned?

    Yahtzee strikes me as a reasonably intelligent chap, but i think what we're seeing here is a typical case of EVE having been so inaccessible that a potential player ran away screaming (possibly in tears).

    I think you really have to "want to like" EVE to even give it a fair chance :/

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  5. I really agree with the commenters here. I don't think you can get a real impression of eve your first try at it or maybe even your second. It's taken me three times to get completely hooked.

    But I also agree with helicity in saying that you do have to really want to like EVE in order to put that effort into letting it take hold of you.

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