John Walker's Electronic House

A few people are leaping to defend Eurogamer and the so-called “Simon Parkin” for their controversial review of Uncharted 3.

I would just like to say that I am reasonably delighted by this disgusting behaviour. The website clearly hates games, and clearly has no understanding of its audience, and it makes me mostly very happy. Why do they allow people like Simon Parkin to review games such as Uncharted, when it’s quite clear that he set out to slate it before he even started? Honestly, when I found out it was him reviewing it, I was hopping pleased.

Uncharted clearly deserves at least 10/10, despite any flaws it might have. Listing those flaws was a deliberate act of sabotage on the developers at Naughty Dog, and if I were them I’d be gnashing my teeth with pleasure. It’s just typical of Eurogamer, who make a habit of dishing out such insultingly low scores, and I think it’s time for their audience to take a stand and let them know just how mostly happy about it they are.

I spend at least 80% of my time being perfectly happy with the output of Eurogamer, and it is simply abysmal. At some point people have to take a stand. And I’m willing to come out and just say that I think Eurogamer is impressive most of the time, and I don’t care how upset they get by my saying that. It’s absolutely fine.

I’m a lucky man that I’m often given amazing freedom to write as I want in various publications. Obvious Rock, Paper, Shotgun affords me tremendous freedom – but in a way having no rules at all is more restrictive than having rules to break. Clearly RPS gives me space to blather on my own nonsense, and that’s a great treat. But sometimes it can be more fun to get away with it elsewhere. PC Gamer has let me have a lot of fun with They’re Back for over ten years now (eek), and over the last year Eurogamer have given me an enormous amount of room when writing retrospectives a couple of Sundays a month. These are rapidly becoming my favourite things to write – there’s an extraordinary freedom in writing a retro piece. Reviews require you to Get It Right, with the weight of responsibility, and the anchor of a score at the end. But a retrospective lets you, well, write stuff about a game. (Have I blogged about this before? Well, never mind.) Which has let me play with ideas, experiment with form, and most of all, be a bit silly. And my passion in writing is to be a bit silly.

And I think I’ve not been more pleased with one of these pieces than the most recent, about International Superstar Soccer 64, an N64 game. The idea of my writing about football is comical enough. The idea of writing it during the World Cup, and go up on the day of England’s crashing defeat, seems ridiculous. It gave me an opportunity to have a lot of fun, and to hopefully write a few funny jokes. It begins like this:

“Football! Eh? Don’t we all love football! The way they kick it with their feet, the lovely round shape of the ball, the haircuts. It’s a game of at least two halves. And have you seen when they score a goal? Gosh, everyone gets so excited about that. What a time.

OK, look, I have to admit something. That first paragraph – that’s not really me. That was the result of hours researching the subject in an attempt to pass myself off as a connoisseur of the sport. But as convincing as it may have been, I can’t keep it up. I know about as much about foot-to-ball as a gnat comprehends of string theory. Which is something I have in common with International Superstar Soccer 64.

Some of you may have noticed that the World Cup is taking place at the moment. Perhaps you’ll have heard it mentioned on the television, read an article about it in a newspaper, or been outside with your eyes open.

As the entire county drapes itself in the brutal flag of the English crusades, apparently in the belief that this peculiar display of faux-patriotism in their cul-de-sac will have a significant impact upon the success of a team of players on another continent, this sporting event dominates all senses. (Yes, things even smell of the World Cup.)

For those of us who don’t suddenly develop an interest in a sport that we otherwise find tedious, just because it’s played on an international scale, there is no escape. It is omnipresent, and not to care is to be a pariah, hounded from towns like a paedophile wolf.”

I do eventually talk about the game. You can read it all here.

PS. My favourite comment on the article:

“Don’t we all love football!”

Question mark, not an exclamation mark.

Found large chunks of this piece very condescending and patronising.

I have a piece up on Eurogamer today looking back at the Nintendo DS. Three and a half years ago I wrote this ‘love letter’ to the DS, celebrating why it was such a strange and interesting platform for gaming, exploring the oddities it was producing, revelling in the glee this produced. Time has passed, things have changed.

So I’ve taken the ‘love letter’ idea more literally this time. It’s a mixture of difficult letter to the console, and article discussing the rise and decline of the games available. I’m pleased with how it’s worked out. It’s also appropriately odd. It begins:

“DS, we have to talk. I’m sorry that I’m doing this in a letter rather than face to face, but I need to express all my thoughts and feelings carefully. I need to make sure you understand. I need you to know that I still love you, I’ve always loved you, but something is wrong.

Remember that love letter I wrote you in 2006? We’d been together for a year and I’d never felt so happy. We were still getting to know one another even then, and you had that ability to constantly surprise me. Every time I thought I knew all about you, you’d pull out another twist, another wonderful talent. Of course we knew this wouldn’t last, but then, at that time, it felt like forever.

In August 2006 I wrote a piece of Eurogamer about my unbridled love for the DS. The console had been out for just over a year and what was happening was extraordinary. While the DS was of course home to streams of rubbish, it was also the place to go for your dose of strange. Many spectacularly odd games, ideas that seemed born of fever dreams and lunatics’ fantasies.

It was the memory one of these games this week that suddenly brought the reality of my relationship with the DS crashing down on me. I remembered Rub Rabbits.

Oh, remember that year. We were always hand in hand, laughing, playing. There was so much laughter. The games weren’t always brilliant, but it was about us, how we interacted, how we learned about each other. Those hours and hours chatting with Phoenix Wright. The strange adventures, exploring with Another Code. Painting together with Kirby: Canvas Curse. It was like nothing else. We were young, we had no responsibilities, people didn’t understand us. And we didn’t care.”

It continues here.