Welcome to World Zero - Reviews for the hardcore gamer

A certain sect of gamers have been here a long time. Roots in the NES and Atari are abundant and some predate even those. Comparing the origins of gaming to what it has become virtually shows two different forms of media. Regardless, the idea of video games being simply a hobby or a mere toy has been since dismissed. An art form easily classified as simply an experience has taken the original definition’s place. Those who do not generally recognize this characterization and simply see gaming as recreation, something equivalent to an hour and a half popcorn flick or a way to fill in a brief lull between other activities is another group all together. There is nothing wrong with this group, usually generalized as “casual” gamers. Gaming is more of a hobby or a sport to them; and that’s fine, there are certain publishers and media outlets that cater to this group. However, I am not one of them.

I am a gamer defined by an indefinable term. I am a hardcore gamer. I write reviews for a specific audience; those who share the same mentality as me. Both my reviews and scoring system accommodate this mentality, which may be confusing to gaming’s more causal audience. To generalize my mindset, let me point out two of my own, yet very contrasting reviews: Gunvalkyrie and World of Warcraft. Gunvalkyrie scored extremely high compared to other review sites, while World of Warcraft resulted in one of the lowest scores it has ever received by a game journalist. Both are quality games that excel in what they are trying to do. However, both games cater to completely different audiences.

Gunvalkyrie is better received by those whose gaming roots were hardened by “twitch” shooters of the 2D era, and is better appreciated by those who take the time to master its complex control scheme; Gunvalkyrie is quite easily generalized as a “hardcore” game. On the other hand, World of Warcraft was designed from the ground up to be a less time consuming RPG than the other MMOs on the market. It's easy to sit down at the game for thirty minutes or an hour and make progress. It is an easy game, with a simple interface and an even simpler control scheme; World of Warcraft is easily generalized as a “casual” MMORPG. Does that make it bad? Of course not. But it is easy to see that it caters to a specific audience, and is graded on this site to accommodate that fact. Admittedly, this is an unorthodox method of evaluation and is easily identified by World of Warcraft’s contrast of critiques.

Gaming is not black and white, but it is the most prominent example of a medium treated as so. It is also the only example of a medium in which it is routine to be critiqued on an extremely meticulous and analytical scale. A major review site might give a game an extremely low or high score. This has actually been known to sway a consumer’s own opinion on the game, and ultimately their decision on whether to spend their hard earned money on the title or not. This is a respectable result, but only as long as it’s justified. You don’t suggest that a classical music enthusiast rushes out and picks up the newest hot country album. Yet, this is exact what the major gaming press is doing. While the consumer is responsible for researching the product and forming an opinion on whether the specific title best represents their personal tastes or not, mainstream media rejects the idea entirely. Too many a time, a professional review has outright told me to pick a game up, without hesitation, whether I’m a fan of the genre or not, whether I appreciate the series or not, even whether I own the system or not (and thus resulting in the overused phrase “worth buying the system for”). Contrary to popular belief, gamers have tastes; they have preferences. While some games truly do break the preference barrier and should be tried by those who generally dismiss the genre or series or even the concept, these games are truly few and far between.

Understandably, another factor resulting in some sources potentially shying away from really speaking their mind is their own user base. The length and depravity in which closed-minded readers will go to inform someone that their opinion is bullshit for differentiating from their own is insane. Gamers can't stand to have their opinions questioned. If you don't mirror their position, you're fraudulent, you’re a hack, or you didn't even play the game in question. There's never a, “I like the fact that you were the only site with the balls to give Final Fantasy XI a 5.9,” or even a, "That's an interesting point. I disagree, but I understand where you’re coming from." In reality, it’s something along the lines of, "your are so fucking retard that is unbelivable you gave chaos legion higher rankings than world of warcraft thats a joke the sad thing is that you destroying the gamerankings grade of wow. hope you burn in hell because you know nothing about games thats for sure," which is an actual email I received. A disturbing majority of readers go to GameRankings to see reassuring scores. If a game’s critique deviates from their own opinion it gets negative feedback, and a high score (note the abundance of perfect 100%’s) gets the contrary, regardless of whether said user even read the article or not. The score becomes the article.

In summation, World Zero is obviously not the mainstream gaming press. We’re something different. I am acknowledging that there is, in fact, a void to be filled and I’m damn sure that I’m not the only one out there that sees that. Maybe we can help add a little to fill that void, maybe we can’t. But one thing is for certain; if you’ve come to this site expecting to read regurgitations of the same overly abundant, exaggeratedly lenient reviews found elsewhere, then you are in the wrong fucking place. There's tons of that shit on the web and in print, and if that’s what you want, you need not look far. As for us, we’re going to sit here and play our Shinobis and our Contras and we’re going to speak our minds. And I’ll be damned if either a lack of PR ass kissing or a 13 year-old with bad grammar is going to change that.