Having been forced to read my own reviews once, that seems about right. But to be fair, I would have dressed it up with a really hamfisted Snakes on a Plane reference.

There’s definitely a disconnect between a publication purporting to encourage variety while having so little of it themselves, and the audience is picking up on that.

Alpha Protocol is love. Alpha Protocol is life.

If you do read reviews and even then I would rate them rather lightly in the decision making process, just start by ignoring ign and the like as their reviews tend to be highly suspect at best.

Personally, I like a combination of reviews by people who actually played a game for some significant number of hours, forums(if any), and possibly a few youtube videos if I'm still undecided or information on a particular game is sparse.

Personally I like totalbiscuits WTF(and other videos), but can't stand Jim Sterling, who I consider to be an asshat of the first class, et. al.

I was making reference to a specific Hasbro version which has children getting rewarded with treats going up a ladder and those treats being ruined in some fashion by going down a chute. My kids have that version.

I haven't seen the snakes and ladders version in many, many years. We had Snakes and Ladders when I was a kid, but the wiki article said chutes and ladders has been here since the 40s.

I think Snake and Ladders is far beyond any trademark/copyright time limits at this point. So it must be market-driven.

If the American games market wouldn't be so important, we'd probably have more games like Gothic, Witcher, Inquisitor, Heretic Kingdoms, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. etc... in short: More mature games.

I agree to your notion, that the American gaming media is a small echo chamber of rich north-american suburbians, it's pretty obvious since the leak of the "GameJournosPro" mailing list. Not many people seem to make their decisions when it comes to purchasing on this, but for some reason their politics make publishers shy away (see the current DoA-Xtreme debacle where Koei refuses to sell their game to the market where they sell the most copies) and alter their games (Fallout 4 main character only available with black voice acting). It will pass though.

Just buy more mature European games, ignore the corrupt rich white American shouters and you've done your part.

My decision whether I buy a game is mostly influenced by the existence of a DRM free Linux port, decent gameplay and an acceptable price, but apart from that, I just look at the publisher.
By now, Bethesda is to gaming what Hollywood is to movies: A sign to better stay away (and for exactly the same reasons too).
American companies have a knack for hitting the lowest common denominator, but that's not what I look for when it comes to art and entertainment.

Insightful. Despite pretense to the contrary, there's an underlying immaturity to what I'm going to call the Hollywood stuff - which yes, has absolutely moved together with videogames. Even US Indies are to a large degree influenced by that subtext, whereas non US - either larger scale or indie - are less affected.

An interesting question is how connected this almost Disney-like make-believe fairytale desire is to the stereotypical north american 'can do' attitude. It's as if the magical thinking that sometimes surfaces about finding technological solutions to the world's problems has migrated towards other creative arenas.

As a counterpoint though, fairytales and 'power fantasies' will always be thematically big in gaming. It's almost inherent in the media, despite more specific cultural subtexts. Grimm's fairytales were still fairytales, regardless of how grim and 'European' they were. :) And the Witcher series is more mature than most, but not immune from some immaturity itself. ;)

PS: Connect the dots between economic abundance, cultural senses of security, and lack of perspective allowing immaturity to surface. Consider reasons why most of your examples are Eastern European. For a broader exercise, compare Europe to the US as a geopolitical environment. Consider how their political policies may differ based on same. And finally, much as it may surprise younger folks, there is such a stereotype called the idealist american. It's not a new thing at all: "Those young ones over the pond, so much misguided energy, if only they knew what we old ones do." Or something like that.

Well, power fantasy is the game. Did you see a game that you lost no matter whatever you do? All games are power fantasy design to let you win in the end.

Games that makes you keep losing despite pumping hundreds of hours in it will not be fun.

I totally agree with the OP. I have a few RSS feeds I follow for gaming news. On vg274.com every fart on Fallout4 have been documented...

If you guys want non American views in your game news and media, you're going to have to look elsewhere. Try more non English (particularly not Western) sites.

Take a different perspective on things and branch out, as those are hardly all there is. If you think that's the case, you guys aren't looking hard enough.

I rarely read Gamespot or Giantbomb or Polygon anymore because they don't share my views (and I've learned they can't ever, since I rarely play mainstream games much).

I live in America, but I'm not White, which means I don't share the same mindset. I try to be more outspoken in what I view and judge. Stalker remains one of the most immersive games to come out of Ukraine, and I make it my mission to spread the gospel, lol.

I'm just saying, it's not hard to look elsewhere.

Hey, guys, this is probably the wrong thread for this, but I plan to, sometime in the near future, be one of those reviewing "gimps" out there, but with my own, more comedic style, and focusing more on aspects of games that most reviewers don't cover, such as target audience, content, etc. Seeing as you're all familiar with Americans reviewing stuff, what do you suggest I include in the reviews? What sort of things would you be looking for in a reviewer?

I vaguely agree with almost all what you said but concerning Joystick its publication has been finished since 2012 and in fact from the readers point of view, it has been dead since the early 2000's when most of the writers went out to publish their own bi-weekly magazine "Canard PC" wich is kind of a success oddity as they only publish on paper and just use their website for the community forums and subscriptions (thus a bit the total opposite of actual gaming media trend).
http://www.canardpc.com/

OK, that's all for the off-topic :o)
Personally, the most interesting reviews are the ones based on the "retro" model: lengthy analysis of gameplay, style, mechanics, etc with lots of facts (I dn't give a damn about spoilers) which then let the reader to make its own judgment. In English language, hardcoregaming101 is one of those insightful website.

Rule of thumb: write a review like it would be read years later in a paper book.

"I'm a sport journalist that do coverage and reviews about sports. My absolutely biggest hobby and the interest of my life is fishing. Therefore my designated field to inform you about is Formula 1."

And right there is why I've stopped listening to mainstream reviews.

Related thoughts.
All I want is a list of game features and how they work. That's too much to ask so what I get is reviews filled with hyperbole, personal opinions and "Look at me I write so witty and fun!" writing.
Or youtube rants 45 minutes long with actual informative facts sprinkled here and there with a combined lenght of 45 seconds.

Ooh another gamersgate thread. +1 to infinity. Thank you! Your courage is what inspired me the most.

It's actually interesting to think, videogames might be the first cultural entertainment trend that is truly global. I would argue Hollywood has not achieved the same level despite blockbusters, or maybe it did, but back in the Gone with the Wind or Casablanca era...

I would not be surprised if games (massively helped by the net) help English become even more dominant. With books and movies the differences between countries / cultures are more obvious, if only because of the language being a dividing factor. With games you see some genre preferences, but there is a very large common denominator. A systemic language of sorts. I wonder if this is somewhat similar to what latin books represented in medieval Europe, a common logico-mythological substrate which cultures share and vary upon. I guess you could argue sports like soccer did it first though, but even that is interesting, since sports and videogames are both ludological. And the spectator player divide is stronger in sports.

Anyway, I get that familiar feeling I'm pushing my bullshit too far out :) so I'll stop

PS: Obvious other example is chess. I guess that is pretty global in itself. The history how it got that way whereas stuff like mancala or backgammon did not to the same extent is probably interesting...

Thank you. Sometimes it helps looking at the world in a certain way. :)