Feedbackula - Black Ops 2 Outrage Special!

I'm not a fan of feedbackula as a concept, taking an advarserial stance with readers is kind of a poor attitude. When you have a much stronger platform to air views, as well as more time to formulate them and editor to edit them is pretty uneven. Even so I had to gawk at the train wreck this particular topic was bound to be.

But hidden among the cherry picked straw men there is a valid complaint about the review that isn't answered: iterative titles are not treated consistently. Some are marked down heavily, some aren't marked down at all, some are marked down a bit. How should iterative titles be treated? well in a consistent manor would be a start.

Reviews are consumer advice, readers aren't primarily reading because they care what a particular reviewer's opinions are. What the reviewer thought of the game is just a means to making to making decision whether or not to buy a game. If how iterative games are treated varies from review to review then that makes it harder to extract and colate information between reviews. So personally I think readers are rightfully unimpressed and nonplussed with the difference in score between Pokemon, or BlOps 1.  And seriously, cross referencing the review with every other review is the only way to avoid that? No, an editorial decision on how iterative title should be handled would avoid inconsistency.

Shaun McInnis recent opinion piece on AC3: Liberation in combination with his review, is a great example of striking the right balance between personal opinion and writing a functional review. There are reviewers who attract readers/viewers based on their opinions, such as Yahtzee and there are certainly a place for opinion pieces such the previously mentioned or the "postscript" which Edge magazine now attaches to many of its reviews. But a good review is about trying to view the game objectively.

Video games have benefited greatly from the iterative approach. A film sequel being better breaks the odds but we demand it in our games. Skyrim was iterative of Oblivion, Arkham City of Arkham Asylum, Portal 2 of Portal. The difference between them and the much maligned annual titles is level of innovation. Is there some arbitrary level of innovation between titles above which iteration is good, bellow which is bad. Also if you look at the innovation in the CoD series not title by title but over time periods the level of innovation is not bad: Oblivions nearest contemporary would be what, CoD 2? Skyrim is MW3. Indie games function on the basis of lower financial risk allowing greater creative risk yet even indie games learn from commercial games and hence from their iterations.

TLDR: Grow an attention span.

Finally I think this video misses the biggest reason for CoD hate: the community is shitty.

Im such a COD hater mainly for its community and lack of change, black ops 2 was a good single player experience, multiplayer is good but only with friends really

I burst out laughing at the random comment about the tuna can...

lol

I'm not sure that constant innovation IS a must. Let me draw some parallels with the film industry here. I'm an avid action fan and I appreciate the gradual evolution that action movies have gone through from the well muscled wizz-bang Arnie-Stallone era of the early 80s to the 90s tech revolution that brought us Jurassic Park and the Matrix trilogy and recently to the more clinical brutality of Bourne and Taken. However, I don't expect every new movie to bring something new to the table ( e.g. Air Force One = Die Hard on a plane, Under Siege = Die Hard on a ship, Lockout = Die Hard in space). If EA wants to produce more of, and make money from, something that people like that's fine, well done them, and one shouldn't be ashamed to partake, just as I would love, and pay to see, a new Expendables movie every year.

The issue I think is that in the gaming community's never-ending quest to justify itself and achieve mainstream recognition (at some point we've all received that snort of derision when we've told someone about our hobby) it needs to be seen to be moving. And we don't appreciate that the most heavily marketed titles - the ones that non-gamers tend to hear about the most - are the likes of COD and FIFA which, although perfectly commendable pieces of work, don't change very much with each iteration.

It's important to realise that our favourite medium has come a long way and that there are many kinds of game developer, just like there are many kinds of film maker, musician, writer and others artists. Some will pursue artistic/narrative/gameplay originality because they have particular ideas to express, others will aim to entertain and make some cash along the way, and others just want to emulate their heroes. There is no need to try to like every game, just because it's a game.

This comment ran away from me a bit. Thanks for reading =)

I fucking love this show! Jonny is funny as hell XD

best reason for why people hate cod ever. intelligent and well said

Great show! The comments are funny in their own right, but the best parts are the host's interjections and analyses.

what a nice guy, saying sorry to the camera! ^^

This is the first time I have watched Feedbackula and this is hilarious! Nice work.

Thank god for indie games 

Oh Johnnu, I dont know if I should feel bad for you or envy you for having to go through all of the comments for BLOPS2.  If Hurricane Sandy was the Superstorm of the century the reviews section for FPS games must be the Shitstorm of the century......or at least for that year until the next iteration of said FPS franchise.....

cool and funny vid.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL I like COD.

BEST....SONG..........EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Whoever came up with this show deserves a medal, because this is just so hilariously funny!

lol kudos to who ever did the cod song at 1 minute mark

I WAS THINKING ABOUT GETTING A CAFFEINE TATTOO AWHILE BACK, THEN I DECIDED AGAINST IT BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD PROBABLY LOOK RIDICULOUS.  I WAS RIGHT.

Good show ol chap. Nice to see gamespot roughly say that cod is stagnant and money grubbing. The only way to force them to make great inovations, improvements, and mechanics is to stop buying the doo doo they flush annually. We are the toilets! :O

Best episode of feedbackula so far!!!

I see his point about gamers wanting to feel like they are valued. I really saw this when Halo was under Bungie. I liked the community they provided and the free stuff (like blue flames) that they gave to the people who made accounts on their site. I wish more game companies were like this, it seemed like they cared about more than the money.

Love the Carmina Burana thing!

I love that song, I want it on itunes.

I love to laugh at this show over the weekend.

Still love this show! 

But Black Ops 2 is a solid game.  At first, I WAS drinking the haterade and wondering, "Hey, why didn't it get the usual 9-point-something?"  However, after spending some time with the game, I see just why it didn't. 

Give me moar!!

I don't know why so many people hate gamespot reviewers for having opinions...

This is genius :D

Geeeezzz... unbelievable, if these people hate GS reviews so much why do they keep watching them? And who cares about the reviewer's score, it's just an opinion after all. Reviews just give you an idea of what the game is like so you can take a desicion of wether to buy it or not. This show really shows =P how dumb are most of these users leaving all these hateful comments. 

Keep up the good work Jonny! 

Good job Jonny, this show is fkn fantastic!! I love how stupid the community really is.

Loving Feedbackula. More please.

I'm enjoying Black ops 2 a lot. At least there aren't enemies crying with baby voice "I'feel sooooo coooooooold, soooooo coooooooold"! Any relation with borderlands 2 midgets is purely casual.

Great show. Hit the nail on the head.

BLOPS 1 is better IMO

I want horses in multiplayer, Call Of Horsey best Call of Duty game

good singing, boys. well,done!

hahahaha lol  3 time watching it lol

awesome sausage titts

Damn you FEEDBACKULA, I missed nearly 4 of your videos there god dammit, Gamespot should put this on their front page and maintain a little longer! I thought you died and Gamespot put you off air for good, Jonhny!

The first fps game I trashed before finishing SP.. terribad bo2 terribad,

Btw, looking back, after playing it a ton, Borderlands 2 does deserve a 9.0!

i feel of the chair this was hilarious

Definitely true about sports titles stagnating each year, especially from EA Sports. I suppose it would put a reviewer in a difficult place, because out of context the game itself might be solid, but in reality it's almost a carbon copy of a game released only one year ago. But last I checked these games are still getting solid 8.0's for releasing practically the exact same game on an annual basis. At what point does it actually start to effect the review score? Is it possible to do more than just say "great game but don't bother if you have last year's version"?

Well said Johnny specially what u said about FIFA.

Another great episode... and a 13 minutes long. Very nice.

final fantasy 9 music?

Kudos to Gamespot for making one of the most ballsiest and entertaining shows on COD: Black ops 2. I especially liked how they pointed out the bad grammar in each of the comments. Well done, thoroughly entertaining. :)

'I gotta take a piss, OPEN YR MOUFS - YOLO!!!!!' < hahahahahah