Where critics and fanboys collide.

Hello everyone and welcome to the first ever edition of A Dad's Review, where I capatilize on my fatherly status to a terror-bound-two-year-old, and husband to a sexy brit (who can be found on her own blog) to rant about things that are important to me and hopefully important to you as well.

This new, and probably doomed to fail blog project was spawned by various negative reactions to Visceral Game's (the talented crew that brought us Dead Space) latest project: Dante's Inferno. Which, coincidentially I am planning to purchase over my lunch break today.

I'm a big fan of gametrailers.com . I use it as my primary news source for games despite sites like joystiq and kotaku being readily availble, I like moving pictures. I like watching developer interviews and background information and trailers etc. It get's me excited about upcoming releases and future projects. Not to mention that gametrailers is incredibly comprehensive, is well maintained, has good bandwith, etc. etc.

Now the thing I don't enjoy about gametrailers are the fanboys. And no, this isn't something unique to gametrailers but something more akin to video games as a whole. And while we're at it, other things, like music, art, literature, film, and what have you. Fanboys are essentially people who are so in love with one thing, that they can't see the value in anything else. You might be familiar with this, even if you've never heard the term. Here are some basic examples.

"PS3 is lame, XBOX Rules!"

"Killzone is just a Halo rip-off!"

"NOFX is just a big gorup of Rancid wannabees, Rancid is sooooo much more punk."

"Whole milk is the ONLY kind of milk, all that 2% crap can go suck it."

"People who fought in Iraq are pussies, the real war is in Afganistan!"

"It doesn't matter that our economy is in shambles, America is the best country evar!"

"I think that sliced bread is so gay, i mean, it's just bread loaves in slies, amirte?"

And then of course, the one that truly got to me today. The most epic of annoying fanboyism in it's truest and purist form. Yes, when i read the comment by a 13-year-old-boy last night on gametrailers essentially saying that "Dante's Inferno is just a lame God of War knockoff"...i thought it was kind of funny.

But when the thoughts of that poor misguided youth was reiterated by Seth Schiesel of The New York Times, it was just too much for me to handle.

"Dante’s Inferno is nothing less than a studied, rigorously shameless high-definition knockoff of God of War, the 2005 action masterpiece created by Mr. Jaffe for Sony," said Schiesel.

I had to shake my head in shame and then hurriedly rush outside for a smoke before I smashed
something important.

Shiesel goes on to pan the game in his article repeatedly bringing up God Of War III (the upcoming Sony release planned for later next month) and how the creater of GoW should receive royalty checks from EA.

Schiesel I suppose can't appreciate the concept of genre's, much like many other fanboys throughout the industry. The 3D action-adventure genre now inconized by games like GoW, Ninja Gaiden, and the more recent Bayonetta (and of course, today's release Dante's Inferno) was originally standardizes by Hideki_Kamiya the creator of the 2001 hit Devil May Cry.

Kamiya, by the way, is also the creator of Bayonetta, who Shiesel seemed to be a big fan of. Oddly, he didn't mention GoW once in his review of that title. Strange...he mentioned Devil May Cry though so one could conclude that he must know that the vein of games including (what immediately comes to mind) the Devil May Cry franchise, GoW franchise, Ninja Gaiden franchise, Bayonetta, and now Dante's Inferno are collectively grouped into hack-and-slash games?

In 2005 when I first saw God of War my initial reaction was "Oh I didn't know they were sitll making PS2 games." Followed by "Oh sweet, this game looks like it plays like Devil May Cry! Awesome!"

It just frustrated me when critics and fanboys alike aren't willing to assess a game in it's own right and instead fall back on the age old adge of "Oh, obviously that's just a counter-strike rip-off." Oh shoot, wait, no one says that. Nevermind.

In the mean time I plan on purchasing a copy of Dante's Inferno as soon as I get on my lunch break. I have a lot of confidence in Visceral Games. Dead Space left such a lasting impression on me that I still haven't bothered to finish Resident Evil 5 (which by the way is a big Resident Evil 4 knock-off). I don't know nessecarily if it'll be an enjoyable experience considering it takes place in hell and the developers intentionally went out of their way to make it disturbing as possible. But I have faith that there'll be good, solid, entertainment there. Which in the end is what we ask from out video games? Right?

In the mean time I hope you've enjoyed today's review, and you can look forward to a review on Dante's Inferno in the near future.

Oh and some other game called Bioshock 2 is slated for release today. The New York times forgot to mention it. I'm glad I didn't.