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Reading a review for a video game is much like seeing a part of yourself die.
Actually, it's nothing like that since you didn't develop the game, and you don't have any money riding on it…except for your $5 pre-order.
You wouldn't know that if you read the comments to any video-game review on the Internet. Give any game a score of "less than perfect," and any number of people who were kinda sorta looking forward to it will hang you in effigy.
It's a phenomenon that boggles my mind, but it just goes to prove that if you introduce a keyboard to anyone, the first seven keys they'll hit are "FUCK YOU."
I've been watching Arthur Gies of Joystiq comment through his Twitter account on reactions to his well-written and considered review of Rage. I noticed that the comments that disagreed with the review (and Arthur's existence on the mortal coil) can be categorized in five eerily familiar categories.
The five stages of disagreeing with a game review
Denial
From mrmtjones: "I've already played Rage and am on my second play through of this beautiful, and overwhelmingly fluid and fun game. Not only does this reviewer ignore how fun the game is, he just FLAT OUT LIES in this review. "The lack of dynamic lighting occasionally gives everything the appearance of a badly Photoshopped DVD cover." WTF is he talking about? Was he paid to say that? Rage is the most beautiful game I have ever played on a console, HANDS DOWN.
Please, I beg you. Do not listen to this propaganda garbage. Rage is unlike anything you have ever played and is surely the best $60 spent this year so far."
Anger
From K1LLZONE13: "I HATE THIS REVIEWER….he doesn't seem to know what Rage was going to be. The game failed his exceptions so he decided to get it a score that it doesn't deserve. All other reviews I've seen reviewed the game knowing what it was trying to do…”
Bargaining
From mojo1120: "It is like there is a sub-set of jaded reviewers now who now find it "cool" to have the lowest score. I am buying no matter what. I am sorry but the technical accomplishment of this game makes this a 7 even if it was nothing but running around picking up dog crap with a pooper scooper at 60 FPS. The # of games with scores between 6-8 that are supposed to be "better" than RAGE (according to Gies) is astounding. Here are some:
There are only about 45 Xbox 360 who have an aggregate score below 60. Do you REALLY believe THIS game is one of the bottom 10% of games made for the 360? No way in Hell.”
Depression
From MercShame: “I keep getting disappointed in the Joystiq reviews. Almost every game iv bought or preordered this year they give low marks, but turn out to be great and all the bad games they give good reviews. I'm starting to get to not want to read Joystiq reviews.”
Acceptance
From esbeekay: “That sucks that Joystiq didn't enjoy the game, but you know what? I just sat down with my copy and I'll still play thru it and make up my own mind. If you pass on a game because of a bad review you might really miss out on something you enjoy.”
*Note: Some minor edits were made to the original comments for the purposes of clarification (for example: the misspelling of Arthur Gies's name). Otherwise they have been left in their original form.