Grumpy Old Nerds

Well let's start this article off correctly. As of today GamePro, a site and magazine dedicated to reporting on video games since 1989, goes the way of the do-do. Why post this here, might you ask? Well it's because we here at Grumpy Old Nerds are happy about it. Sure it's a little mean spirited, but we're not paid to do these reviews, nor do we get early copies of games.

We, in fact, do this because we enjoy it. Even when we're ripping on your favorite game, we know we're doing our job right because it's our passion. And honestly we have the obligation to report properly. Not to what you want to hear or what we think ourselves. Or at least most of the time. You'll notice we mark certain reviews as Editorials for a reason.

So a few days ago while searching through some info on The Old Republic for an upcoming article, I found a few minutes of review that, honestly, if someone got paid for doing it they should be laid off. Which made me happy to note that it was GamePro and they were, in fact, being laid off. Now this strikes deeply to the rest of us on the site because we have no asperations of being paid for our work. We just do our thing, enjoy what we do, and work 40+ hour weeks to pay our bills. Yet in the span of 44 seconds... I noticed something fishy.



Now we here at Grumpy Old Nerds don't review everything. We can't afford to. No cash inflow, ya know? So we try to get to the big stuff, we definitely get to the stuff we're interested in, and for the most part we don't force a review. Even my review of Multiplayer Gears of War 3, Modern Borefare, Skyrim ect were games I wanted to try out at least passingly. So I don't consider that a stretch to write up my impressions. But if we ever ran into a brick wall of just HATING something we wouldn't review it. So you will not see a Twilight MMO review here. We'd rather be run over by Steve Hawking until dead.

Yet within less than a minute of the review posted here: I noticed that someone at least was phoning in a review. Now granted we sometimes don't complete games before we review because sometimes that could take a while. And without getting them in advance as a recognized press site we don't feel like we're doing you ANY favors if you're sitting on the bench by making you wait 2-3 weeks before we tell you what we think. So sometimes we blast out reviews after a couple days of play or whenever we feel we've gotten a solid grip on the game.

However we refuse to accept phone-ins as a valid review. We don't get paid, therefore we have integrity or nothing. Not to say the two are exclusive, but you don't do this sort of thing for simple fun without having some integrity about it. Yet while I watched this review I couldn't help but not that after (supposedly) playing the TOR Beta since the friends and family access level (long time ago) she couldn't remember the name of the Republic.

In fact called them the 'Blue-Side' or 'Alliance Side'. Now I may forget names in reviews here and there, but I go look it up when I sit down to do them. It's courtesy. But this was such a huge part of the character creation alone... I had doubts. This is within 44 seconds of a 10 minute video, mind you. So by then I knew I was in for a bad ride. Not from being told the Sith Warrior's story was slow. It sorta was for me, so I get that. But not remembering a major mechanic? That's... not professional. There. I said it.

And also keep in mind by 5:47 miss 'Love You Long Time' admits to not getting a companion yet. After being in the game since F&F beta. And I got my first companion in less than 3 hours on every class I played.

Just saying...

Well I won't detail the rest of the review, because honestly some of them seem to be trying, and honestly seem to have valid points, but when you hear the bit about how the story gets in the way of the game and that Bioware doesn't know how to write a story because WoW's Death Knights had a better story... well if you're a die-hard WoW fan you may get it. I'm a recovered Warcrack addict. So I can sorta see it, but the differences are night and day between how story is displayed. Being that WoW is subtle and none of your quests really matter, where the TOR ones are prominent like an RPG game.

So what's the point of all my ranting? Because officially today GamePro is completely no more and after this horrible review (not only do I disagree, I also see most of it as unprofessional) I will not lament their passing. In fact I have my days where IGN and Gamespot upset me with fanboyism. In fact I can list at least 1 game that got good reviews from both, got great critic revies on metacritic, but got decimated by player reviews so badly it was clear that someone got paid. And if I mention the name of that game Numbspoon will just keep talking about 'Regan Smash' while I turn myself purple and foam at the mouth. So we'll skip that.

However the point is thus: We at Grumpy Old Nerds support different view points, welcome opinions, and even want competition even though we do this for free. But we do not want to see people acting like spoiled kids because they're getting laid off, or taking the money and not reviewing their assignment. If they paid us to review? We'd do the Twilight MMO. Depending on the cash. And we'd try to be objective as we could. In fact I might get my girlfriend to proof read it. She's a team twinkler. But I didn't dump her despite that. See. I do have a heart.

So on this joyous day we invite you to remember the 5th of December. The day where twits and idiots joined the working class on the unemployment line.