I will never understand why people place so much value in action figures and other kinds of con swag stuff. Honestly, if I got a Street Fighter Chess Set I'd probably just give it away to a friend. It's entirely possible that some of these writers genuinely have no interest in all this crap they're getting and they write their articles based on genuine opinions of the game.
But it's so incredibly lame to imagine that these people are the ones who are the fucking link between corporate and consumers. I don't want these people to be numb to all of this. Look, every PAX I get like six eyedrops from these guys who hand them out. I'm not hype about eyedrops. I'm not asking anyone to be hype about eyedrops. What I am asking is that if you're going to give glowing reviews to games and tell everyone that this is one of your favorite games, I need to know why you're not hype about getting exclusive swag about this game. I fucking love Monster Hunter. I have a little Rathalos Hammer on my desk. I like Monster Hunter, I like my little hammer. When I tell people that Monster Hunter is one of my favorite games of all time, it's evident. Literally evident, as in I have evidence. I don't hide my shit.
Well, I did put a Mia Fey figurine I got for free away in my drawer. But only because that shit is obscene, her tits are just ridiculous and I got a facade of normalcy to uphold.
I also own a set of Capcom formalwear. Have we been over this? Bowtie and cummerbund, perfect for a wedding. I'll never wear it. Never, ever, ever. But the fact that I have this is something amazing. It's a Ying Yang blend of the ironic and genuine.
What bothers me is when people don't give a shit about any of this. I'm not asking you to lose your shit over every piece of plastic garbage that's passed to you, because I've tossed loads of free shit from cons that I couldn't give a shit about. But I need to know why none of this phases them, because it makes them just sound so lame.
It's entirely possible that some of these writers genuinely have no interest in all this crap they're getting and they write their articles based on genuine opinions of the game.
I wouldn't doubt that these guys have terrible tastes that are meant to jive with the majority of readers who also have terrible tastes. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what's going on. Stephen Totillo genuine found the combat of Bioshock Infinite to be faithful to the other games in the series, that he found the entire experience to be absolutely amazing. If Stephen Totillo had reviewed Bioshock Infinite in a featureless white room he'd still be just as impressed by it.
But that's another problem. These idiots are being coddled by companies to the point where they have to either pretend to not care, or legitimately not care to seem incorruptible. And that's where passion dies. It's when the solution to all this isn't to deny it, it's to accept everything that comes to you and then tell everyone how little you cared about getting it. I don't care if you admit that you don't need a free chopper ride to review Black Ops. I don't care if you put on the sourest, most disinterested face as you were flying around Hawaii. You're all a bunch of besties who get to go to these fantastic parties subtly disguised as game previews. Then you come back and tell everyone how ho-hum spending a night in a luxury hotel was. Fuck you. You had a fucking blast.
That's a problem that any person in any business suffers - if your customers are getting crap as a result of you taking kickbacks, you're taking a big risk of losing both your customers and the vendors giving you toys.
Rather than complaining about corruption in game journalism in general (This happens in every business anyway), I'd be more interested in hearing about specific examples of games that got lots of reviews out of line with how they actually play, or reviewers (individuals or websites) that give good quality reviews that have helped you find games you enjoy.
Oh no, this helps. If a game is given an entirely glowing review from Kotaku, I can take it that this game has had all of it's corners rounded out and probably has nothing interesting that would make it a day one buy. If Kotaku complains about things being obtuse, or the combat system being too hard or frustrating, or that they would like X, Y, and Z to be ironed out to be better, then I know I got a hit. Really, it's the games that get the 7's and 8's from the mainstream websites that go on to be my favorites, and it's the 9 and 10s that get bought for five dollars on Steam nine months after they come out for me to play and go 'eh, it's alright'.
That's my ironclad system. It's never done me wrong.