Review in the Times last Friday

murphm45

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2010/0806/1224276269349.html

Did anyone see this? Is there a different version of starcraft II that I missed?! You know one with LAN support and zerg missions?

For what is one of the biggest games releases of the year (I really don't think this is an exageration) it really does just smack of laziness on the part of the journalist, the most basic of research would have given enough to write a review without ever having played the game. It really does give the profession a bad name.

Anyway rant over, opinions?

Dacian

Completely agree. I actually emailed theplayer@irishtimes.ie to ask were they planning on a review on the 30th July. I got a positive reply saying of course they would. I should have mentioned a couple of points about the game too.

Talking about the long single player campaign with '10 missions per playable race' is laughable. A simple read of the wikipedia page would have given better gen than that. The three part release schedule is one of the main points on any website about SC2.

Am very dissappointed with such sloppy reporting. Obviously none if any research went into the article. I think they just read the back of the box in a shop somewhere. They saw '30 missions', '3 races', 'strategic battles', 'epic multiplayer action' etc.

Funky

What a joke of a review. Obviously didn't even play the game let alone spend a few minutes googling articles on SC2 to find out the key points about it.

gearoidof

I gave out about Ciara O Brien just recently.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=67078615

Sent a strongly worded letter too where she defended herself admirably. Then LAN was mentioned.

KilOit

oh their is 10 missions for zerg and protoss must be more secret mission unlocks.

MistaMagoo

gearoidof wrote: »

she defended herself admirably.

How ?

zoom!

Clearly didn't even play the game. Also the mention of LAN play is seriously bad.

The Mad Hatter

And here's The @rcade's review from someone who's actually played the game. (vis. me...)

To be fair, O'Brien probably had very little time to get to grips with the game. I think she meant that each of the three parts (Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void) had ten missions each, as she mentioned that it was the first part in the previous sentence.

Overheal

I decided to email enquiries@irishtimes.com to ask when she would be performing any journalism.

MistaMagoo

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

. I think she meant that each of the three parts (Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void) had ten missions each,

Which is still incorrect

The Mad Hatter

MistaMagoo wrote: »

Which is still incorrect

Yes, but as I said, she probably had very little time to get acquainted with the game and may have been writing off her knowledge of the original.

Dacian

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Yes, but as I said, she probably had very little time to get acquainted with the game and may have been writing off her knowledge of the original.

Which is still very bad journalism. 10 mins on the wiki page would have given her better info than she had in the article.

I still think the article was based of reading the back of the box in HMV on their lunchbreak.

MistaMagoo

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Yes, but as I said, she probably had very little time to get acquainted with the game and may have been writing off her knowledge of the original.

Which is ****ing appalling for a professional journalist.

The Mad Hatter

Dacian wrote: »

Which is still very bad journalism. 10 mins on the wiki page would have given her better info than she had in the article.

I still think the article was based of reading the back of the box in HMV on their lunchbreak.

You'd call working off (admittedly incorrect) prior knowledge bad journalism but working off Wikipedia good journalism?

Anyway, I'm not trying to excuse her; she shouldn't have made the mistakes she did. I'm just pointing out that there may be more to why she made the errors she did than you're giving her credit for. I'd recommend writing to the paper rather than writing here, which won't do any good (though I'd suggest something a bit more than Overheal's trolling if you want to get a response).

DeVore

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Yes, but as I said, she probably had very little time to get acquainted with the game and may have been writing off her knowledge of the original.

Which just makes me wonder about the standard of reviews of games we DONT know as much about and take on face value. Very poor form to write a review of a game you dont know the very basics of.

DeV.

seraphimvc

the thing is, i'd be ashamed of the low quality of the review especially when people from other country read that piece of joke :pac: it is worse than unprofessional - it is pure laziness and irresponsible.

i mean, give the people who really want the job and would work their ass off for the job.

Dacian

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

You'd call working off (admittedly incorrect) prior knowledge bad journalism but working off Wikipedia good journalism?

I didn't say that. I said that spending 10 mins on the wiki page would have provided better facts than presented in the article.

docetes

It features 10 missions for each of the three races

I don't think she meant you can play as each of the 3 races

but

Whether you are playing over LAN or online through Blizzard’s Battle.net servers

is really is poor stuff!!

Maybe she doesn't understand computers that well and just chucked LAN in to sound "techie".

either way it's pretty crap

Dacian

docetes wrote: »

I don't think she meant you can play as each of the 3 races

I can't see how it can be taken any other way.................

MistaMagoo

Dacian wrote: »

I can't see how it can be taken any other way.................

Exactly, she obviously messed up, read a summary of starcraft 1 and then re wrote it in her own words.

I wonder if "important" news stories are done with the same misunderstandings, probably so.

L

MistaMagoo wrote: »

I wonder if "important" news stories are done with the same misunderstandings, probably so.

I guarantee so. There's even a term for it: Churnalism

You see it especially in news about science. Either the Journo takes a company press pack as the gospel or they turn '1% reduced cancer occurrence in drugged rat group B' into 'Cure for Cancer found!'.

It's all ignorance, time pressure and incompetence.