You make it sound like they didn’t even buy and run the game, but that’s not accurate.
reply> While the game encourages you to master the reasonably simple controls of its range of perfectly crafted engines, you can also just set it to play itself and then take over the free camera as it does.
That seems like a perfectly valid way to experience the game to me.
The author is "not exactly a train enthusiast" as they say, and nor are the vast majority of the audience . Yet the article presents the game in a way that sounds appealing to such an audience, potentially exposing it to more people than just the train fan niche. I think that alone makes it better than "terrible"
replyYeah, it’s a classic bystander’s assessment.
replyThe job of a games journalists isn't to play games or explain games to gamers. It's to explain the social context of a game to a general audience.
replyIf you want a review service or consumer guide then pay for it.
All journalism is terrible these days. They just want a catchy headline for the ad view and nothing else matters, including whether the headline is true or not.
replyPaid journalism is still often good (Bloomberg, FT). But yeah if you're just going to free sites it's the same as the free newspapers they used to give out for free in the subway - a few salacious articles, one or two ostensibly 'real news' pieces, and a bunch of ads.
replyThere is like 1 or 2 actual "video game journalists" everyone else is just a glorified blogger.
replyThe irony being, that youtubers and Twitch personalities have almost certainly played the games they are reviewing.
replyBut they are considered at least a 'rung' lower than games journalists when it comes to how much access they have, and how much their opinion matters professionally.
There's an entire microcosm on youtube of former games journalists, generating a variety of content from good to slop. Most of them are from when "Games journalist" was still a classically trained journalist, and had real credentials and knowledge of how to critique the art form. Which is why they were generally pushed out, to be replaced with know nothings who are just there to parrot a script.
reply>like the journo didn't even play the game
replyThat is industry standard