"Sublime!
Transcendent!
10 out of 10!
5.1 Septillion out of 10!
Aristotelian mathematics lack numerical representation of the watershed we have just witnessed!"
...did you rike it?
Well, Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Plot is upon us!
Which means it's time to board up your windows and go the fuck to ground because Hurricane
Hype has officially hit the mainland!
"Perfect 10!"
raves IGN.
"More control and choice than Dishonored, Hitman, and DEUS EX!"
GamesRadar ludicrously bullshits... even as they outright admit the game features numerous
unavoidable, outright forced combat sequences in the very same dysgonizant article!
...and it's precisely the journalistic jackfest penned by GamesRadar that seemed to raise
a red flag or... seventy, for a seemingly offhanded admission of the circumstances under
which this discordant conglomeration of contradictions and half-truths was penned to fucking begin
with!
"For fear of spoilers, Konami invited journalists to review the game at five-day
'boot camps' tied to strict NDAs (non-disclosure agreements).
We played between 9am to 5pm, with no unsupervised play outside these hours."
I could devote the remainder of this rant to those two fucking sentences alone!
A professional journalist just openly admitted that there was a Konami minder leering over
his shoulder the entire time he was forming this 'dispassionate assertion of the game's
virtues'.
Is it any wonder this effusive pronouncement of The Phantom Pain's majesty reads less like
a review... and more like marketspeak that belongs on the back of the fuckin' game box?!
The fecal blizzard rages on...
"In my boot camp, reviewers were charging through missions wearing the chicken hat (which
makes you invisible) almost completely ignoring Mother Base and all the side-ops in a race
for the 'end'." ...aaaaand boom goes the dynamite.
An outright admission that the vast majority of professional journalists in said highly
unethical review boot-camp... were chronologically incapable to imbibe in - let alone objectively
assess the quality of - the SINGLE MOST ROUNDLY-CRITICIZED ELEMENT OF THIS FUCKING GAME: It's pay-to-play...
part anus, insert Konami's turgid money-cock multiplayer!
Is this the way we're allowed to review games, now?
To cherry-pick only the elements we liked and hem a fuckin' skirt around the things
we didn't?
It's a game review!
Not a Hillary press conference.
Have we fallen this fuckin' far?!
Moving on from the self-evident journalistic impropriety: It's high time we form a prayer
chain and admit in unison that - whether the final product actually warrants it or not
- Metal Gear Solid games get perfect scores... because they're Metal Gear Solid games, and
for no other reason whatsoever.
Metal Gear Solid 2 - now widely regarded as not only the redheaded stepchild of the Solid
series, but one of the more egregious disappointments of the PS2 era - reaped thoroughly undeserved
perfect 10s from the likes of major journalistic outlets like GamePro, GameInformer, and even
a near perfect from the Arbiters of Objectivity themselves: "The unique aspect of Metal Gear
Solid 2 is that they promote stealth over action," blathered IGN, "The best way through
a level is to do it without being seen or heard."
Are we inhabiting the same plane of existence?!
Did we play the same fuckin' game?!Because I played the one with numerous forced run-n-gun
segments that ultimately concludes with a compulsory rocket launcher fight with the
MegaZord Militia!
Metal Gear Solid 4 - reappraised in the modern age as an only vaguely interactive B-Movie
- was once again rakin' in the 10s like a one-legged Russian figure skater.
"The crowning achievement of the series' 20-year history!"
crowed Game Informer.
"Is it possible to give a game an 11?!
If so, this would be the game that would merit that score!"
shrieked IGN, presumably while doing the backstroke in a vat of methadone.
Now, keep the nitroglycerin tablets at the ready as I reveal this... but the same journalistic
key party that wrested the virtue of The Phantom Pain... popped Metal Gear Solid IV's corruption
cherry back in 2008.
In '08, GameSpot suffered one of their appallingly rare spasms of conscience when they famously
refused to attend an identical 'bootcamp' event held in Japan for the release of Metal
Gear Solid 4!
One at which journalists would have been required to power through the game - in shifts - once
again, with Konami minders glowering over their shoulders so they could hit the crucial
pre-release review window. ...and I hate to break it to The Kult of Kojima
alrady laboring to spin this into a Konami conspiracy...
but Our Father, Who Art in Hipster-Glasses was not only involved in this unscrupulous
circle-jerk... he was there in-person, shaking hands and - doubtless - swaying opinions by
virtue of his very presence.
The truth hurts, bitch.
Invest in a fuckin' helmet.
As much as I'm sure the self-perpetuating Kojima Apology Machine that is the internet
gaming community would love to lay this all at the feet of Konami - and with good reason
- the fact remains that this is more the rule than the exception, both at Konami... and
the industry at large.
Games like Crysis, Mass Effect 3, and famously StarCraft 2 all experimented with minor variations
of the same highly suspect format.
But I will say this: GamesRadar and RockPaperShotgun - both of
whom have a track record like Nick Nolte - didn't have to disseminate this information to their
readers.
But they did.
And for that, I momentarily brush aside their proclivities and indiscretions, and unreservedly
commend them for doing so.
Most journalists wouldn't have... and most journalists haven't.
I, for one, feel it's important to name names: IGN didn't feel it warranted a mention...
in their perfect 10 review of the game in question.
GameTrailers deigned to mention it not fucking once in a glowingly effusive exortation of
The Phantom Shame.
GameSpot!
The Telegraph!
Playstation Universe!
Game Informer!
Destructoid!
Make your list and check it twice, rageaholics.
Because this situation may well have single-handedly threshed the journalists... from the balls-out
bullshit merchants.
I'm RazörFist.
God - fucking - SPEED!