They Broke The Internet

Had a minor heart attack when a friend online sent a request to send over some pictures and foolishly, I accepted the file transfer and opened it. It was a virus, but fortunately our Norton Anti-Virus program is up to date and it caught, quarantined and deleted it. Said friend is now likely hammering through his office PC trying to find and eliminate it because he’s sending everyone the same thing.

The other thing of minor note is the sheer, slack-jawed amazement I am experiencing over the Sony fanbase reaction to a single review. An upcoming game (which looks gorgeous) called Lair recently got trashed by old guard game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. The game-o-sphere literally went into meltdown when the news broke and all over the world, gaming forums were filled with hundreds of posts within MINUTES that have been truly frightening. Over at the EGM/1up forum the commentary went into immediate, angry denial with people claiming the review scores were fake, demanding scans of the magazine to prove it, and still almost unconvinced until EGM stepped in to assure them the scores were legit. Then the wind changed to EGM being angrily attacked with everything from boycotting to litigation if they didn’t change their score because “This game is awesome, you CAN’T give it a score like that!”

Even though no one outside the industry has played it.

Frankly, I’m amazed. The anger, the hate and sheer fanaticism exercised by the Sony fanbase is just a few degrees shy of enacting a crusade/jihad/genocidal “final solution” and the when they start arguing that a magazine must change its score because this is NOT freedom of the press (since that only applies to opinion, and clearly, with a game this “awesome” you are distorting a fact/truth when you give it that low a score) suddenly makes it all too clear to me exactly how the current presidential administration has managed to preside for two terms.

This is the future of America. Good God.

Of course, my old haunting ground of Singapore isn’t much better. I’ve read comments on the GameAxis board with rationalizations to the effect of, “EGM is stupid anyway, they judge a game based on gameplay when the only thing that matters is graphics. They should change their score. Any game that looks that good deserves AT least an 8 just because of the graphics.”

In future, if anyone asks me what system I own, I am going to tell them honestly that I have a Playstation 3, but then hastily add “But I’m not like those other PS3 owners. I won’t kill you just because you don’t own the same system and I’m willing to accept that not all the games for it are gifts from God himself.”

Man, is this what gamers have degenerated into? I have to divorce myself from the community of people that own the same console because they’re all raving, rabid, fanatically dedicated lunatics?