Fanboyism

A fanboy, as it is defined in the Urban Dictionary, is a passionate fan of various elements of geek culture, but who lets his passion override social graces.  I would have added: “…and will staunchly defend a geek product and insistently contend that its ‘totally awesome dude’ despite evidence that it’s so not ‘totally awesome’ as he says.”  A fanboy is like that kid on the playground you make fun of, because his mother is a total whore; however, said kid will respond indignantly with “nuh uh” and will insist his mother brings in different men every night to, as his mother would explain, “to fix something in the house.”  Of course, being mean, little sociopaths as some kids are might intelligently point out that that loud banging isn’t of a picture being nailed to the wall but rather his mother being nailed by Mr. Fix It.  Then again, you could also point out that, if your mother had to bring in somebody every night to fix something in the house, you could properly deduced that this kid’s house is a piece of shit.  And make fun of him for it.  Poor kid.

My point is this:  a fanboy will fail to see the object of his affection in objective lighting.   Any remark that might place such object in less than perfect lighting will set fanboy’s anger in a blaze of psychotic glory.  Case in point:  Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame had been recently riddled with hate mail from Nintendo Fanboys about his less than flattering review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

To be honest, Yahtzee has a tendency to be brutally honest (read: cruel) when it comes to his reviews.  However, his SSBB review was relatively tame.  Most of his hate was really toward the fanboy’s who he knew would skewer him for such a brutally honest “fuck you” review.

So what did he say about the game?  His feelings could be some up in one word at the beginning of the review: “eh.”  He mentioned several short comings of the game such as retarded camera, cluster-fuck fights that throws strategy out the window in favor of random button mashing, and other small little complaints that have earned the ire of Nintendo Fanboys everywhere.

What do I think?  “Eh.”  I think that sums it up quite nicely.   The game is really purely average when placed on its gameplay merits alone.   Now I ‘m not saying there isn’t strategy involved when playing SSBB; even the most die hard brawl player will be quick to show you how he spent many countless and sleepless nights learning the various intricacies of this so-called deep fighting game masterpiece but only to be pwned by some noob who was just button mashing like crazy and comments on his win with a gracious, “oh did I do that?”

The ugly truth is that this game was overly-hyped and over-scored simply because it’s a Nintendo product.  Nintendo could shit in a bag and sell it to fanboys as the next great thing and no one would question it.  Oh wait.  They did.  I believe its called Mario Kart Wii. Oh I’m just kidding.  It’s only marginally shitty.

Now it’s not that I don’t like the Big N.  I consider myself, as some t-shirts at Target would suggest, “classically trained.”  The original NES was my best friend.  Most nerds now will totally agree gaming didn’t really take off until Nintendo decided America was cool enough to have its little machine of gaming goodness.  And like most companies with many years of experience and built-up customer loyalty, Nintendo can ride on its reputation alone to sell games.

And that’s the problem.

To be fair, Nintendo has a stellar record when it comes to games.  They put a lot of effort in making the games genuinely good.  Nintendo rarely makes a bad game if ever.   However, it seems that since the Wii debuted the quality has been slipping.  Twilight Princess was not as good as people will lead you to believe.  In fact, in the pantheon of Zelda titles, TP is simply forgettable.  God, I can see the hate mail flowing already.

Maybe its not that the quality is slipping but rather you can only do so many re-creations of the same franchise over and over again.  Most of Nintendo’s beloved franchises are at least twenty years old if not older.  However, to a fanboy who has followed Nintendo faithfully like a pup, Nintendo is a life-long friend who has not strayed from being “totally awesome.”  To a fanboy, the most minuscule changes in a franchise would equal to revolutionary.

I think that is the case with SSBB.  Let’s be honest people.  How different really is SSBB than the original title for the N64?  On a purely gameplay perspective, nearly no difference.  Oh come on now Nintendo.  You could have at least put in something uniquely fresh like say a fart button and defecating finisher, since this game is so shitty.  Oh I keed.

So as E.G., I must ask: “Why does SSBB exist anyway?”

Fan service.  Really, that’s it.  It is completely unnecessary in my opinion.  Oh some might argue that it brings online play to the Wii and thus justifies its existence.  However, since it barely does that well, I can hardly see that as a reason to be.

My real point for all of this existential BS talk about fanboys is that their existence does a disservice to the gaming industry as a whole.  Look at Metacritic and tell me that the scores are not overly inflated for a game that doesn’t really do anything new or well for that matter.  Now I understand the power of Nistalgia.  A warm, fuzzy feeling inside swells up as you see your beloved Nintendo characters beat the living crap out of each other.  Sometimes Nistalgia can override sensibility.  It’s happened before.  *TwilightPrincessCough*

When you tell someone they’re doing a great job when clearly they can improve themselves a bit, what you are really telling them is to continue being marginally acceptable or in some cases continue to suck.  False positive feedback will only net us the same crap in returns.

Now how is the industry to grow without valid criticism?  Scratch that.  Honest criticism is what is needed here.

People like Yahtzee are the driving force that can keep fanboys in check.   When the industry over-indulges itself in fanboy hyperbole in gaming reviews, its the job of the sane to bring us back to reality.

Speaking of hyperbole, I think a game called Grand Theft Auto IV needs a reality check.

-E.G.

~ by jj on May 8, 2008.