Game Informer pissed me off today. It wasn't just because they gave Elite Beat Agents a 6.75 (I'm all for personal opinion within bounds after all). No, it's because the reasons the reviewer (of which will not be named) states are not justified. He acknowledges the quirkiness of the title, but then criticizes the game as such: "the circles can become hard to follow as the difficulty begans to ramp up and more and more of them pop onscreen." Since when is making things harder on a harder difficulty setting an issue?

But this isn't the best part. In the next sentence he writes: "The bigger issue here, however, is that something always felt a little off when using the touch screen. I just don't think this kind of touch interface is well suited to the rhythm game genre. After awhile I actually did start to enjoy myself a little, but Nintendo was never able to convince me that the game works well." Apart from the overly personal bias, if this is true, then what kind of DS interface would work for a rhythm game? Tapping the stylus on a screen is like playing a drum. What could be more appropriate?

He essentially says that only a button-press rhythm game is the only kind of game that would work on the DS: "The touch interface takes some getting used to and never actually feels as intuitive as other button press rhythm games." You know, there are instruments aside from the piano. In addition, I have let several friends who don't even play video games try this out because they were curious, and they sure didn't have any problems figuring it out.

But what really gets me is the lack of support. He never gives a solid reason as to why using the stylus to tap, drag, or spin a musical note is inferior in this game. Perhaps the word limit somehow prevented him from actually giving anything more than opinion. Unfortunately, he should know better than to bash an interface for being itself.

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	honestgamer - December 16, 2006 (08:05 PM) It seems unlikely to me that the word count would've prevented them from making the point, if they wanted to make it. It sounds like you took issue with the main point of their review, which means it would've received all (or nearly all) of the attention they wished to devote to it.
	jeeeehad - December 17, 2006 (12:29 AM) man, that's lame. boo to not backing up points.
	ponsardin2 - December 17, 2006 (09:11 AM) You know, when a site annoys me, I simply remove it from my favorites list! Why wouldn't you do the same thing? If they are bad reviewers, nevermind that! There are always better sites when it comes to reviewing. And if you need to know everyone's opinion on a certain game, Metacritic is very helpful!
	Genj - December 17, 2006 (07:26 PM) Game Informer is pretty trashy as far as game magazines go. I think I remember them giving Dark Cloud like a 9.5 or something and saying stuff like "You can rebuild the towns! WOW!" At the time I was taking a massive dump and contemplated using the magazine as tiolet paper, but opted not to in order avoid smearing ink on my ass. Also ponsardin is right about Metacritic.
	draqq_zyxx - December 18, 2006 (10:42 AM) Well, Game Informer is a magazine that I get for free with that whole GameStop 10% card thingy. At this point, I just skim over everything in that magazine. As far as Metacritic is concerned, I have hesitations - mathematically speaking - about the site, but I do use it and GameRankings.com just to see various opinions. (Read: not as the end-all-be-all indicator of actual game ranking)