EGM's Crispin Boyer's a Clown

Filed in archive News on January 27, 2008

Here is yet another example of the bias running rampant against Nintendo in the print media. EGM magazine, instead of actually reviewing "Endless Ocean," decides to rip it, for being a "non-game."

An excerpt, courtesy of Gonintendo.com:

Why isn't it a game?

Endless Ocean gives you a Sailboat and a stretch of the South Pacific to explore at 10 fathoms. What it doesn't give you is danger, conflict, enemies, a story, obstacles a health bar, bosses... you know, game stuff. You don't even have to worry about your air supply. Ever tried diving without an air guage? Diving's a supersafe sport, but if you don't follow a few simple rules, you could rupture your lungs or catch agonizing decompression sickness or just drift into a happy warm funk until you run out of air. I'm not saying EO needs to give players the bends, but it'd be nice if the occasional fish at least tried to eat you.

First, he is wrong on the air gauge. Gonintendo is reporting that there is in fact one in the game. This should tell you how thoroughly this dude "reviewed" Endless Ocean.

No score was given to the game. Instead, this smart alecky blurb:

Your goal here ultimately is to catalog as many fish as you can get in petting distance, stopping along the way to give dive tours to tourists who want in on the hot fin-petting action. And if that sounds more like work than a game, then bingo - That's why EO kicks off our inaugural installment of Electronic Nongaming Monthly.

If I were to rate Endless Ocean on a scale between Biology Class and a night dive in the actual ocean, I'd give it 'trip to Walmart's aquarium isle'. - Crispin Boyer

I'm sure real consumers, as opposed to the core gamer posers that probably subscribe to EGM, would be interested to know the merits of the title, instead of this trash article. Is it educational? Is it enjoyable? Is it worth the $30 budget price? Any information of that sort would have been preferable to this screed.

Read.