Congratulations to Ben Kuchera of the Penny Arcade Report. When no one was paying attention, he ascended to the throne, assuming his rightful place as the King Of Good Games Journalism. His first act? To call for the ruination of another writer.

He's talking about Erik Kain, of Forbes. Earlier that day, Kain had posted an article about the upcoming retail release of an SNES game which had been cancelled in the 90s. Kain's post commented on the unusual situation, noting that the game had been widely emulated for years, including a link to a browser-emulated version of the game. After receiving criticism, he updated the article to remove the parts that dealt with emulation and provided a summary of the edited parts to be as transparent as possible. His intent hadn't been to condone piracy, but he realized that the piece could have been better handled and apologized while explaining his reasoning.

This angered Kuchera, who claimed that Kain's article had been a "call to piracy". From his royal throne the king spent most of the day issuing royal decrees on Twitter, wielding his power to smite Erik Kain. How dare someone make an error, then address it publicly and attempt to learn from the situation? What audacity! One should simply never be wrong in the first place! King Kuchera's seemingly disproportionate reaction to the situation certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Forbes is seen as something of an outsider to the often incestuous enthusiast press, or that Kain has openly questioned aspects of video game coverage such as review practices and the recent trend of writers dismissing fan criticism as "entitlement". None of these factors had a part in Kuchera's righteous anger. After all, he had never even heard of this Erik Kain guy before!





Also, the only time he heard of this Kain guy before was when people told him how bad Forbes was!





See? Airtight case. Unfortunately, the plebes were too stupid to understand the king's point of view. They had no concept of the heavy burden of the crown and its many responsibilities, such as talking down to others dozens upon dozens of times instead of being remotely civil. As Kuchera's game journalism liegemen from provinces as far away as Kotakustan raised their banners and flocked to his side in a glorious and necessary battle, the peasant readers began a revolt against their king. The uncultured urchins criticized Kuchera's oddly aggressive behavior, presumably because they were entitled. In reaction, the king bravely changed his avatar to a Deal With It sunglasses dog and refused to admit that he had gone overboard. This act removed any doubt that his elevated position put him above their meaningless opinions. His royal ears would not be dirtied by their drivel.

Some people were super mean to the king, apparently, which was totally unfair! A few of the comments directed at him went too far. Because of this, all of the arguments against him were invalid.





I hate to have to correct the King Of Good Games Journalism, but this statement might not have been properly researched! Goons are pretty scary. I'll grant you that. Something Awful has had its fair share of morons attempting to be edgy by "ironically" using slurs in multiplayer games. It's important to understand that our community ridicules these people, though. Our front page content is decidedly progressive, our forums ban anyone that uses racist or sexist language, and we have a long history of making fun of bigots. Attributing terrible behavior to our entire site seems more than a little unfair. It suggests a lack of research. Coincidentally, I swear that I just read something about a journalist's job as it relates to fact checking and being thorough at all times. Where did I hear that?





Oh. Well, no worries. After all, everyone goofs up occasionally, right? Besides, his dig at our site wasn't all that bad. Our own users have leveled far worse insults at Something Awful and its readers, because they are self-loathing and insulting things is a great way to have fun. I won't hold the king's mistake against him. It's not like it would be fair to wish ill on someone for making an error.





Hm. If that applies to someone who actually admitted to a mistake and tried to address it, what about someone that refuses to own up to any sort of wrongdoing at all, ever? Sorry, Ben. It looks like your second and final act as King Of Good Games Journalism will be to exile yourself. Good luck in your future endeavors. We hope you can find another field that involves ridiculing others while deflecting criticism of your own genuinely mean-spirited and childish behavior.

Proteus

If you're the sort of person that needs games to justify themselves by crossing an imaginary dollar-to-hour ratio, or requires gameplay to reach a certain level of complexity, you're going to miss out on something special and you're also sort of a jerk. 8/10

The Cave

A charming, clever adventure game that would have been ten times better with a simple Everyone Gather At My Location button and a bar of gold in the box. 7/10

Strike Suit Zero

All the elements of a great space combat game are in place, but the escort missions are bad (even by escort mission standards) and somehow the large scale battles manage to match the disinterested voice work of your squad mates. 5/10

Ni No Kuni

If you love Studio Ghibli's incredible work, you might be able to ignore the fact that you're playing a regressive, overlong waste of potential. 6/10