Media Research Failure/Video Games: Difference between revisions
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* In a preview article for ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'', GamePro stated that the story takes place ten years after Resident Evil ''4'', when it's actually set ten years after the first three games and the prequel ''Resident Evil Zero''.
* In [https://web.archive.org/web/20170904235827/http://www.betson.com/images/cms/press_releases/9e16cf95cea1682a060677311c997065_08-06-08%20Nicktoons%20Nitro.pdf this press release] for ''Nicktoons Nitro'' (somewhat related to the ''[[Nicktoons Unite!]]'' series) they refer to one of the characters as "[[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Avatar]]", even though that's the title of the character, not his actual name.
* A St. Louis judge reviewed footage from four
* A news report on video game violence in late 2000 pronounced the title ''[[Deus Ex]]'' as "Deuce Ecks" and said that it was controversial because it allows the player to become the killer. First of all, why choose ''Deus Ex'' of all games to epitomize video game violence? Secondly, the report acted like murdering civilians was the whole point and completely ignored the [[Wide Open Sandbox]] format of the game, including the moral choices the player can make with varying consequences.
* The German report "Frontal 21" is quite famous for this. In "Videogemetzel im Kinderzimmer" (video slaughter in the nursery), "Gewalt ohne Grenzen" (violence without borders) and "Töten am Bildschirm" (killing at the screen), they said, between other things, that you can chop off the arms of grannies in ''[[Grand Theft Auto (series)|Grand Theft Auto]]'' and described ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' as a [[WW 2]]-type shooter. That games in Germany are heavely censored (for example: no blood and no chopped-off parts in ''GTA'') did not stop them: They simply displayed the uncensored original versions which are not legal in Germany, at least not for anyone below the age of 18. This all gets worse if you realise that this was hosted on a paid-through-taxes publicly owned television station, ZDF, which has a governmental duty to educate. Well, at least on paper.
** They also described the ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|GTA:San Andreas']]'' [[Hot Coffee Minigame|Hot Coffee mod]] with the words "Like this game: whoever rapes the most women wins", later arguing on a message board that the player's ability to choose positions was where the rape part came in.
* A report about violence in
** The
* [[Nintendo Power]] has been known to misidentify the species of Krystal from ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star FOX]]'' more than once. In one issue, they called her a cat (using this as a device to say she should've ditched Fox and hooked up with Panther by the end of ''Assault''), and another claimed she was a ferret.
** The same magazine also erroneously claimed in a ''[[Soul Series|Soulcalibur]] II'' article that Yoshimitsu is a ghost.
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** There was a German Nintendo magazine that was available to fans (in the beginning, then not, then again) free-of-charge. When doing [[Mega Man X]] they wrote about "Die hübsche Reploidin Zero" (the beautiful female reploid Zero) helping X. Zero is male. [[Dude Looks Like a Lady|Booblights and long blonde hair notwithstanding.]]
* Not even Disney Adventures, the official magazine for the Walt Disney Company, was any good on their review of ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', a game developed by, y'know, Disney and Square. Their blurb states that the Disney villains want to change the endings of their stories so the bad guys win. Already done in Disney Villains' Revenge, but firstly, that's not the premise, and second, the story's even deeper and darker than how they described.
* According to [http://www.zeit.de/2008/40/OdE49-Medien this Die Zeit article], ''[[Grand Theft Auto (series)|Grand Theft Auto]]'' is a [[Racing Game]]. Not entirely untrue, however, though most of the racing missions in the series tend to be optional and [[That One Level|extremely frustrating]].
* Another GTA example: the Quebec newspaper 24 Heures claims that ''GTA: Chinatown Wars'' is focused on "the Asian gang" (The Triad) from ''Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City''... Even if they meant ''[[Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories|Liberty City Stories]]'', ''CW'' is part of the ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' era, which is as unrelated as possible (plotwise, anyways) to the ''[[Grand Theft Auto III]]'' era (of which ''LCS'' is a part of; and for the record, the Triad did appear briefly in ''GTAIV''.). They also managed to switch around the text caption for the ''[[Resident Evil]] 5'' and ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' screenshots on the same article as said goof.
* Also ''GTA'': an article from a British paper claimed that the goal of the game was 'to kill as many people as possible'. Any player can tell you that doing so is actually a detriment to the actual goals.
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** For those not familiar with the game, the turtle character that is supposedly a potential child molester is Tortimer, ''an NPC''. Yes, in ''Animal Crossing'', [[Sarcasm Mode|the game itself tries to seduce your children into sending it pictures of themselves.]]
** In addition, interacting with other players over the internet is only possible by swapping friend codes with that particular player; this is not ''[[World of Warcraft]]''.
** Not that it matters in some jurisdictions -- according to [https://web.archive.org/web/20141020115707/http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/03/17/cybercop-no-good-reason-adults-own-animal-crossing a spokesman for the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force,], just being [[Periphery Demographic|an adult]] and owning ''Animal Crossing'' is apparently ''prima facie'' evidence of being a pedophile.
*** Which is even more absurd as the (at least the German) advertising for the game shows a mid-twenty woman playing the game.
*** For those who can't get the video in the original link to load, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xAK-X0RA5o here's another video.]
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* The ''[[Rush Limbaugh|Limbaugh Letter]]'' rails against ''[[Burnout]] Paradise'' for its hardline stance on global warming. Its ''what?''
* A TV report on ''Kwari'', an MMO FPS in which you would actually earn real money for frags (at the cost of paying for ammunition via microtransactions) and other stuff. Said TV report used ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]]'' footage.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111027220147/http://www.nydailynews.com/tech_guide/2011/10/24/2011-10-24_review_kirbys_return_to_dreamland_is_good_not_quite_epic.html This article] for [[Kirby's Return to Dream Land]] describes Kirby as [[Did Not Do the Research|"Everyone's favorite ghost".]]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/jun/01/microsoft-xbox This British newspaper article] talks about ''[[Metal Gear]] Solid Rising'' starring Raiden, "the baddie from MGS2". He may have been [[The Scrappy|unpopular with the fanbase]] but that's surely taking it a little far...
* One would expect mainstream journalists to make this sort of mistake, when online ''gamestores'' do it [https://web.archive.org/web/20081028013635/http://www.beantowngames.com/games/pid101178.htm the results] can be hilarious. Some of them only ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' players will spot, but others are rather more blatant. They've listed player characters as enemies and NPCs, they've got place names wrong, called an Orc a troll and hilariously, called a Dwarf an ''Elf''.
** [http://au.shopping.com/xPO-LucasArts-Star-Wars-Knights-of-the-Old-Republic Online stores selling "Knights of the Old Republic"] claim that you play as freedom fighters fighting the "last war" between the Sith and the Jedi.
* "[https://web.archive.org/web/20100519140743/http://keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=90360 Nintendo Wii is a popular game]".
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** "Video games are not rated" - Apparently missing ''both'' relevant [http://www.bbfc.co.uk ratings] [http://www.pegi.eu boards].
** "increased levels of depression and low self-esteem were linked to playing violent video games" - [http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2010/mar/vvgeffects Erm... no, where did the Iowa State Uni give that conclusion?]
* Parodied by [[Loading Ready Run]] in [https://web.archive.org/web/20140220045423/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escapist-news-network/1123-Pictodicks this video.]
* According to the study [https://web.archive.org/web/20090615030505/http://eab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/3/422 "The Mural as Graffiti Deterrence"], [[Zero Wing|"All Your Base Are Belong To Us"]] is a "name of a Korean computer game popular in the 1980s". (''Zero Wing'' was released in late 1989, so even the time period is wrong.)
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP5bR1o-elg "Grog XD"] report. Some dim-witted journalists found the famous "grog recipe" from ''[[The Secret of Monkey Island]]'' on [[Facebook]] and presented it as an example of "evil harmful alcoholic recipes available on the interwebs, [[What an Idiot!|that teenagers could drink before going out to dance!"]]. They didn't realize it was tongue-in-cheek, nor noticed "XD" is an emoticon.
** Later on, a vending machine with "Grog XD" showed up in the finale of ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]]'', which for many was a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].
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* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKoahtmcHY&feature=PlayList&p=UdMzgejDH1w This] 'What if video games were real' sketch features a joke based on Metal Gear Solid, in which Snake is instructed to "Infiltrate Otacon's new base". For those not versed on the MGS series, Otacon is pretty much the only character who is always on the same side as the player. Nor has he ever had a base.
** For that matter, the joke is that hiding using a cardboard box is fairly ridiculous, and so the guard responds appropriately and shoots Snake. The joke falls flat due to this being how guards already react in the game. They even recognize boxes in inappropriate settings (a random box out in the jungle for instance.)
* The early-morning show on the [https://web.archive.org/web/20130725015820/http://www.midwestradio.co.uk/ Midwest Radio]
** In another instance, during a competition to win a copy of ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'', the same DJ referred to the game - ''constantly'', and presumably never realising his mistake and/or not having any of his colleagues point it out to him (either that, or he did realise and just hoped that no-one would notice) - as "Mass 2 Effect".
* Although it's not the focus, an article about 1988, the last time the University of Florida lost three straight games, came out with this gem: "Nintendo released Tecmo Bowl." Putting aside the fact that the arcade version was released in 1987 and the NES version was released in 1989, most actual experts agree that it was ''Tecmo'' that released Tecmo Bowl.
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* The [[Ryu ga Gotoku|Yakuza 4]] PAL collector's edition sheath has the tagline "Do Something Terrible Today". Anybody who plays a Yakuza game for about ten minutes knows that they are essentially [[Rated "M" for Manly|a manual about how to be manly]], which includes being a ''good'' (if sometimes rough) person. Apparently, the marketing team ignored all this on purpose to make the game seem like [[Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!|something]] [[Evil Is Cool|similar]] to [[Grand Theft Auto (series)|Grand Theft Auto]]...
* Ars Techinca's [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/sonic-mania-plus-review-a-fine-master-quest-for-the-gotta-go-fast-crowd/ review] of ''[[Sonic Mania]] Plus'' claims that Mighty the Armadillo has never been in a side-scrolling ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]]'' game before. He did appear in ''[[Knuckles' Chaotix]]''.
* Some official advertisements for ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'' (including ''Nintendo Power'' and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfyYjK8gCA8 this commercial]) referred to "Smithy the Sword" shattering Star Road and embedding himself in Bowser's castle, leading some fans to believe this giant sword was the [[Big Bad]]. In truth Smithy is indeed the Big Bad, but the sword is not him. The sword is named Exor, and is [[The Dragon]], never confused with Smithy in-game.
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