Evaluating Internet Sources Part 1

Tales of Symphonia Chronicles

IGN is a site mostly for video games and a little bit for other geeky things like superhero shows and the like. Even the advertizements are for video games. It's home page shows articles on popular games like Halo and Borderlands. It seems like a site where gamers mostly can find information on games that are out or will be coming out. 

IGN clearly labels authors as well as sponsors. All of the information this site presents is clearly relevant to the purpose of the site itself: to inform about games (mostly). The authors themselves, though, are experts in their own opinions. For reviews, authors play the games to state their opinion about the game and attempt to support their opinions with information they collected about the games. There doesn't seem to really be any outside references besides the physical games themselves. When an article talks about a game, on the left-hand side of the screen is a small blurb about the game with a link to the game description and other informative information like walkthroughs, weapons, achievements, and so on. This site is used regularly by many and is updated with information constantly. Depending on the author, the content, and what type of article you read, different information will be covered in varying depths. The most determining factor of the depth of the article is the authors take on the purpose of their writing.

An example of this is Kallie Plagge's Tales of Symphonia Chronicles Review

This review goes over only a few points of the re-release of the two games included. Kallie has mostly raves about the first of the two games, Tales of Symphonia, stating, "It’s a decade old and certainly feels that way at times, but it has a charm that extends beyond nostalgia." She comments on a new option for the voice-overs, the battle style, and the inconsistent graphics update. She makes a point of stating how great the Tales of Symphonia game is in comparison to its sequel Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World that is also included in the Chronicles package. She clearly feels that the original of the two is superior to the sequel and gives opinions of in-game information to back up her arguments.

Kallie accomplishes her goal of reviewing something that has already been released to the public years before, focusing instead on the differences of the re-release vs the original and the two games themselves. Unfortunately, to someone who hasn't played or read up on either of these games, this review wouldn't make much sense.

By Sierra Baumann

Plagge, Kallie. "Tales of Symphonia Chronicles Review - IGN." IGN. IGN Entertainment, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.