He’s one of Destructoid’s most prolific editors, and he’s a bit of a self-righteous wanker too. For this Monthly Musing, I’m feeling the hatred for Jim Sterling. Seriously, the man is absolutely worthless. All he does is flamebait, and post low review scores, and lazily vomit press releases and misogynistic dribble while the rest of us have sat back and taken it. But no longer shall I allow this too happen.

Let’s examine why Jim Sterling is probably the worst writer covering the games industry today.

First off, Mr. Sterling is absolutely terrible when comes to writing the most basic part of an article: the headline. How long have we let him effectively lower our IQs with completely idiotic headlines such as “Far Cry 2 collector's edition is both collectible, and an edition,” “Ninja Blade producer talks about Ninja. Also, blades,” “Ninjatown screens: More ninja and towns than you can handle!,” “Saihai no Yukue screenshots want to Saihai your Yukue,” and many others. It’s atrocious! A seven-year-old chimpanzee with Down Syndrome could write better than that. In fact, Destructoid should start looking for a seven-year-old chimpanzee with an extra chromosome to replace the snooty, son of a bitch they have currently.

But his propensity for shitty post titles is only one of the reasons Jim Sterling makes my blood boil. Even worse than that is Jim’s biased, and utterly infuriating method of reviewing games. He gave Grand theft Auto IV an 8. An 8! What the fuck was he thinking honestly? Here’s an excerpt from his review (I’ve taken the liberty of cutting out the unnecessary drivel):

The Euphoria engine makes interacting with Liberty City's inhabitants hilarious (the first time one of them grabs the car you just stole is a moment of sheer joy) and the attention to detail is marvelous. A title that makes just watching an in-game television fun has to be worthy of praise, and the satire and wit that has been put into everything from the game's dialog to its plethora of radio stations (LRR has an ELO song on its playlist!) ensures that Grand Theft Auto IV is consistently entertaining….GTA IV is simply unparalleled…It's… a perfect game,… one of the best damn rides you'll get from your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 this year.

Does that not sound like a ten, possibly a ten and a half? How can you give it an 8 when GTA was probably the greatest achievement that mankind has ever produced. I don’t want to use hyperbole, but my distant cousin had cancer, and the day GTA came out, she was miraculously cured…. until she collapsed in her home and died alone a week later. Jim Sterling is obviously just trying to bait us true gamers.

It doesn’t stop at GTA IV though, as Sterling was also totally biased against Too Human from the start. I read the review, and the game certainly didn’t warrant the 2 that it received. Once again, I’ve excerpted the evidence for you to see. No text has been changed.

An interesting concept… I respect…the writers....

He said it right there! Too Human is interesting. Then Jim starts trolling for page hits:

The combat is incredibly badly designed, and to further add to the frustration is the fact that it is incredibly unbalanced. Baldur has no ability to block, nor can he regenerate health without relying on item drops (unless you choose the right character class). His only means of defending attack is a pathetic dodge move that more often than not sees you rolling right into one of the thousand bullets that fly across the screen at any given moment… Every time you die, you are forced to watch a 25-second-long cutscene in which a Valkyrie descends and carries Baldur off. It is the same scene every time -- the same animation, the same awful music, and the same length.

I played the demo once about halfway through, so I know exactly what the full game is like. The combat is totally cool and easy. I loved the ice skating thing they added in (which adds a subtext to the story I might add), and the fact that there are upwards of one thousand bullets on screen at once makes it a technical marvel! It’s awesome.

Also, the death cutscene is superb. First of all, the cutscene is only like 17 seconds so Sterling is distorting the facts to make the game seem bad. 25 seconds isn’t that long, but it seems that way to Jim here because 25 seconds is all it takes for him to engorge an entire box of crème puffs like a boa constrictor. Plus, the music and animation in this game are superb. I listen to it on my Zune™ every day now.



Finally, and this is key, Jim Sterling is a furry. He blatantly let his furry flag fly recently when he said that he wanted to fuck Rouge the bat, stating that the virtuous Rouge “looks like a total slag who'd go all the way for a handful of Pringles. That makes her worth a deposit in the tossbank as far as I am concerned.” Aside from gross misuse of British colloquialisms, Jim Sterling fucks slutty bats.

I hope you readers have seen how Jim Sterling has tainted Destructoid’s reputation. Personally, I vomit instinctively whenever I see he’s written another article. I once coughed up a kidney after reading one of his “Golden Rules” pieces. Don’t let the terror continue any longer. Say NO to Jim Sterling.