Entertainment Weekly‘s Jeff Jensen caught quite a bit of heat for claiming that Kirby’s Epic Yarn was the worst game of 2010 because it was too cute. In a year that had technically deficient games, poorly designed games like The Scourge Project, Jensen’s justification was flimsy. He has now admitted it.
The sad thing is, Jensen’s new column on the subject is actually really well-reasoned. He still claims that Kirby’s Epic Yarn isn’t good, and while I disagree, I respect his views. He thinks it’s too cute, he didn’t dig the fact that it was “easy” and he thinks it’s overrated. It’s a well-written piece and he’s clearly a smart guy who knows his stuff.
Unfortunately, he says that he doesn’t really think it was the worst game of 2010, and that he “hoped to use [his] “Worst” entry to provoke debate about cutesyness?” Having a controversial opinion is great, but when you don’t properly back it up and then admit you were sacrificing a game to make a point about something else, then it kind of ruins your angle entirely.
That Jensen disliked Kirby’s Epic Yarn wasn’t the problem. It was that his reasoning was practically non-existent and that he didn’t even think the game was as bad as he claimed. That said, the people telling him to go f*ck himself and saying stuff about his mom were worse. I thought the pick was ludicrous and amusing … certainly nothing worth raging about.
C’mon, guys. That just proves Jensen’s theory that it’s a game for children.
