Written by: Marisa
The very first (satirical) review from the The Very Real Reviewers. Make sure to come back for more if you enjoy this one!
Have you ever wanted to participate in a comment section without the stress of worrying about the humans behind the misspellings and alternative facts on your screen?
“No,” came the resounding answer from our team as they were offered the opportunity to preview the latest in VR technology, Comment Section Simulator. They were then all forced to test it.
Mark’s First Impressions:
“Who even developed this? It’s indie right? It has to be indie,” Mark said as he slipped the headset on for the first look. When the game began, it wasn’t what he was expecting. Comment Section Simulator gave him three options for environment—”Morning Commute”, “Dinner Date”, and “In Bed at 12:02 AM”.
“Alright,” Mark admitted, “the developers know when I’m most likely to be looking for the specific type of pain that comes from reading a comment section. I went with the ‘Dinner Date’ option.” Mark then picked his social media platform of choice and was ready to roll.
“I was disturbingly impressed,” Mark confessed, “There was a full environment around me, and I barely remember any of it because I was staring at my simulated phone! I think I had a date, but I really don’t know.”
“After a few seconds of scrolling, I found an article about the latest game to add a Battle Royale mode. I didn’t read it. Instead I clicked on the comment section hoping to find a TL;DR hero in there. I scrolled past the first few while skimming for a comment to sum up the article. The next thing I knew my turn was up, and I’d read at least a dozen eerily similar one paragraph essays about how a given game was cancer. I forgot I wasn’t reading a real comment section.”
Tina’s Second Thoughts:
Tina didn’t start this experience with an open mind. “Are we getting paid to do this? Is it bringing in revenue? Fine, just give me the headset.” She started with the “Morning Commute” option.
“It put me on a bus, which, I mean, I car pool, but it was close enough. I tried to look around me, but I was sitting next to two very close simulated fellow commuters, who I will not describe because I would be unable to do so without being impolite and insulting at least five different fandoms. It was uncomfortable, so I looked at my phone. Pretty accurate to what few bus experiences I have had.”
Tina attempted to click on a link about an action RPG that was looking at adding dialog options in future installments in hopes of filling the void left when the developers known for that gimmick blew their last title.
“Thank God it had an obnoxiously long title, or I wouldn’t have known what it was about because the link was broken. I don’t know if that was an added measure of realism or the developers being lazy. I went to the comment section because that seemed like the point of all this, and I wanted to know if similar simulated readers had this problem.”
Tina took one look at the comment section and bailed.
“Uh, no. I’m done,” she said taking off the headset. “It’s toxic in there. I don’t want to say how it’s toxic because I don’t want people talking about it in THIS comment section when the review goes up, but it’s worse than when developers release free content their fan base isn’t satisfied with. So much salt.”
AJ’s Final Take:
AJ put the VR on and picked “In Bed at 12:02 AM” with a grimace. “Why are VR titles always simulators, horror games, or ports? I want an original puzzle-platformer in VR, man.”
“Is there a way to turn the brightness or contrast down for this one?” AJ complained while fiddling with the options menu before finding the correct setting on the simulated cellphone. “Okay, that’s a cool idea in theory, but when I’m simulating my 12:02AM insomnia, I wish they’d assume I already have the brightness turned down.”
AJ trailed off and found the same article Mark had. Then he did something neither Mark or Tina had tried—AJ started responding to a comment with a smirk. Comment after comment, AJ began correcting misinformation and telling off bad attitudes.
“I’m so tired of entitled, gate-keeping, elitist, gaming trolls” AJ muttered, responding to post after post. “I see the appeal of this. It’s cleansing. It’d be exhausting to try to keep up with this online in real life, but I’ve waited my whole to feel like I’m brave enough to tell others to let people like things online or to say not all games need realistic graphics to be good or to tell someone game devs don’t owe them sh—”
AJ was on a roll till Mark pointed out, “The simulator is clapping back, dude.”
AJ scrolled up to find in horror that the simulated OPs were responding back. “’If game developers were smart, they’d listen to MY idea about,” AJ read in a mocking voice. “No ones going to add content to something because you’re demanding it, buddy. This one thinks a game that hasn’t gotten a sequel in twelve years is getting a new installment because of an April fools post. They’re delusional, but the people responding are just rude, and—oh God, a wave of comments from the fan base just showed up.”
The team let AJ continue to go at it for a while before cutting him off. Tina commented, “AJ kept screaming at the simulated phone and writing back comments for hours. I think he created like a 58 comment long virtual thread.”
Group Thoughts:
“I think if any of us won, it’s Tina,” Mark commented, “There isn’t really winning with most simulators, and that also kind of true for comment sections. The only way to win is not to play. Look at all the time AJ and I wasted.”
“Yeah, but for what the developers set out to do, I think they did it well,” Tina added. “It felt like we were all reading really nasty comment sections, which is basically all of them. It even provided the right atmosphere for when we’d get sucked into our phones.”
“Who even is the intended audience though? Who wants to play this kind of game?” AJ brought up.
There was a moment of silence before the group concluded that the game intended for streamers and let’s players.
AJ stated, “I can’t recommend it for the average player, but people will buy it anyway after watching an internet personality play it. Shortly after, they’ll likely realize it’s no fun to play on your own, but the streamer will have already cut a deal to promote it because their video has been demonetized.”
The Very Real Reviewers gives their early look a four out of ten.
(Disclaimers: This is a satirical review. The Very Real Reviewers are not very real. Comment Section Simulator is a fabricated VR title. Any resemblance to real world people, titles, or products is coincidental and a little sad.)
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