Slashdot Mirror
Game Reviews Not Stuck In Pac Man Era?
Thanks to GameSpot for their 'GameSpotting' column discussing critics who say videogame reviewing is still much too basic an art. Quoting a subscriber-only Wall Street Journal article with similar comments to a recent Slashdot story, the author warns against overly conceptual game reviews: "Look at it this way: Would you prefer for me to wistfully tell you how Final Fantasy XI made me feel, or would you prefer for me to tell you how it works, what about it works well, and what about it doesn't work well?" And, although he thinks the WSJ piece has many good points, he takes issue with comparisons between game reviewing and film reviewing: "When was the last time you decided to see a movie based on a movie review? Film critics write to each other."
Wakka Wakka Wakka
Now why, oh why, didn't the reviewer come right out and say Kill Bill sucked, instead of dancing around it. (/me holds head in hands)
with movie reviews and i believe other reviews (books, games, etc) most critics either take it from a technical approach or from an artistic approach. while this is all well and good. movie, books, games, etc were ment to entertain. i have yet to find a critic who reviews based on entertainment value (i don't actively look however) of course with a large majority of games today being carbon copies of other games is there any real entertainment left?
I hardly ever pay to see movies any more; since our local art houses have gotten into the "business" (think internet bubble) of pre-release screenings, I get several invitations a month to go to free shows. Not to mention that my local film festival gets me other invites, simply for being a member.
I actually do read reviews, mostly online, when I can get them, simply because there's no local word of mouth nor advertising for these things, before I get the invites. Otherwise I just have to rely on what the email or card says about the plot of a movie. Basically in the last month I've turned down "Sylvia" because of horrendous reviews and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" because I don't do horror stories. This week I have 3 free movies to go see, including "Bad Santa," which I'll see ONLY because it got good reviews, "Shattered Glass," which sounds interesting but which I may pass up for an astronomy club meeting (don't laugh), and "Mona Lisa Smile," which sounds sappy, but which I'll probably watch anyway.
If I do pay to see movies, it's usually because of trailers I've seen in the theater that pique my interest, like "Veronica Guerin," which I'll pay for if I don't get a pass.
Get off my launchpad!
..all the time. In either case, you have to find a specific reviewer that enjoys the same kind of things you do. Once you do, you can avoid a lot of crud you wouldn't like, and find stuff you may have otherwise missed.
Right now, there's game reviewers that talk about the things important to me. The WSJ guy may be interested in other stuff about games, or discussion from other angles. I can see that, but it's silly to pretend that this different coverage he wants would be better across the board.
Similarly, I'm happy with Ebert for film. Others may want more esoteric information or deeper analysis than Ebert provides. Or more shallow. But that doesn't mean that Ebert is somehow wrong - he gives many people (including me) precisely the information they want about a picture.
If you look beyond the mainstream, there's plenty of different review sources for games out there - just as there are for film. You can't review criticism based just on the Eberts of the world. To do so is just lazy.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I always find reviews extremely useful on the nuts and bolts side to decide what platform would be best to get a given game for. Frequently, the PC/PS2/GC/XBox versions will have certain advantages/disadvantages that you just flat out can't tell from reading the package or watching someone play it for 5 minutes. Since reviewers usually point out the differences between versions of a given game, it allows me to make a much better decision on how I can most enjoy that game.
But more to the subject, I absolutely would rather know how a game works, how the controls are, how the graphics are as opposed to how it makes someone 'feel.' If I'm bothering to read a review on something, the odds are good I'm already interested in it, and am basically making sure there's nothing terrible about it. Besides, everyone is going to derive different feelings from games...what one reviewer is bored by, I may get really into. However, playability, graphics, and other technical aspects are much more objectively measureable, and therefore a better focus for reviews.
"When was the last time you decided to see a movie based on a movie review? Film critics write to each other."
I use film reviews all the time. Unless I'm already heavily predisposed to see in the movie (eg, Bubba Ho-Tep), if a movie comes out where the reviews are real stinkers, I won't go see it.
(Notice that that's reviews, plural. Rotten Tomatoes is your friend.)
Granted, word of mouth is more important than reviews, but that doesn't make reviews useless.
Back on the subject of game reviews, though: I certainly want reviewers to tell me about the game, not about their interpretation of the game. The worst offendor I think I've ever read is here. Allow me to quote:
Sigmund Freud argues that all living things are governed by two basic instincts: the life instinct called Eros or the death instinct called Thanatos. Eros is the energy that tries to build social ties, fueled by the body, which floods the mind. Thanatos destroys ties and is the wish for destruction and death. All social activity can be reduced to complex forms and interaction of these two instincts. However, when civilization and socialization disrupt the normal ebb and flow of instinctual living, the mind breaks up under the demands. The threefold self is the id, the collective genetic inheritance of the species; the ego, which acts to meet the demands of the id; and the super-ego, which represents the internalization of the demands of society. Humans struggle to find an outlet to meet the demands of their instincts, but in ways that are socially acceptable. War is a perfect justification when Eros fails to tame Thanatos. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is another.
And that's just the beginning, folks.
There's actually very few remaining of the snooty critic you describe - and more people who are interested in this kind of review than you probably think.
Who's the most popular film critic right now? Probably still Ebert. And look at his reviews. Sure he scores some movies high that you might find boring. But he also gives good scores to movies that are technical and artistic voids - if they're done well and entertaining.
If you haven't found a critic out there that likes the same things you do, you're just lazy. If you think that critics are retarded or art-snobs because they like movies you don't, you've yet to realize people like different things.
of course with a large majority of games today being carbon copies of other games is there any real entertainment left?
You've conflated originality and entertainment value. They're different things. Starcraft wasn't terribly original - was it a bad game? Star Control II was a sequel for heaven's sake - I suppose that means it had no entertainment value.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Personally, I could not enjoy it because it just didn't make any SENSE! 200 bodyguards in a powerful crime syndicate, and none of them bring a gun!?! Trained assassin comes in by the front door, politely waits for her enemies to get organized before attacking?!? Sorry, without some sort of rational underpinnings, an internally consistant system if you will, I can't enjoy a movie. For this reason I found Kill Bill 1 to be a waste of time, and definately won't be seeing the second one.
Film critics may write to each other, but game reviewers carry a different purpose.
If you see a film because the previews made it look interest, but it turns out sucking, you're only out $9 - maybe $4.50 during an economy showing. If you get a game because the box looks good and it turns out to be a piece of crap, you're out $45 to $75.
A lot of this discussion seems to be missing the point that there are (at least) two kinds of movie critics. One kind is the Ebert kind, who tells us which movies to go see. The other kind is that academic kind like Cahiers du Cinema which doesn't serve as a viewing guide but acts as a way to analyse films beyond their entertainment value for the dollar.
Both kinds of critics are valuable. They are valuable at different times. During the times when you are standing around in a store with money burning a hole in your pocket, the Ebert kind are the ones you want to listen to. During the times when you want to increase your appreciation for the artform, or see trends or underlying symbolic themes that some movies might share, or learn about the artistic effect of certain new techniques and technologies, or consider the relationship between the story of a film and the political environment that spawned it, or weigh the merits of attributing a collaborative medium like film to the vision of a single director, then maybe Ebert isn't your man.
It's partially true that the academic critics are mostly writing to each other, but they are also writing to students of film and to creators of film. You can learn a lot from them. It would be nice to learn similar things about games. By all means, let's continue to have buying guides like GameSpot and so on. But maybe it would be nice to have the other kind, too.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
I noticed a trend lately that reviews will actually downgrade a game if it's too normal. FPS's (first person shooters) are extremely susceptible to this. The game play can be great, the weapons a good variety, maps decent, but the game play is solid, it gets a mid range to sub-par rating. Not everything had to be ground breaking to be a good game, and game reviewers are biased on personal experience to such a degree, that games can be rated negatively just on its genre.
I agree with the article, that some standards should be put in place, more technical than feeling should be the first rule, then give a mandatory Fun factor.
Also, I'd like to see a review site with more on 3rd party budget games, ones that cost 9.99, kid games, educational, more complete, and links to buy. And a link to the developer and distributor, may sites seem to skip putting who made the darn game.
They have multiple people giving there two bits about the games. Each reviewer has various game genres that they like and dislike..
The guy who loves FPSs is going to review a RPG alot different than the guy who loves RPGs.
The personal angle shouldn't be removed from reviewing but it definately should take the backseat to the actual game play aspects.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Specifically, the purpose of a game review is to allow the reader to determine whether or not to plunk down ~$50 for it. If games were free, there would be no need for reviews - people could try them out and keep or discard them at whim. But since $50 is real money to most people (and EB Games is cracking down on it's generous return policy), folks need to be careful not to spend their money on something they wouldn't enjoy.
And there's one other thing I kept in mind: there are games that some people will enjoy but others will dislike, and a review should be of use to both people. In other words, the same review must both clue-in people who will enjoy the game and ward off those who will not.
I really don't see a problem with the game reviews I read. Now I know some of you may disagree with their ratings and opinions, but IGN has well-written reviews that cover just about every aspect of the game. A high profile game like Final Fantasy X-2 or Prince of Persia will usually be around 5 pages.
On the other hand, smaller fansites like Insert Credit have reviews that aren't based on the normal categories, but unfortunately the reviews are not timely enough to make the important purchasing decision on release day.
While on the subject, let me just say that print magazines are worthless now that GameFan is gone. EGM has gone downhill quite a bit, and is now trying to be Maxim for gamers.
And thanks for no goddamn Penny Arcade links, it's becoming the goatse.cx of the Games section and people are getting fucking modded up for it.
I'm on top of my game like I'm standin' on Xbox.
??? I can count on one hand the number of movies I saw this year that didn't get well-reviewed. (Best this year: Lost in Translation, Mystic River, The Station Agent, Finding Nemo, American Splendour. Sadly, two of them were the horrid Matrix movies. Why oh why did I not just trust the critics there?
I think the biggest difference is that the game industry is still in its infancy, unlike books or movies which are either refining a craft that is ancient, or building on a legacy of past success into new areas. The reviews that focus on technical aspects are there becuase many games have terrible post production. Imagine the reviews if a movie had several scenes with production cast visible, obvious edit marks, and other pretty uncommon errors. It would be soundly blasted, except of course if it were by a director of such high regard that it was seen as the deconstruction of the artform or something similar to what the art world is experiencing. Many games are released with flaws that in twenty or so years will be unthinkable, just as technical flaws would be in a movie today. At that time, game reviews will be more about the experence.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
As much as I'd like to watch movies or play games for a living, I don't really envy reviewers their job, because no matter what a reviewer writes, there's always going to be a number of people who disagree (and will be inclined to share their feelings with the reviewer in question).
I assume this is why sites like IGN write long winded reviews detailing every technical aspect of a game, while often avoiding subjective claims such as whether it's actually fun to play or not. While this will keep them out of trouble with their advertisers, I find it pretty unhelpful when I'm trying to determine whether I should buy a game or not. I'd much rather have someone tell me whether an RPGs battle system (for example) is enjoyable or tiresome to use, rather than detailing every minute detail of how it works. Of course, it helps if the information is coming from someone with similar philosophies on gaming as myself.
It's important to recognize the difference between reviews and criticism of films and games. It seems that NYT article is decrying the lack of actual video game critics, but unfortunately they're not really in high demand (yet). Gaming hasn't been around long enough to really develop any schools of critical thought, although I'm sure that will change.
In terms of film, the majority of the criticism I've seen usually focuses on movies that are at least 10-20 years old, and games have only very recently begun to reach the level of movies in terms of story telling capacity (although I think they still often fall short).
I would very much like more "high brow" game criticism available to me (I'd even consider writing some myself in the future), but I don't think such critics have a place in game magazines or web sites that are dependent on game industry advertising revenue. That would be like film academics writing for People magazine.
Also, any game critics who crop up will immediately face negative stereotypes from the majority of gamers who just want to get in a game and shoot things (or build things) and have a good time. Just look at Gamespotting article. I know it's for humorous effect, but the article presents critics as stuffy old men wearing monocles.
Anyway, I think video game reviewing is still a basic art because games themselves are still relatively basic (despite their constant stretching of technical barriers). From a film perspective, game designers have to constantly reinvent the "camera" rather than just using an already-made camera to redefine storytelling.
There will always be reviewers who only treat games as a commercial product, since to many developers they will always be just that; but I agree with the article that as time passes we will see an increase in academic writing on videgames. I'm glad that Kasavino treats this as a positive thing.
--- "Yeah, I'm a bit stressed out. I have a research paper due tomorrow and it has to be +5, Insightful."
I agree, I missed the point.
When was the last time you decided to see a movie based on a movie review?
Listening to a film critic is much more informational and elightening than going based on what the previews look like. The film critic's job isn't to appear snooty and elitist, but to know about film what makes the movies work.
It seems telling to read that guy's column, and hear him discuss how anything under an 8.0 on Gamespot is considered a "bad game". What kind of skewing is this? That leaves no room to truly distinguish between good and great games. The average game should be right at a 5.0. That leaves plenty of variation for worse and better games to be categorized. As it is, yes, you can tell a game is a stinker if it gets a 2.5. But when a difference between 3.0 and 4.0 is less than the difference between 8.6 and 8.9, then something is off.
It's due to the skewing of all reviews toward positive, that seems likely to come from any game reviewing media that gets most of its' revenue from the game companies. How can we expect them to be unbiased? They have to watch the bottom line, and, well, honest reviews with no financial backing aren't going to last, while biased reviews with financial backing will - if the bias isn't too blatant.
I don't trust the reviews that much, other than to realize that if THEY say it sucks, then it must. If they say it doesn't, that doesn't mean the game is good.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Personally, the more I think about it, the more I like the Neversoft guy's idea of a blog style review.
Let's face it, we don't really know much about a game review past what it says. We don't know the conditions under which the game was played. We don't know if it was a preview build that the reviewer played in a warehouse for 20 minutes somewhere or if he got to spend the 80+ hours it takes to go through some of the longer RPGs. And isn't that important?
The obvious difference between a game and a movie also comes into play. Go see a movie and you've seen it. You're in and out in 90 minutes and you've had the complete experience. But with a game, it's a much more personal experience. Either you reduce the game to its mechanics (which plays into the stereotypes that the gaming industry claims they want to get away from) and speak of it in those terms, which ISN'T THE POINT of why people play games, or, the reviewer can talk about his own experience.
When you try to boil games down to their mechanics you end up with dumb ass statements like "In the end, ESPN NFL Football is truly the best playing football game available for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox." Why is that a dumb statement? To put it in context, he parsed that sentence to allow that Madden could really be the better game.
Well, lemme ask you a question. Would you rather play the most fun game or the better game? And how is a less fun game actually better? Do we get the answers? Nope. But with blogs we could. Matter of fact, lemme quote again from the same GameSpot review. "If you're on the fence, trying out both games is really the only way to know for sure..." I have an idea, why don't you do that, write about it, and let me know. Because right now, you're just undercutting the rest of your review.
I'd trust something Gabe or Tycho recommended before I'd trust anybody at IGN or GameSpot. And I have to think that it's because they've basically blogged their way into having an opinion that I know I can trust to be consistent.
If I knew the personalities of the GameSpot crew with the same clarity that I feel I do of the PA guys, then YES I WOULD want to hear how the game made them feel. After all, the point of a game is how it makes you feel, not how technically advanced (or not) it is. Besides, I think that info can also be covered in a blog style. Am I alone here?
"At the risk of understatement, The Matrix Revolutions sucks."
- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone (review online)
_/\ - Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.
Here's my beef with Hulk. I just didn't care about any of the characters. The crazy old dad didn't seem rational enough to be a good villian. Plus the material-morphing super-guy was, well, totally lame, not a good matchup for the Hulk to fight at all. Looking back on it, the best fight of the movie was Hulk versus the stupid CGI dogs. And that was just silly, too.
Ultimately, the Hulk's enemy was "the military industrial complex". Did the Hulk confront it? No, he moved to Columbia instead. Reasonable real-world behavior. But a boring movie plot.
My boss didn't like that much.
Delaney's absolutely right, but he didn't seem to offer any solutions. Here's one:
First of all, there needs to be a sort of academic overhead to video game analysis. I think our great hope in this is the imminent rise of Ludology and video game theory. By and large, video games are still generally regarded within the academic community as, well, non-academic. This notion needs to be challenged, by academics and professional review writers alike. When this "aura" of justification occurs, it will result not only in better writing within game reviews, but also a focus on critique, or true critical analysis, and less focus on screenshots or graphics. At a recent video game developer's conference, the head of Naughty Dog stated that the industry had reached a point of diminishing returns in respect to graphics, and that the focus now ought to be on storyline and character development. Likewise, so too should reviewers begin to shift focus away from the technical aspects of the game, despite Kasavin's insistence that these are "indelible qualities of gaming." He's technically right, but he's also wrong. They're indelible, true, but only because the entire focus of the game media (Gamespot very much included) is on these same indelible qualities of gaming. Don't believe? Open up your favorite gaming magazine or website, and see how much of a focus there is on screenshots. That kind of visual attention doesn't even happen in film media, which is at least as visual as gaming. When it does occur, it is done so with focus and intent by the studios, not the sprawling bi-daily update of screenshots that is so emerged within the game industry.
Secondly, we need a new word. Moving pictures found the word "film" to escape the pure entertainment association, video games need something akin to "film" but still connotative of the properties of video games. I know there are some, including John Carmack, who think that video games cannot and should not attain to anything higher than entertainment. And indeed, entertaining games is no less noble than games "with purpose." Nevertheless, saying that video games' sole purpose is to entertain is like saying that all paintings should be pretty and nice to look at, or that all books should be "fun" to read. Video games are a method, a medium, a means unto an end, and not the end itself. Can they communicate "entertainment"? Obviously, but the realization among game developers should also be that they can communicate or impart other abstract ideas as well, apart or alongside entertainment.
Thirdly, the industry itself needs to allow padding for games that are not purely entertainment driven. I think that the Japanese have this idea, hence games like REZ or Pikmin; games that I'm sure the publishers knew won't sell GTA3 numbers but they publish and develop as an expression rather than an attempt to make sales. The Japanese, and European to some degree, do this with intent, whereas American gaming companies do it completely unintentionally. This needs to change.
Basically, the entirety of the industry needs a swivel towards an overall awareness of "abstract gaming." Reviewers, whether they are aware of this or not, lead the vanguard in this respect. Why is there a need of, for lack of a better term (and the complete aversion to using the word "artistic"), purpose-oriented or abstract gaming? Because the gaming industry is at a crossroads now. The comic book industry found itself at very much this same point in its journey and it took the wrong path. Instead of creating what was considered "niche" titles, as a whole the industry instead moved towards a purely sales-driven strategy. The end result is that it quickly quarantined itself within a subculture that it has never really moved out of, requiring nearly 20-30 years and Frank Miller and Alan Moore to deconstruct the genre so it could be reinvented. The movie industry was also at the same point, much earlier than comic books of cour
Maybe this is why Electronics Botique has gotten so into promoting pre-ordering games. It seems like everytime that you pre-order a game, you get some kind of incentive, usually more store credit for trading in old games. Just recently, I received an additonal 3$ trade in value for every game I traded in, and since I traded in 10 games, well, you can do the math... and all I had to do was pre-order SSX3 (which I didn't even purchase, I know it had great reviews, I just don't like snowboarding games). Maybe they assume that once you pre-order it, you somehow feel locked into purchasing it, or maybe you'll purchase it before the reviews even come out. I refuse to purchase a game that gets below an 80% on Gametab.
From a business standpoint, you'd think this would be a bad idea. Though I pre-purchased Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (FINALLY a game based on the Marine Corps), if it ends up getting bad reviews, I'll use my store credit towards something else AND keep my extra bonuses. I'd imagine a lot of people will do the same thing, and EB will be left with a huge overstock of a crappy game.
As for the value of reviews, some games are worth every penny. Goldeney, Age of Mythology, Warcraft, Halo, Madden, Neverwinter Nights, Grand Theft Auto 3, Final Fantasy... at 100$ these games still would have been a bargain, due to the countless hours spent playing them. All of these games received phoenominal reviews. Frankly, with the exception of a few games, I usually buy games soley based on the reviews they recieve. If I'm going to shell out 50$, it had better damn well be a good game, especially for the console, because of the limited online capabilities. If everyone bought games soley based on reviews (provided the reviews weren't overly biased), then it would force companies to release only very high quality games.
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill