The popularity isnt just because of the funny anecdotes and rude language, but because the things he does point out are true. Rarely do we here or see how absurd some of these things in games are. He exposes these games, with there shallow and overused gameplay elements.

In general I think a lot of the media is rose tinted, caught up in empty hype and promises of gold. A lot of games now have changed very little from their core beginnings(in the gameplay sense), no one seems to see or care. I wonder at why games in general have not evolved or come as far as they could, but it could be because no one cares to see anything wrong with the current games, or expects much more from them.

Anway I dont think the lack of criticism is specific to games at the moment. There seems to be a fear in general of criticism perhaps in part because of possible reactions to it, jihads, litigations, nasty forum posts. You need to have tough skin and be prepared for the backslash which is all but impossible to avoid now.

You’re correct. Games journalism isn’t a joke. It isn’t something the developers themselves are laughing at.

“we are still viewing the works under question from an inherently critical stance.

Would that anyfuckingone else in gaming did so.”

If he’s limited his reading to mainstream websites and consumer mags to allow himself to come to his conclusion, that’s his loss, frankly. Do film buffs have the same arguements about there not being enough heavyweight articles in Empire, or book lovers bite down their fury when the Guardian’s book section isn’t penned by Terry Eagleton (or, that when it is, he merely ‘reviews’ a novel rather than ‘critiques’ it)?

More relevant is the fact that Pauline Kael wrote – as far as I’m aware – primarily for the New Yorker, not for a film mag, thus enabling her to reach a far wider audience (and therefore recognition) than film buffs. If the New Yorker had a games section, and appointed any one of the RPS quaduvirate as its editor, you’d have a your Pauline Kael for film – ie intelligent criticism taken out of the confines of ‘enthusiast’ outlet. It’s as much about the cultural relevance of the medium as it is about the actual writing.

Or, to put it another way, if Mark Twain had written Literary Offenses today, it’d be just as memorable as Cotskyan’s article will be tomorrow.

I’d disagree strongly with Buceph as well – “even the best reviews pale in comparison to the proper critiques other media enjoy.” That’s just not true – ask the award-winning Kieron Gillen what he won his award for.

Deviating myself here from Tim’s defence of reviews onto Greg’s wider claim that there is little or no ‘games criticism’, I can point to PCG pieces such as Kieron’s incredible Cradle feature, Jim’s eye-opening Korean gaming investigation or John’s teary text-love for The Longest Journey, and his concerns seem a little hasty.

Haha, when you punctuate your points by citing work by other RPS members it seems a bit too much like patting yourself on the back…

That said, I agree with Alec’s point in this article. Good game criticism is out there. In my opinion the difference between review and criticism starts with omitting a numerical score. Now if only both reviews and criticism would work harder at focusing on the game and its significance to the industry and leaving out anecdotes and referential humor…

*ok, this may have changed in the past few years.

KG

I still think it’s one of the best magazines out there.

And to add to the thing, the debate is still going on over on the PCG blog section.

I still think it’s one of the best magazines out there.

My suggestion was that you were labelling Edge as pretentious because it’s the easy thing to do. Everyone’s a little bit prejudice, after all; sometimes you have to pigeonhole things so you can get on with what really matters.

Clearly you’ve given the subject quite some thought. I still disagree, but that’s okay: it’s only a gaming magazine. I can certainly see why someone would think Edge pretentious even if I don’t subscribe to that point of few.

The term itself is a pet hate of mine and I often see it used with little or no validation. It isn’t that people don’t know what the word means, I just find it’s over- and lazily used to the extent it’s become little more than a semi-polite form of name calling. To attribute it to something is to assume its intent, and that is always shaky ground.

Still, you seem to genuinely think Edge is pretentious so that’s fair enough. I don’t agree, but it’s no skin off my nose.

I’ve found game “reviews” to be useless in determining rather or not I’ll enjoy a game

I’ve found them useful a bunch of times. Professional reviews are much better as buyer’s guides than Amazon cruft when (i) they’re decently articulate (ii) the reviewer makes some attempt to highlight their own prejudices. This is the ‘professional’ bit.

A decent stand-in for (ii) is that you can read enough of their work to learn where they can and can’t be trusted. (i) is a bonus here because it means their work isn’t painful to read that much of.

A lot of the best reviewers (and RPS has at least a couple of those) could write great criticism, but they’re terrified of being taken too seriously. So a lot of the keener insights are buried under self-deprecating of-course-I-didn’t-pay-attention-at-uni jokes, or carefully offhand references to complex points that need more detail.

Pretension isn’t a substitute for critical analysis. It’s just that they often look similar.

plus 1 for this. Insightful criticism is difficult. It needs real, grounded engagement. Cargo-cult criticism, where you borrow the forms of real criticism and salt with buzzwords, is much easier and very very popular.