The nights are drawing in. Sundays turn from a time to play in the fields to a time to huddle inside and play Left 4 Dead (If you’re everyone else in the world) or Outrun 2006 (If you’re me). But there’s more to Sunday than that. There’s compiling a list of interesting reading from across the week for you to devour, while trying to avoid linking to an Of Montreal record with a well poncy title. GO READ!
- The ever-lovin’ Keith Stuart of the Guardian Gamesblog is thinking about reviewers and games. Traditionally, we’re accused of valuing innovation too much. However after Mirror’s Edge’s reception, he thinks its entirely the opposite. “This is frustrating and I think it highlights one of the key issues of contemporary gaming – what exactly is a videogame and what are the fundamental elements every game must provide?” says Keith, “Because, if it were a movie, Mirror’s Edge would be critically lauded by the specialist film press – it would be considered a forward-thinking masterpiece.”
- Leigh Alexander does some proper grown-up journalism for Gamasutra where she investigates the possibility of collusion between Montreal game developers to cap salaries. Fascinating stuff.
- The Fallout review we’ve all been waiting for. Well, a bit, anyway. Vince D. Weller – of Age of Decadance and general RPG loud-opiniondom – reviews Fallout 3 for NMA, Fallout Love/Hatesite. He likes it more than you may expect, but there’s still some unsheathed knives.
- This is the sort of thing I like to encourage. The Pickford brothers have started a picture blog. One pic a day. Art, comics, fun stuff.
- Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse – Of Montreal. Go chemicals!
Failed.
Related Stories:
The golden rules:
All games start at 7 out of 10.
8 out of 10 if it’s an indie.
9 out of 10 if the publisher buys advertising.
10 out of 10 if your review comes out before anyone else’s.
Occasionally I wonder whether the common review system needs more clarity, with regards to what a score means. Lets assume your standard star/% systems will still be here at the end of the century – though I do like the RPS verdicts, and the thought of a Rotten Tomatoes-style site for games…basically RPS verdicts on a bigger scale. Plenty of sites like to draw lines in the sand, aiming themselves at particular groups of people, and some even take on the harder division between being a buyer’s guide and being a critic’s guide (anybody know which Edge is supposed to be yet? Because I don’t). But when it all hits the likes of Metacritic and Gamerankings, while you get some averaging out in many cases, any supposed divide seems to be lost in the score merging.
What would be interesting to see, though might be more difficult to actually achieve, is the use of both a buyer’s score and a critical score. I’m not a reviewer so I might simply be clueless here, but at the moment it seems, if a single reviewer looks at a game in both ways they’re pretty likely to come up with two different scores, but if they want to approach their reviews in both a general and critical stance at the same time they need to come to some sort of middle ground, and either the impact of one view gets lost (I find it hard to see a game that’s generally quite good and enjoyable but critically quite bad [can that actually happen? Halo 2 maybe?] getting a straight 50%) or the resulting score doesn’t make much sense (aforementioned “Halo” getting 50%…)
I’m pretty sure I’m making scarringly horrible assumptions of what a heavily critical review entails though. But for those reviews which keep needing to justify the perfect scores they’re giving to games which obviously aren’t actually perfect games, being able to put that critical eye aside for the buyer’s guide dance but still having it handy afterwards could be a nice little breath of fresh air. It might also keep the angry men and women of the international computer network domain from whining about a review too much because it didn’t tear a game they thought was bad apart enough, or it didn’t praise a game they fell in love with enough even if it was flawed (because, in many cases, these people are thinking of a game from a particular viewpoint: strikingly available example, NMA).
Of course, this could just turn out to be really bad, and some reviewers just might end up slapping bandwagon scores on one of the score types, just so there’s something there (or to counter trolls by saying “we thought it was bad, but look, it was also good!”). This is all waffle, and the Rotten Tomatoes thought at the top was far better. But IANAR, I’m just a humble customer and while I feel cruel saying this…it’s not my job to work out the kinks in a review system.
Or is it?
In other news, PCs and Consoles and the games on PCs and Consoles have some great innovative ideas, but are very flawed. I recommend moving back to paper and yo-yos instead – you’re guaranteed a solid experience that’s fun if you don’t think too hard about it.
In regards to ME if they’d dispensed with the story and made it time trial only with user generated content it would have been phenomenal.
As it is?
7 out of 10.
7 out of 10 bananas obviously.
Dig the Guardian article. IGN is the worst possible example of games journalism though.
Their worst reviewer is that Alec Meer guy.
Since when is “hipster” a slur?
I disagree. Every game needs an elephant.
Mr. Stuart’s rant is a rite of passage; every few months a reviewer somewhere in the world feels the urge to go after the low-hanging fruit of game-review conventions. No single manifesto ever started a revolution.
Let’s look at his core thesis, without considering IGN or ME or anything else:
Of course they should, but they aren’t always capable, nor necessarily is their audience. Un chien Andalou caused riots when it opened. Show it to an average movie crowd today, and the most educated response you get will likely be “WTF does this have to do with Fight Club?”
On the other side of it, critics/reviewers are so tasked with having to differentiate a thousand iterations of fundamentally the same game that they fall back on the measurable (or quasi-measurable) criteria. We like measurable criteria. If you can feel every strand of hair on the bearskin rug, then that sex scene will be better than one where you can’t.
Innovation, however, is not convertible with excellence or interest. The job of the Avant-Garde is to find the path for the army, and avoid ambushes. Most of the time, it’ll be exploring dead ends. Sometimes it gets ambushed.
Finally, what of sequels? Unlike movies, where sequels are usally hackneyed bits of narrative exploiting the financial success of the original, in games, sequels often allow inexpensive recycling of code and content and iterative improvement of the experience. What’s so bad about that?
N: the 1990s.
if it were a movie, Mirror’s Edge would be critically lauded by the specialist film press
Um, what? I honestly think not. If anything, film critics would rip the inane and rather juvenile plot to shreds, which most game reviewers have been pretty kind about.
This is frustrating and I think it highlights one of the key issues of contemporary gaming – what exactly is a videogame and what are the fundamental elements every game must provide?
Sorry, but going with the “but what makes art, ART?!” stance to defend Mirror’s Edge is so absurd and such a cop-out that I’m literally beside myself.
NMA stuff just blows my mind. How can someone get their undies is so hardcore a twist over a sequel to a game you love. I’ve LOVED so many games that had shitty, shitty, shitty sequels, I don’t even know where to begin.
There’s a difference between informative critique and the frankly childish tantrum-throwing that goes on there on a daily basis.
IMO? How bout you get some talent together from your community and make a new chapter of Fallout yourselves? More productive then nonstop BAAAAAWWWW’ing for 4 years straight mmm?
@thefanciestofpants:
To be fair to Vince D. Weller, that’s exactly what he’s doing with Iron Tower Studio:
“The Age of Decadence is an isometric, turn-based, single-player 3D role-playing game set in a low magic, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, inspired by the fall of the Roman Empire. The game features a detailed skill-based character system, non-linear gameplay, multiple skill-based ways to handle quests, choices & consequences, and extensive dialogue trees.”
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/
i.e., Fallout in a low-fantasy setting.
I can’t wait for it, personally. I love seeing opinionated folk put their money where their mouth is. Turned out bloody well for Jonathan Blow, isn’t it.
I can see the point of the Guardian post – much as I liked Call of Duty 4, that’s not the only thing I want to be playing twenty years from now. So I tend to appreciate when people do new things, and don’t just lay down a deeper arse-groove. I appreciate the narrative twists in CoD4, but the gameplay is just a refined version of Doom.
It’s possible that sequels exist where the developer or director or author saw opportunities to extend their creative vision, or create what they first intended but didn’t have the resources. I think this is a compelling case in many games, where resources are limited and bugs and glitches are difficult to catch. Then again, I have more respect for people like Tim Schafer for doing something new and interesting every time, rather than listening to people on the internet asking for Psychonauts 2.
Ok, so I brought up rating numbers and it was always going to be downhill from there. Still the point generally from folks that game reviews are more consumer advice than criticism is one I think is true and something that I find a little disappointing. They could give Spore a 10 and I wouldn’t care; it has genuine ambition and scope (not that Ive played it to great length. It’s not the life/evolution game I was hoping it’d be). Bioshock’s 10s, bug me. We can go on about the symbolism of the number and whether I should ascribe it such power another time (ie; I shouldn’t). But it doesn’t do anything particularly spectacular or new, it just has high production values and that veneer of worthy and complex subject matter which can make everyone feel like they are a serious game fan, just like those ’serious’ movies everyone feels better about themselves for liking. I’ll call this “Crash/Shawshank Redemption syndrome”.
And of course this a completely different thing from Halo3 getting tens.
The guy in the guardian, while annoyed about Mirror’s Edge not getting due consideration for its achievements, does just basically bring up the topic of how games ought to be measured I guess. That is a schizoid topic at best; polished games get criticised for being bland, innovators cop it for having not enough ‘depth’, deep games are frequently too complex and inaccessable, games with great stories aren’t fun enough, fun games lack substance, and Halo 3 gets tens! What the fuck is wrong with people?! I mean Jesus fucking christ!
(movies don’t really escape this sort of thing. Any review site you can name will have reams of people mad at some reviewer for being critical of (eg) some crappy comedy; the movie made them laugh, it has performed what they think is its function, ergo it should be rated accordingly not criticised for its acting, camerawork, directorial flair etc. There is a very strong push for movie reviews to also be consumer advice and for the art criticism side to stay in academia if it doesn’t like mainstream trash.)
@fort90 Umm.. I don’t think he was talking about the plot when he was saying that it would be hailed as innovative and excellent. The fact of the matter is that, concerning the actual game of Mirror’s Edge, it’s bloody well done, and rather brilliant. I think he’s saying that, were it a film, it would do something similarly innovative and brilliant, and would be lauded as such.
@fort90: Literally beside yourself? Incredible.
Sorry, I can never help myself when people use literally as an intensifier.
Mirror’s Edge is clunky and frustrating. Innovation never makes up for a lack of attention to polish.
You can’t properly critically analyse anything until everyone involved in its production is dead anyway. More buyers guides, please.
Tomb Raider is far more clunky and frustration is all over games like Trails 2 or N+. It is a racer, not an adventure platformer – it is a very specific type of game that demands to be played in a specific kind of way. Now you could criticise it for not demonstrating clearly how it wants you to play, or criticise the PR for pretending it was a different type of game, but there is very little in the actual game that doesn’t work.
Plus all the frustration goes away once you get to the speed runs, which is where the meat and the real joy of the game is.
You can decide not to like the type of game it is, but you can’t criticise it for not being the type of game you want it to be. That would be like hating Gran Turismo 4 because you can’t get out and shoot people.
I’ve played a good deal of the blockbuster games this season, and I have to say, Mirror’s Edge is the best game I’ve played in 2008. Gears of War 2 had more polish, World of Goo was far more charming, but ME dared to be different *and* pulled it off flawlessly.
Yes, flawlessly. Reading through the IGN review, it occurs to me that the reviewer missed the bloody point. The combat “lacks depth” because it’s secondary to the parkour elements. “Trial and error”? Well, yes it is, but why is this a bad thing? Surely there is fun to be had trying to pull off the perfect set of moves to get from point A to B? It’s short, but why does that matter?
The beauty of ME is that it introduces an innovative gameplay mechanism, iterates on it, and pulls it off perfectly. The up/down/turn control scheme is intuitive and elegant. The feel of controlling Faith is the best out there by far. In other words, it does what it does very well. But apparently, every game requires multiplayer, combat and a lengthy campaign.
@Meat Circus:
Innovation can certainly make up for a lack of polish. So can story, atmosphere – anything that a game has enough of, and that makes it something special. However, all this is down to personal taste. There are certain games I love that are rough as hell round the edges, have clunky mechanics but do something really special that outweighs those flaws.
AndrewC is absolutely spot-on about the article, which was written in a seven minute brain spasm one friday evening. I don’t think I meant it to be quite so upsetting, but then – in hindsight – I was always on to a loser criticising the nature of game journalism AND comparing games to movies. I may as well have thrown in a YouTube movie of me torturing kittens.
@Kieron
Maybe a Wednesday evening special? Also it would be cool to see you and John in the forums some time.
It’s ‘Guardian’ by the way, Keith.
@James T: Don’t be ludicrous. It’s ‘Grauniad’.
Ohh yeah… you’ll have to excuse me, I’m Aussie, my British is, uh… ‘well’… ‘Jackson’?
I had to look this up, because I’ve seen references to the Grauniad many times before, never knew were it originated from:
“The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad. The domain grauniad.co.uk is registered to the paper, and redirects to its website at guardian.co.uk.”
Thanks James T – my spelling is as bad as my videogame criticism.
For quality criticism that generates internet traffic, at least every third article should be some sort of troll. This is known as the “Rock, Paper, Piracy” rule.