CoffeeMonkey Reviews: The Review

[CoffeeMonkey]

Okay, okay. Aside from the cheesy meta-topic-title, this is actually what I thought I'd do.

You see, "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation made a very good point when he recently reviewed the latest installation of the Wolfenstein IP. He decided to make the review in iambic pentameter, simply because the game was so "well put together" that any form of critique was rather pointless, and as a result, very unfunny. The point here is, that games have become what I like to call "academicized", that is people making games have really begun to think about what makes games tick. This has some interesting implications for games and gamers.
The first thing that comes to mind is that this academicization of the gaming industry is a good thing. It helps ensure that the games that gets shipped are of an increasingly high standard, compared to what we've seen before. Secondly, it consolidates the corporate industry. The way I see it, this means that 1) the companies who make great games continue to make great games, and get better at making them. 2) It raises barriers to entry for newcomers to the industry (This in and of itself raises a lot of other issues which I'm not going to go into at the moment).

So, higher standards from a consolidated industry you say? But what does that have to do with reviews?
Well, the consequence of is, that - as "Yahtzee" Croshow pointed out - games might have an increased tendency to go with what has already been proven to work. Games, in general, become more generic. This is why I think that the "classic" way of reviewing games (i.e. writing something and then putting a score on it) is becoming outdated. I get annoyed when gaming sites (none mentioned, none forgotten) tries to quantify "quality", two concepts that are inherently contradictory (another discussion I'm not going to get into at the moment). Pushing a review score on top of a game might, at first glance, be an easy way of representing a list of "good games" and "bad games". But this idea doesn't really hold water. The main reason for that statement is subjectivity: what holds true for the reviewer, might not be true for me. Implicit in this perspective lies the idea of genres and subgenres. A guy who plays Halo 3 might think that Mass Effect would be a complete waste of time, though both games might be GREAT when judged on their own terms (again relativity kicks in, and in some rather impractical communications theory a game can't be judged on it's own premises (again: another discussion)).

So what I'm trying to say is, that because games today are of a higher standard and - all things equal - more perfect, more polished, more thought through, it doesn't make sense for me to judge them based on some more or less arbitrary categoric checklist. Each individual game should be reviewed on it's own premises, and while you may or may not like the "Point Score" concept, I dislike it. In order to make an educated decision about whether or not to buy this or that game, you need to know stuff about the game. And a point score simply can't give you that.

In Summarum:
the Good: Well done reviews take into account that every game is special, and as such should be reviewed on it's own premises and do so. It provides an comprehensive description of what makes the game tick and what doesn't.
the Bad: Trying to quantify quality is not only contradictory, it's also dumb.

Cheers!
CoffeeMonkey


(Disclaimer: this was originally written for my blog: coffeemonkeyreview.blogspot.com, and has been slightly rewritten.)

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

I thought he reviewed it in limerick form because the game was so dull that any attempt to review it would be equally as dull? Either way, he isn't a video game reviewer, he's a video game critic. The difference always sounds pretty nothing when you try to explain it, but it's all about the mindset in which they review games. A reviewer will will to talk about the game from a neutral standpoint. Weighing up the good and the bad then coming to a conlusion. A critic will focus mainly on the bad points, touching on the good parts but not usually elaborating on them, with the primary goal of entertainment.

I think this is the point you're missing. Maybe I'm being a miserable old cynic, but mindset of the current generation of 15-30 year olds seems to be one of sheer boredom and apathy. They're all looking for something new to ***** and moan about and that's the platform that Yahtzee used to propel himself into what we laughably call stardom. People would prefer to focus on those negatives. I'm no psychologist, I don't know why.

For the record, I wouldn't say that gaming has progressed at all since the first year of the PS2s existance. The only real improvements have been in graphics while I would argue that the standards of storytelling has gone down and the standards of gameplay are at evens. How gaming is now is how gaming will be for the rest of time. [/controversial]

 

[CoffeeMonkey]

Well, the point is not about Yahtzee is a "proper" reviewer or not. The discussion doesn't really care about that. I still think, that the question he raises (whether he does so on purpose or not) about "generic gaming" is valid, no matter what you may think of his reviews.

I might not have made it clear (which is my fault), but the post is not about Yahtzee's reviews in particular, but more about reviews in general.

And I'll also have to disagree the outlaid differences between "reviewer" and "critic" of the above post. To my understanding there is no difference between a critic and a reviewer. It's two diffenrent words for the same thing. A critic does a critique of something and the product is a review. A reviewer is a guy that reviews something, i.e. it's the same thing (IMO). The fact that criticism can be negative, does not mean that criticism is negative per definition. It's simply an evaluary comment on something.