People freak out over Gamespot GTA V review

[carnex]

And here we go with Objectivity again. You cant just judge a game and ESPECIALLY its narrative _completely_ objective. Not even in a critique from the worlds most boring man. Not everyone goes into a sudden "murder / kill / burn" Crimespree when bored, thus some people may have an issue with somebody displaying a Character that just does that. On the other hand, you could say that this was also meant to be funny. "Lol, they are bored and went apesh*t". That alone is a subjective thing, everyone will see it differently. You cant just run around saying there is no need for a reason, when thats not the case for all people. Going by that, they could've potrayed the whole thing without a reason for them to go on a crimespree at all. "Fu*k it, they wanted to." Ofc, that may be an adequate reason for a complete nutjob, but it wont earn you Trophies for deep Storytelling. And the same goes for "Middle aged man being bored and turning into Scarface." pretty much all you said, that included "They dont have to explain/ do xy" can be turned around. Yes, they didnt have to. But that also means they have to deal with the people that didnt like that decision.

Ahem, there are such truths as objective and subjective point of view even with stories and characters. For example:

I hold that new Lara Croft to be bad character. Not on subjective level but on objective one. Reason is that in cutscenes, not in gameplay, she is presented both as terminator and as physically fragile human being. While she has problems doing some mundane tasks she survives, without any consequences impalement and huge explosion just few meters behind her. Even worse, after that, she sequence of waterslides, 20+ meter falls, impacts with metal objects and bone breaking roll downhill. Even if she is seriously hurt and cant walk straight at all she still manages to kill several people with bow and arrow and finally heals herself by stabbing herself with mildly heated arrowhead. Now that is objectively bad writing since character contradicts itself and sequences of events make no sense.

On the other hand, missing deep reasons for action of character's actions can be seen as problem, but it really depends on personal taste and creators intended message and tone.

Subjective criticism is still valid but unly as long as it is seen as purely subjective opinion.

 

[ERaptor]

And here we go with Objectivity again. You cant just judge a game and ESPECIALLY its narrative _completely_ objective. Not even in a critique from the worlds most boring man. Not everyone goes into a sudden "murder / kill / burn" Crimespree when bored, thus some people may have an issue with somebody displaying a Character that just does that. On the other hand, you could say that this was also meant to be funny. "Lol, they are bored and went apesh*t". That alone is a subjective thing, everyone will see it differently. You cant just run around saying there is no need for a reason, when thats not the case for all people. Going by that, they could've potrayed the whole thing without a reason for them to go on a crimespree at all. "Fu*k it, they wanted to." Ofc, that may be an adequate reason for a complete nutjob, but it wont earn you Trophies for deep Storytelling. And the same goes for "Middle aged man being bored and turning into Scarface." pretty much all you said, that included "They dont have to explain/ do xy" can be turned around. Yes, they didnt have to. But that also means they have to deal with the people that didnt like that decision.

Ahem, there are such truths as objective and subjective point of view even with stories and characters. For example:

I hold that new Lara Croft to be bad character. Not on subjective level but on objective one. Reason is that in cutscenes, not in gameplay, she is presented both as terminator and as physically fragile human being. While she has problems doing some mundane tasks she survives, without any consequences impalement and huge explosion just few meters behind her. Even worse, after that, she sequence of waterslides, 20+ meter falls, impacts with metal objects and bone breaking roll downhill. Even if she is seriously hurt and cant walk straight at all she still manages to kill several people with bow and arrow and finally heals herself by stabbing herself with mildly heated arrowhead. Now that is objectively bad writing since character contradicts itself and sequences of events make no sense.

On the other hand, missing deep reasons for action of character's actions can be seen as problem, but it really depends on personal taste and creators intended message and tone.

Havent played the new Tomb Raider, but that DOES sound horrible. And it's actually a good example of something that could be debated this way. And as my "completely" above should imply, there certainly are parts you can judge completely unbiased. But especially in Story and Characters it should be rather rare.

And the "intended message by creator"-thing is something i hear an awful lot. Can they create whatever they want? Sure. But does that make the delivered product immune to any sort of critic, even if it contradicts that message? No, or at least i certainly wouldnt want that. It's the argument that a lot of these artsy Borefests like Dear Esther use, and it doesnt sit well with me. Criticism isnt necessarily bad, it should be seen as a way to improve. And in this case, people are really overly defensive when trying to defend against critics.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Same for sexism - why should the game establish itself as not sexist? What if it wants to be, for some reason? No, you don't have to like it, and feel free to drop the game's score because of it if you want, but also don't expect everyone to agree with you just because you try to preach some morals. Some one can see the game for something you missed because of your high ground. (I don't mean you personally here, I'm addressing a typical reviewer here.)

Hope you don't mind if I step in for a sec.

That's the thing I don't get, people who don't agree with the sexism thing merely disregard that part of the review because it doesn't apply to them. If the reviewer said something along the lines of, "People who enjoy this game are sexists" then I could see a reason for that being called out. Not that the work should be free from criticism(Same goes for GTA) but disagreements shouldn't come in the form of verbal abuse. Sadly, rational disagreements are being drowned out at the moment. Once a couple weeks go by, we'll likely see a more rational opinion from both sides.

 

[w9496]

Come on people we knew this would happen. It happens with basically every big time release that has ever happened.

I don't see how it affects them though. Just because some guy that gets paid to review games gives it a 9/10, doesn't mean that it has to be a 9/10 game for everybody who plays it.

A review needs to be objective and based solely on the whole of the game itself- concept, gameplay, graphics, sound, story/plot. Nowhere in that calls for one's personal bias or opinion, we want to know if the game is good, not what a person "thinks" of it's subject matter.

If a person doesn't understand the difference between the two, they have no business reviewing anything.

Opinions are everywhere in reviews. If everything were reviewed on an objective scale then all reviewers would give each game the same score, but that doesn't happen because quality is always subjective and therefore subject to personal opinion.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

I don't get what gamers are pissed about. Scores just happen to vary, some are 9, some are 9.5, others blindly go in with a 10.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

The point is: The line between a satirical critique and a hommage is thin, and GTA V doesn't make clear which side of the line it is on.

That's really been Rockstar's angle, as of the past five years. It's less obvious in Red Dead Redemption seeing as everything is mired in Western iconography, but there's an implicit critique of the "Old West" mentality in the game. In that case, though, it's largely properly handled.

GTA IV took its social satire to the extreme, however, to the extent that I sometimes found myself rolling my eyes. We get it, Rockstar. You're a mature publisher for mature games and you're aren't afraid to culturally crib from Hollywood all day long to relentlessly hammer us in the face with the idea that the American Dream is deserving of quite a few ribs. That's fine. It's deserving of a few pokes and prods.

But basing an entire *game* off of that conceit and reducing Liberty City to a bunch of schmoozing expats and scenery-chewing natives? That's stretching the social commentary past joke territory and into the realms of definitive annoyance.

Hearing that GTA V does the same thing with San Andreas as a whole, though? That - bothers me.

I'm an adult. I know the world is grim and gritty. I don't need some raunchy and hyper-violent piece of entertainment to remind me about the many illusions of North American life. I don't need to run through what feels like Skyrim: HAVE WE GOT A MORAL ANVIL TO DROP ON YOUR HEAD 'CAUSE WE AREN'T AMERICANS OURSELVES Edition.

Feel free to disagree, but I'm of the mind that Rockstar is pushing into self-congratulatory territory - if not outright masturbatory levels. If I want a Michael Mann or a Guy Ritchie piece, I'll go watch a Michael Mann or Guy Ritchie piece.

It's just honestly far, far too much of what is admittedly a good thing, for me. That's even with the tongue-in-cheek references to modern habits like maintaining a Facebook page or posting selfies.

 

[DanielBrown]

Maybe what bothers them is that they apparently, according to a comment, gave GTA IV a perfect score. I haven't played GTA V, but I assume they learned from their mistakes and made it at least a bit better - so it should therefore get at least an 11/10!

I see waaaay more people whining about the reviewer rather than the score though. I really dislike that reviewer as well, but damn are people cruel.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Always love it when gamers stay classy. Not that this is the only instance of people just abusing a person based on petty reasoning...

Wow, and I was actually having an alright day today. That just makes me depressed. That's why I don't look at youtube comments anymore.

 

[wetnap]

I don't get what gamers are pissed about. Scores just happen to vary, some are 9, some are 9.5, others blindly go in with a 10.

It injected personal bias into a review that didn't need to be there.

Its like saying I give a film with George Clooney in it a 9/10 instead of a 10 out of 10 because he's a democrat.

 

[-Dragmire-]

That's the thing I don't get, people who don't agree with the sexism thing merely disregard that part of the review because it doesn't apply to them.

The reviewer can say whatever they want, however just like the game creator isn't free from criticism, so isn't the reviewer free of critique of their own work. Because it's funny how reviewers feel they can drag the games in the mud as much as they like, however they themselves are shielded against any counterarguments against their reviews.

?

I agree, and covered that in the part of my post you edited out.

Also, the problem with sexism in particular is that it's currently a hot topic and as such, everyone seems to have a strong opinion about it.

I don't think it makes much sense to disregard having a negative experience because it's currently a hot topic. The fact it is a hot topic means that there is a sizable amount of people who may be affected in the same way by that content.

I do not believe the reviewer wrote the review for page hits or attention or whatever.

I think it's reasonable to assume that the reviewer honestly felt put off by the content in the game(due to her personal social/political beliefs) and it negatively affected her experience. A review that takes this opinion, hides it, and says the game is bad and no one would enjoy it would be a bad review. A review that explains what specific content marred their experience due to their own outlook, has given the audience the information needed to decide for themselves whether the listed content would affect them in the same way. That's a good review as it still informs people about the game and allows the reader's moral compass to do decide the how important that aspect of the game is.

Those who feel as the reviewer did have more info to keep in mind and base their decision on.

Those who don't can ignore that fault and evaluate the worth of the game based on the rest of the review.

[sub]This assumes the review was detailed in the rest of the review, for example; how vehicles handle, flow of shooting/cover mechanics, main quest to side quest ratio etc..[/sub]

Which, of course means that everyone who is the most anti-sexism and who can find the most things to criticise in any work/game, is basically somehow right by default.

Not sure how that affects the review though. There are extremists on all sides of these types of issues. These people decided their view of the game without the need of a review, they just want a soapbox location for their views. These can be the ones pointing and saying, "See, proof of rampant sexism blah-di-blah-di-blah whatever", but they can also be the ones shouting for a perfect score of the game they never played or the people who just want to incite aggression in a community for fun.

The fact that these people are attracted to large game releases shouldn't force the reviewer to leave out information of how the game affected them in hopes of less shouting. I'd say the flip side of that would be for the reviewer to not go out of their way to insult or provoke the audience without compromising the intended message.

Hey I'm all for awareness, but what's going on right now is rather silly. So even just for the sake of plurality, all those 'bad guys are bad' and 'sexism is bad' reviews need to have a counterpoint too.

It's just unfortunate that most people providing that counterpoint aren't old bitter cynics like me, but some whiney assholes. But it's the internet so whatever.

Agreed.



---


I feel like I'm saying the same things multiple times with slightly different words. I apologize for any unnecessary repetition, sleep hasn't been steady recently.

 

[Signa]

9 out of 10? OBVIOUSLY they are just fishing for hits.

 

[carnex]

And the "intended message by creator"-thing is something i hear an awful lot. Can they create whatever they want? Sure. But does that make the delivered product immune to any sort of critic, even if it contradicts that message? No, or at least i certainly wouldnt want that. It's the argument that a lot of these artsy Borefests like Dear Esther use, and it doesnt sit well with me. Criticism isnt necessarily bad, it should be seen as a way to improve. And in this case, people are really overly defensive when trying to defend against critics.

Of course it doesn't make them imune to criticsm. I hold belief that anyone can say anything he/she/it wants and can be later called out on it. But at the same time i advocate the postition that you sould state what is objective problem and what is subjective problem.

To simplify it. If nail doesn't stay straight while you try to hammer it into reasonably dense wood it's objective problem since it doesn't fulfill it's purpouse. If you dislike the color or shape of the head dos not fit your need or it splits the wood you are using it's subjective problem since it still can be perfectly good nail.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I don't get what gamers are pissed about. Scores just happen to vary, some are 9, some are 9.5, others blindly go in with a 10.

It injected personal bias into a review that didn't need to be there.

Its like saying I give a film with George Clooney in it a 9/10 instead of a 10 out of 10 because he's a democrat.

Doesn't seem like the same thing; I mean I'd understand marking down an otherwise solid George Clooney movie if the fact that he's a Democrat is punctuated irritatingly and ham-fisted into the dialogue. And she at least explained why it came across the way it did to her, and despite that, gave it an almost perfect score and a recommendation. What more do you people want?

 

[deloftie]

I never said that not report on faults in the core of a game's design, be they front end, story or otherwise shouldn't be allowed. What shouldn't be allowed is social commentary. As a reporter, which is essence a game reviewer is in a sense, they're job is to report.

You keep changing what apparently you think is wrong about this review. First they should be objective. Now they shouldn't give social commentary.

The reviewer is commenting on the problematic nature of the story that is in the game. They aren't going off tangent to talk about something completely unrelated. The idea that they shouldn't mention the problems in a story because they are social in nature is frankly ridiculous. If this reviewer was reviewing something like the BioShock series, a series that make a number of good points in the story about social issues such as racism and classism, it would be bizarre to read an entire review were the reviewer never mentioned anything about the story and the issues it raised, and only talked about what it was like to fire the gun. I would consider that completely incompetent journalism, to review and entire game and not mention any of the social issues of the story, particularly when those elements effect the enjoyment of the game, positively or negatively.

The purpose of a game reviewer is to review the entire game. So long as game designers keep putting story in games then this will include the story. And just like any element of the game the reviewers job is to highlight the positive and the negative of this element of the game. You don't have to agree, any more than you have to mind if the reviewer didn't like the graphics or thought the controls were a bit odd.

 

[generals3]

While I can understand people are annoyed she couldn't resist throwing some misogyny accusations at the beginning I don't see how the review warrants that much hate. But than again, this is the internet, where reacting = overreacting.

 

[deloftie]

Its clear you haven't played the game at all yet. The first female character the game shows you, falls into NONE of those categories.

Instead of basing your entire opinion on a review that provided you no content outside of "I wanna be a women so bad I'm gonna be ultra feminists about it", maybe you should actually play the fucking game?

You have no point as far as I can see, your point so far...as best I can tell is "This reviewer said things, they must be true!!!" I'm done talking with you, you have no legs to stand on.

For crying out loud. Your first objection to this review was that women characters were all satire, not sexist or misognist. When pressed where the satire actually was and who was being satirised your objection to this review became that strippers and hookers are in real life so why not have them in the game. And now your third objection is that the women are not actually portrayed in the manner that his reviewer says they were.

So, er, then it isn't satire, and it is possible to have characters that are not just strippers in a game then! Blood hell.

You are right I haven't played the game. And if you play the game and think this reviewer is misrepresenting the game by all means make that argument. Reviewers can be wrong, they can miss elements, they can simply not get games. But at least stop and think for a minute about what your argument actually freaking is as to why this reviewer is wrong and shouldn't be saying what they are saying.

 

[deloftie]

I don't get what gamers are pissed about. Scores just happen to vary, some are 9, some are 9.5, others blindly go in with a 10.

It injected personal bias into a review that didn't need to be there.

Its like saying I give a film with George Clooney in it a 9/10 instead of a 10 out of 10 because he's a democrat.

In what way is it like that? The reviewer commented on the story, something that is IN THE GAME, not something Rockstar did externally to the game.

You always know a reviewer has hit a raw nerve with people when the objections to what the reviewer said are so badly thought out.

 

[VanQ]

So she took umbrage to the fact that the majority of the women in GTA5 were portayed as bitches and whores? Fair enough, they are. Did she also take umbrage to the fact that the men in GTA5 were portrayed ad thieves, murderers and con artists? No? This is probably why people are mad.

Honestly, if it isn't blatantly obvious to someone that GTA5 is about bad people, bad people regardless of gender, then she probably sees things from a one sided perspective anyway and isn't looking at the broader picture. Something that's really important for a reviewer. I know now to avoid her reviews in future.