Should a game be judged by its own merits or with a reference point?

[MoNKeyYy]

That may not be the easiest question to understand but bear with me.

When people play a game we make judgements on it, same as we do with anything else. And often times we make these judgements based on more than just "Is this a good game" or "Is this a fun game." This is especially true in the case of sequels, where we constantly ask if the game is as good as the original or a predeccesor. It's also true in specific genres, like if we ran into a modern first person shooter the usual question would be Is it as good as Call of Duty? Don't give me that look, Call of Duty has smashed sales records three years running so a hell of a lot more people ask that question than not. But I degress. The trend extends to most avenues of gaming, the same way it might extend, albiet to a lesser extent, to film. If it's a Bethesda game, "Was it as good as Fallout 3?" If it's a Bioware game, "Was it as good as {Insert favourite Bioware game here}. If it's a Sports game, "Was it as good as last year's iteration?". Et cetera.

The question I pose is, are these critisisms justified? A case that often springs to my mind is Grand Theft Auto IV. Grand Theft Auto IV was a great game, it sold remarkably well, was very well recieved by fans (meta rank 7.9 with almost 80% positive response) and was universally acclaimed by critics (meta rank 98 with 100% positive response). However, many fans, probably the 20% that didn't like it, critisized it for not being enough like it's predeccesors. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's bad or anything, your opinion is your right, but there's a big difference between "I don't like x becasue y" and "x is bad because y". Just becasue a series moves in a new direction or does something different than a similar or prior game, does not in my opinion make it a bad game. Black Ops saw some significant changes to the multiplayer of Modern Warfare 2 and I've hear people critisize Black Ops for being worse somply by virtue of being different.

I think the thing that best sums up my point though is the upcoming Brothers in Arms: Furious Four. For those who haven't yet seen the trailer:


The game has been flamed to hell by many people on the interwebz due to its departure from the serious, gritty tone of the Brothers in Arms series that offered a gruesome and faithful depiction of World War 2. Ironically however, many of the same people who have flamed it have probably themselves decried the rise of unintuitive, realistic cover based shooters and called for the return of the same fast paced, frantic and outrageuos gameplay that Furious 4 seems to offer. Unfortunately, instead of seeing the game as a Serious Sam-esque return to fun, most have chosen to shit on the game for not being a real Brothers in Arms game.

To sum this rant up, should a game be judged by its own merits or should it be held to a standard set by another game? Do series have to live up to their reputations? And does a significant or minor stylistic choice ruin the experience when the game is marred by expectation?

EDIT: TL;DR: Go to hell, read the last paragraph if you just want to answer the question but I really think all the content shit is important to any prospective discussion.

 

[Vegosiux]

By its own merit, but also within its own franchise.

 

[kenu12345]

if its a series it should use the series as a jumping off point but still be judged on its own merits

 

[XT inc]

Nothing is created in a vacuum, and therefor must be judged against others in it's field.

One cannot just encase a game in a bubble and take it, as is, with no knowledge of other games.

The problem with, say, that new Brothers in arms game, is that it is such a departure from its series that it is moronic to even put them in the same group. Of course there is room for a silly, over the top, nazi bashing game, but you do not slot it in with the semi strategical BOA series.

It is so easy to point and choose from where other games did a mechanic better than others, or a previous title.

If one just skips past all these things, then COD, Assassins Creed, Madden, and all the other annualized games, would earn 10 out of 10's because no one would be saying " Once more same as before".

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

I think games should be judged on their own merits, I mean if a game is functional, fun to play, and excels where it needs to then there's no real reason to call it a bad game by any means. If it can stand alone on its own merits, then of course its a great game. No game should to thrown under the proverbial (perhaps literal, at times) bus just because the devs decide to make some changes some of the spects. Change can be great for a series, though I must say different doesn't always mean good. Still, I'd prefer a drstic change in pace/gameplay/tone than complete stagnation.

CAPTCHA: ghphere properties

My sentiments exactly.

 

[random_bars]

It should be judged against whatever else already exists.

The problem with sequels that are just essentially the same as their predecessors isn't some sort of crazy "you're not allowed to have the same kind of fun more than once" thing. It's simply that, if you're going to make a game that similar to what you made before, why would you expect people to pay full price for it when they already have the same game at home? If people like that game, why not just play it again, instead of buying a 'sequel' which is just more of the same?

 

[Biosophilogical]

When it comes to videogames, people always compare to other examples. It is a matter of preference. Think about it like this, MW3 may be a good game (haven't played it, so I don't know), and Battlefield 3 may be better/worse. Seeing as they are both FPS, when it comes down to purchase time, saying "I like MW3, therefore I'll buy it" isn't always the best choice, as you may prefer Battlefield.

Alternatively, within-series comparisons tend to be important as well, because you are playing the game as a fan of the series, not as a stand-alone investment. Think of Oblivion vs Skyrim. Skyrim, while not necessarily a sequel, stands as a spiritual successor, and is therefore an attempt at an improvement over it's predecessor. So if you have played both, you look at it as a progression "How did Skyrim improve (or not) over Oblivion". After all, a lot of people would purchase Skyrim based partly upon their experience with Oblivion, and so their expectations of what they are purchasing will be based upon what they liked in Oblivion.

In other words, you purchase games within series and genres based upon your expectations from previous experience.

However, the smart gamer does his/her research first so that they know what they are looking at (to see how much it varies from their expectations). Then they can judge what they are purchasing as a stand-alone investment (if you were playing Pokemon, and the next one that comes out is a real-time action-RPG, if you buy it without researching it, you will probably be disappointed because it wasn't what you were wanting to buy, but if you do the research you change your expectations, and can therefore enjoy it).

So it isn't so much about comparison, so much as it is about what the player wants from their game, and previous experiences are what a lot of people use as a 'want baseline'.

 

[Strain42]

It's nice to judge a game by its own merits, but if a developer takes away a lot of what made an earlier installment good, it's kind of hard to ignore that.

Like Saints Row 3. I'm loving this game, I have a lot of fun with it. But so much was removed from SR2 that no matter how I try to judge SR3 on it's own, I'm always gonna have the little nagging voice that tells me "Yeah, but they got rid of __________"

 

[Athinira]

A game can never truly be judged on it's own merit, because we always hold it up to something, even if it's just modern day standards. Since graphical and gameplay standards change over time, games of the past which we consider great automatically drop in quality (the Original Half-Life, for example, doesn't have the same appeal today as it had 12 years ago) because our standards rise. Similarly, a game released 10 years from now might be considered stunning in the present, but it might just be average in it's own time.

Also, standards are set whenever a new game is released that raises the bar, and if the others can't keep up then people won't buy them. So since game releases controls the standards, then we can conclude that games can never be judged on their own merits, ever, because they will always be held up against other games, even if only through the standards they set.

 

[Tr3mbl3Tr3mbl3]

You can't look at a game and judge it solely on it's own merits: if that were the case, how do you set the benchmark for what is good in the first place? Perfect example would be Duke Nukem: Forever, a game that would probably be considered one of the greatest games of all time had it been released as is in 1998. We call out DNF for being garbage because, despite its merits, titles with higher quality such as Halo and Call of Duty have since evolved the first person shooter genre.

Now I realize this post was intended to address the issue of whether a game's previous iterations should be considered in reviewing a game but the fact remains that a singular focus is too narrow to judge something fairly. Skyrim is being heralded as game of the year all over the gamer culture hot-spots (I'm one of those people), yet the build we're all playing is ful of bugs and glitches; on it's own merits and without a benchmark with which to judge the game, Skyrim could be criticized rather harshly for problems we easily overlook when taking the whole of gaming into account.