First off, I would like to give props to the person who gave me the idea for this article. That being Kyle Stegerwald of Medium Difficulty. Who wrote a nice article called,”Bad at What? The Question of Skill in Game Criticism.” It was a lovely article and while it didn’t do a very good job of answering his question it gave me an excellent start at writing this article. Please go read his first, if you think me plagiarist.
I read a lot of game reviews, watch a lot of previews, and watch a lot of game demos done by game journalists. Mostly in an effort to be knowledgeable about video games and also because I have this sick liking for watching other people play video games. But what often happens, especially if the game is one I’ve had any experience with. I tend to feel like the author or demoer, just didn’t get out of the game what I did. In fact, sometimes I scream at my computer screen,
“Jesus Christ Man, what are you doing?” Which is usually followed by me wondering what the hell I’m doing and me shutting up.
This is a feeling I tend to have when I’m watching the typical game journo play a MMORPG, Fighting game, or even some RTS games. In fact, I even had this reaction while watching some guy play Dirt Showdown the other day. I later kind of felt sorry for him because he admitted he was terrible at the game. But it made me wonder why in the world he got the job of demoing it to an audience.
After all, if you wanted to show off how great Football was; you wouldn’t be getting me to show it off. Perhaps you would get Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers. But not me… But when an outlet that covers video games needs someone to sit in a chair and play the game for what is usually a live audience they just seem to grab anyone that’s around. Even if the outlet has a guy who usually plays RPGs, Shooters, etc… They sometimes are a very small staff and may not have such people. But then, who is going to be reviewing this product? Someone who knows nothing about the genre, isn’t good at the games, and probably doesn’t even like the game? Can’t be the best person to do the job. Right?
What usually happens in that case is that the game gets an 8/10 or whatever the equivalent. Because the reviewer was too underprepared to know what else to give it. The reviewer complains about things that are staples of the genre and the reviewer all most all ways says that the game should have included a feature or mechanic that doesn’t exist in the genre. For instance, I read some reviews for Soul Calibur 5 that said that the Story mode was too short and that the game didn’t have enough modes. In fact, Story Modes in fighting games are usually throwaways and therefore very short and uneventful. And the game had a complete set of modes. Nothing was missing from the game at all. In fact, feature and quality wise this game was one of the best fighting games to have come out in years. But the reviewers didn’t have this perspective and just assumed that the game should have more to it than it did. Another example could be someone playing a game like Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom 3 may complain that Marvel versus Capcom 3 just came out eight months pervious and therefore this game is cheap cash in. Well, that is a problem considering the level of changes made to the game would justify a $30 upgrade purchase through DLC making it just about the same price as the boxed complete game ended up being. Therefore, Capcom did have a problem getting DLC in the pipeline and approved due to the earthquake and probably other factors. But they made good on their promise of new content by making Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom 3 for just about the same price as it would have been; had it been DLC. In the end, however, most people looking at this from an outside perspective entirely might argue that the price and frequency of these two titles shouldn’t effect their scores at all. Considering that in a few months when both games cost $20. No one is going to remember any of the circumstances of their releases. But someone will want to know of the quality of the games and dropping a game’s score to the circumstances of it’s release are a little unfair.
This is not limited to fighting games. I’ve seen a number of previews lately done for MMORPGs where the people doing the previews have no knowledge of what is or is not a modern MMORPG staple and therefore constantly say,
“This game seems all right; but I don’t know… Isn’t this something most MMORPGs have nowadays? The last time I played an MMO, was WoW about three years ago.”
A total lack of foreknowledge of the genre and what it’s current conventions are. This is the type of thing I would expect from fanboys posting stuff on Youtube. Not paid professionals. If your outlet doesn’t have an expert in that particular genre perhaps you have no business doing commentary previews of it. Also, if your really terrible at a particular genre. Like fighting games, shooters, or MMORPGs then maybe you shouldn’t be reviewing them or previewing them without help from someone who is.
I also, have a bad habit of reading other people’s reviews for games I’ve just reviewed. Often, this is due to Metacritic. Most evil or evils. Which has shown me that for some reason, in a sea of 8/10 there is some guy who gave the same game a 4/10. Now this is usually because they want the traffic that being the lowest review can often bring. It also, usually brings waves of angry fans. But that’s good for advertising too I suppose. Everyone is chasing the clicks in this business. But to do this at the expense of being truthful or worse not even playing the game and just giving it a bad score to get those clicks takes any small amount of credibility this business might have once had and flushes it down the collective toilet. These reviews usually have a back of the box explanation of the game and then some words of criticism for instance;
“I didn’t like the graphics” or “The story didn’t make any sense.”
Wow some real wordsmiths there for sure. If these folks are being truthful then, perhaps they could explain what was wrong with the graphics or perhaps explain why the story didn’t make any sense. After all, if it was SO BAD, your not really spoiling anything for anyone. There wasn’t anything there to spoil, right? I also love the whole, “I didn’t understand the story.” Argument when reviewers try to explain why the game was bad. Well, if you didn’t understand the story perhaps we could have someone from the internet wiki read it to you. Then maybe you would understand it. Saying that your not smart enough or not paying enough attention doesn’t make the game look bad. It just makes you look stupid.
There is obviously a difference between people not playing a game at all and giving it a bad score and people just being bad at the game. But both of these things come from the same source. People who manage outlets want to get by on the fewest people possible. They don’t want to pay freelancers for what they can do in house. And what’s more, they want everyone to be able to where all the hats in their office. So there are no specialists. This might work for books or movies, because you can spend a couple hours reading wikis and be an instant expert on those. But unfortunately games are often as much about the experience of playing them as having the knowledge that they impart on the player. If you are unwilling or unable to achieve this; perhaps your outlet should get out of the business and do movie reviews instead. I hear they are much easier.
What I find the most appalling is that most of these situations I presented above in my direct criticism of previews; were done by reputable outlets that have plenty of employees that know their stuff. But a deadline based work place can take it’s toll. Even someone who is normally considered the office expert; if made to wear too many hats can certainly drop the ball due to emotions or just a lack of time. What I would really like to see is a case where people are not made to review multiple games in a very short span and reviewers and even previewers given a chance to do a long thoughtful review rather than something quick and dirty just to get the day one traffic ping. Because as we move into the future and there is more and more competition your audience is going to notice your lack of knowledge and believe me; there is nothing more aggravating for the average gamer to be watching someone play your favorite game and you say,
“God Dammit! Your doing it WRONG!”
