Jimquisition: The 100% Objective Review

[Colour Scientist]

I was going to suggest we boycott Jim's clearly ethicless ethics, but your narrative of narrative bias towards the narrative conflicts with my narrative. I'm afraid I must boycott you now. Boycott you and your biased narrative bias.

Please, you're just pushing your own agenda due to your conflict of interest and professional bias. Your status as a non-professional is irrelevant.

For more on this, please read my upcoming publication The Ethical Adventures of James Gournalism

 

[KazeAizen]

Wait, Jim. Didn't you once say you were God?

And you just said God isn't real?

Then that means... YOU AREN'T REAL?!?!?!

No. He's not God anymore. According to a crazy person now he is Jim Fucking Sterling.

 

[Thanatos2k]

It's really not impossible. Most of the stuff should not be subjective. This would be what you do:

The battle system is similar to that of this other game. *Shows reasons why they're similar* *Shows ways they're different* *Suggests which one works better or not, gives detailed reasons why. (SUBJECTIVITY ALERT!)* *Does this for several other games* Note that these reasons will never consist of political ideology.

The reason this works is because very little of this is the reviewer telling me what they think is good or not, they use my own notions of what is good or not to guide me. This is valuable to me. Saying Tactics Ogre plays similarly to Final Fantasy Tactics and showing why is extremely valuable information to me, because I like Final Fantasy Tactics, so it's pretty obvious I'd like Tactics Ogre. If I didn't, I similarly would not like Tactics Ogre. You can even throw in whether you think Tactics Ogre plays better than FFT or not, and tell me why. If you're going to suggest that the game sucks because SRPGs are boring (PERSONAL AGENDA ALERT!), then you're the wrong reviewer for the job.

I've never played (other game). This review is subjective, because it assumes I have played (other game).

More and more, people seem to say 'objective' and actually mean 'agrees with me'. Being 'subjective' is being thrown around as some kind of slur on a reviewers professionalism. Its bloody ridiculous. Especially considering the day and age we live in. I know Yahtzee will not give any RTS game a good review because he is subjective, but thanks to the Internet I can easily look up half a dozen different reviewers and get a balanced view on the game.

Also, why can't a review have commentary on political ideology? I don't want to play a shooter if its about a Skinhead killing thousands of Jewish women, no matter how good the mechanics, or how slick the graphics are. On the flip side, I might be tempted to play a game if it is actually trying to get some kind of nuanced message across but its graphics or budget don't quite reach that far (for instance, Spec-Ops the line)

Infact, Spec-Ops: The line is a great example of where a completely objective review would fail to do a game justice. It would be compared poorly to other shooters with more polished gunplay, mechanics, graphics, and a better multiplayer. But without any 'subjectivity' (to say, without any mention of the biases and politics the game is wearing on its sleeve) it just comes across as a third rate knock-off shooter, rather than as gut punching attack and critique on that genre of games. Its value would not be shown to the audience, and that would be a terrible thing.

If you haven't played any other video games you're going to have a bad time figuring out what's worth playing then, mostly objective reviews or not, because you have no idea what makes a good or bad game. Many games are only good to experienced gamers (Read: Dark Souls) Most reviews are assumed to be for a player who has some experience playing video games as it is, so I don't see a problem here.

Spec Ops The Line is a tricky situation. You can objectively compare it to other shooters (and it'll come up short) but you can also emphasize this isn't the point of the game without too much subjectivity. Spec Ops the Line is a borderline unreviewable game as it is, because it has a very specific audience, and a large number of people who simply would not like it. It's almost a "Fan of bro shooters - 6/10, not a fan of bro shooters but liked shooters before the Halo generation - 10/10" situation. I'm perfectly fine with some leeway in those cases.

 

[Something Amyss]

Please, you're just pushing your own agenda due to your conflict of interest and professional bias. Your status as a non-professional is irrelevant.

For more on this, please read my upcoming publication The Ethical Adventures of James Gournalism

The fact that you consider yourself a professional only pushes the narrative that you are a professional victim. Stop trying to harass and bully me with your narrative of punditry!

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I don't think your review was objective enough, Jim. For example, assigning a "genre" is a highly subjective and muddy area, as genres are often based on vague notions of style, demographics, and creative content. So, best to leave that out.

Also, your assumption that the characters are represented to be made out of "skin-flesh" is wildly subjective, as other people may have a different perception or interpretation. The best you could say is that there are pixels used to create a visual impression. But that still wouldn't be completely objective, because if you turn your monitor off, there are no visuals and the "graphics" are just binary abstractions that only exist on a microprocessor.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Please, you're just pushing your own agenda due to your conflict of interest and professional bias. Your status as a non-professional is irrelevant.

For more on this, please read my upcoming publication The Ethical Adventures of James Gournalism

The fact that you consider yourself a professional only pushes the narrative that you are a professional victim. Stop trying to harass and bully me with your narrative of punditry!

If I can't hear you, it must be a straw man.

Please stop trying to derail the thread.

If you do not desist, I shall put you on my ignore list but continue to try to engage you in conversation.

See how you like them apples.

 

[veloper]

What many gamers are simply looking for is reviewers who judge games consistently by a reasonably set of criteria (usually some variant on the old set of gameplay, story, gfx and sound) even if they don't actually use a scorecard.

Do you not find this incredibly boring though? Do you not think games as a medium deserve more than that? Because this is the sort of shit you got in game magazines in the 90s. We've come a long way since then.

I find it informative. How boring a piece is depends on the style or humor of the game reviewer.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Also, I made it clear that while I don't like the mechanic, it's well thought out, and it's not a dealbreaker (unless you're like me).

I would hope that we would be mature and literate enough to understand that when someone talks about the combat feeling disconnected, they were talking opinion with or without such a label.

"That's your opinion" or "you're biased" come off as playground retorts, and really, demanding that we be told these things strikes me as the demand to infantilise us. At the same time, that's what it looks like all this outrage against bias and for objectivity and fairness in reviews is: a campaign to treat us like spoiled children. Which is fitting, because that campaign gives us all the appearance of being spoiled children.

Sorry?

What campaign?

I thought we were talking about how best to meet everybody regarding this issue of reviews (obviously some want them to be as "objective" as possible, and some want to hear the opinions of a reviewer that they find they share opinions with).

If you're talking about #Gamergate, then here's a nifty little video (well "little" is a bit of a misnomer. It's a 4 hour long discussion, but it's pretty good.).

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

A professional review is not supposed to tell me whether the reviewer liked the game. A professional review is supposed to tell me whether *I* will like the game.

Unless the critic is psychic and can read your mind or predict the future, this is impossible.

The closest a critic can do is tell you if they personally liked a game, movie, book, etc. and explain why. If you agree with their reasons, you will probably feel the same way as they do.

And yes, your own personal ideology matters in this regard. If someone didn't like a game, because they felt it was racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. and you also dislike games that are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., then this information will help you decide if you may like or dislike this game as well.

Video game reviews must be about more than technical aspects of the game like frame rate. They must include information about the story and characters.

It's really not impossible.

~SNIP!~

So you want to ignore anything that isn't technical. Great. You want pretty much exactly what Jim Sterling gave you with this parody review. Additionally, comparing one game to another is only remotely useful, if the person reading the review has played the previous game and if you haven't, then by your own standards, they have failed at their job. That part I agree with you. If you need to have played a previous game that isn't in the same series to understand a review, then that review was poorly written.

Personally, if the reviewer doesn't go into plot and characters, then I think they have failed at their jobs. Any discussion of plots and characters are necessarily going to involve personal politics and are absolutely going to be subjective.

 

[blackrave]

Well, that was a video with moving pictures and some sound.
I guess...

Did... did I miss a meeting?

No.
You can't miss something you weren't invited to in the first place.
I could say that "it isn't you, it's us", but that would be a lie.
Thing is we met and unanimously voted to exclude you from our group.
Simply put we have higher standards.
(you can't run the world with low standards, obviously)
Have a nice life!

P.S. We already changed location of meetings so don't even bother coming back.

 

[wizzy555]

There was actually some useful information in that review, although admittedly it would be far shorter if you remove all the redundancy.

If it doesn't sound boring without going out of your way to make it sound boring then it's hardly a valid point.

Likewise I could do a spoof of a subjective review.

"The colours make me think of the moors in the springtime and for some reason the animations make me think of wildberries fermenting in a French wine cellar"

 

[Dakkagor]

If you haven't played any other video games you're going to have a bad time figuring out what's worth playing then, mostly objective reviews or not, because you have no idea what makes a good or bad game. Many games are only good to experienced gamers (Read: Dark Souls) Most reviews are assumed to be for a player who has some experience playing video games as it is, so I don't see a problem here.

Spec Ops The Line is a tricky situation. You can objectively compare it to other shooters (and it'll come up short) but you can also emphasize this isn't the point of the game without too much subjectivity. Spec Ops the Line is a borderline unreviewable game as it is, because it has a very specific audience, and a large number of people who simply would not like it. It's almost a "Fan of bro shooters - 6/10, not a fan of bro shooters but liked shooters before the Halo generation - 10/10" situation. I'm perfectly fine with some leeway in those cases.

When I say (other game) I mean that in regards to your comment that a 'objective' review would reference and compare a games mechanics to another games mechanics. You can't assume that everyone has played every game. This is why some subjectivity has to be allowed, even encouraged.

Ah, but you are now being 'subjective' about Spec Ops. We both share an opinion that the game is not about the core gameplay, but the story and the message, but that is all it is, an opinion. Just because it is a widely held one does not make it 'objective'. How do game reviewers decide who gets leeway, what system is implemented? Do all reviews have to pass through some central counting house to ensure only a minimum amount of 'subjectivity'? If you are subjective, you can totally review Spec-Ops: The Line. Did you like its story? Why? Did you agree/disagree with its points? Why? What did you think of the core gameplay, and how did that affect the story, did it enhance or detract?

Every one of those questions can only be answered with a subjective answer, a point of view. Asking for anything else does the game, and the job of being a reviewer, a grave disservice.

Captcha: Spread the net. These days, I think we need to contain it. . . .

 

[IronMit]

I was unaware being objective meant speaking in a monotone voice.

Jim, 3 steps ahead of the rest of us plebs, as always

 

[T_ConX]

No wonder you guys are so afraid of GamerGate; you simply have no clue about what actual objectivity looks like, and imagine it as some sort of soulless fact sheet.

It's not that hard. Just write what you think about the game and compare it to similar games. How does it tackle common shortcomings of the genre? Does the game make some risky design or narrative choices that either pay off or fall flat? Does it provide value for the consumer? How replayable is it?

Oh, and don't have sex with someone who worked on the game. I really shouldn't have to say it, but doing that is a big no-no!

Aw fuck, that's too hard. Just keep claiming GamerGate is nothing but misogynist trolls so you'll be spared the painful effort of having improve yourself. Mountain Dewritos and sloppy emo blowjobs for all!

 

[Callate]

I'm waiting for the obverse parody, something along the lines of "The cover of this game is blue, blue is a terrible color, 0/10."

I understand the frustration some people feel about demands for "objective" reviews, but pretending that the issue is black and white isn't helping. One definition of "subjective" is that it's a view corresponding to only one person (Merriam-Webster, "4a (1) : peculiar to a particular individual : personal ") And aside from the inevitable jerk who is actually saying "Your review is bad because I disagree with the conclusion", I think that's what people are really annoyed with- the reviewer who is giving an opinion that doesn't apply or isn't useful to large portions of the game's audience, who isn't taking that audience into account. And the attendant fact that said review is being tallied into an over-all score by sites like metacritic, and others' narrative about the game's underlying themes, structure, or message- which isn't directly the reviewer's fault, of course, but is an all-but-inevitable consequence.

I tend to feel that a good reviewer can utterly hate the product they're reviewing- whether it's a game, book, movie, restaurant, whatever- and still pass along information that will lead me to believe I'll enjoy it. I'm sure that there are people who have seen a game declared "too hard" and taken it as a personal challenge, for example. But there's an uncomfortable space where the reviewer takes it upon themselves to review the people who would enjoy the product- and you don't have to look far to find that; glance at Moviebob's reviews of "The Equalizer" or "Divergent", and the less he likes the underlying product, the more venom the perceived audience is likely to get for their presumed appreciation of it.

I will say right now that I really appreciate the knowledge and insight that Bob Chipman brings to much of his work. But he would be a better reviewer if that particular attitude was one he could leave at the door. And I would say the same of any critic.

 

[Madmonk12345]

When I hear people wanting "objective" reviews, I feel like the word they're looking for is "impartial", which is something most reviews should indeed strive for. We all have our personal/political biases, but when you're representing your outlet and giving a review to a larger audience (which will also be submitted to aggregators like Metacritic and affect people's jobs), the reviewer's biases should be proportional to what a general audience wants to hear. I feel like more sites would benefit from having contributors write op-ed pieces about certain games (or games) and delve into a more personal critique (without a numbered score being aggregated) while leaving more technical or general criticisms for reviews.

Yes, that's exactly how I feel as well. The review should be for the consumer. The personal op-ed piece can be about the reviewer and whatever they want to praise/whine about.

Which consumers? The consumers of the game in question? The consumer of the genre in question?

Shouldn't these reviews appeal to people who haven't bought the game already, including people who perhaps don't buy games regularly in that genre, people who aren't "consumers" in that genre?

For example, I initially wasn't a consumer of Modern Military FPSes or FPSes in general. When I heard Yahtzee really liked(Well, as much as one can like) Spec Ops: The line, I knew it was something I couldn't ignore. Because he like me didn't really enjoy MMSes, I knew I would likely share his opinion and even have my outsider opinions on MMSes considered and evaluated by the game, so I jumped on the opportunity After weeks of messing with Wine on my Mac in a foolish attempt to forego the inevitable, I gave up and spent $700 or so on a PC laptop just to play Spec Ops: The Line because the way it presented itself to me looked like something I couldn't live without courtesy of that review. This made me a consumer of FPSes as I went on to buy Far Cry 3 and Bioshock Infinite after that. I was so sold on it I even went out and convinced my non-gamer-identifying father to play Spec Ops all the way through.

Don't these kind of reviews leading people who aren't consumers of a genre to consume that genre demonstrate the value in making reviews that keep in mind the perspectives of people who aren't the direct audience of the genre in question?

 

[shrekfan246]

I was unaware being objective meant speaking in a monotone voice.

Jim, 3 steps ahead of the rest of us plebs, as always

Well, obviously.

How else could you be objective than to remove all inflection from your voice? Intonation belies the mask of objectivity!

 

[Trishbot]

I THINK I get the joke on this one? A critique on the problems of game journalism having any sort of bias because of who they are, where they're from, and who they know? Maybe?

... Look, the only thing I know for certain is that I keep trying to forget FF13 was a thing and that Square Enix wasted a whole console generation on Lightning and her merry band of idiots, and that I may have instead put "Lost Odyssey" in my collection right after FF12 on my shelf instead...

 

[Thanatos2k]

So you want to ignore anything that isn't technical. Great. You want pretty much exactly what Jim Sterling gave you with this parody review. Additionally, comparing one game to another is only remotely useful, if the person reading the review has played the previous game and if you haven't, then by your own standards, they have failed at their job. That part I agree with you. If you need to have played a previous game that isn't in the same series to understand a review, then that review was poorly written.

Personally, if the reviewer doesn't go into plot and characters, then I think they have failed at their jobs. Any discussion of plots and characters are necessarily going to involve personal politics and are absolutely going to be subjective.

Well I mean, what I had there was only a fraction of the review. You'd do the same thing for the graphics, the music, the controls, yadda yadda.

Then we get to the story (and/or characters), and this is the minefield where the reviewer will be tempted to shove their agenda in, but you must hold back. You should be talking most about the *structure* of the story, and why it works or not with reasons why. Spoilers also factor in. Pacing is another good area you can analyze that's not as subjective. Talking about the writing is more objective than talking about the content/direction of the story. You give a summary of the story and its direction, because that's what the reader is interested in the most.

The real kicker here is to identify if something you're complaining about in the story or characters is likely to be shared by your audience, or if it's a PERSONAL ISSUE. If it's a personal issue, either don't mention it, or downplay the significance of this part of your critique, and then do not let it factor into your score. Mentioning it is fine, because some of your audience might agree, and it may be a deal breaker to them. But preaching at your audience will simply enrage those that don't agree. I think the characters in FF13 (aside from Sazh) are some of the worst characters ever to grace a video game, but I know that it's a personal thing. I would attack some of the writing instead, which has far more objective flaws in it than the characters. (SERAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

Then you bring it all together, and you don't dock points for your pathetic contrivances. I've seen reviewers claim to dock points for some of the stupidest insignificant reasons imaginable they KNEW weren't going to be shared by their audiences while already firing up the "It's my opinion you can't tell me I'm wrong" defense, and it has no place in professional reviews.

Should the review be pretty long with all this content? Yep. Probably take you a while to get it right too with all the research and content to look at. Such is life for a professional.

 

[Thanatos2k]

If you haven't played any other video games you're going to have a bad time figuring out what's worth playing then, mostly objective reviews or not, because you have no idea what makes a good or bad game. Many games are only good to experienced gamers (Read: Dark Souls) Most reviews are assumed to be for a player who has some experience playing video games as it is, so I don't see a problem here.

Spec Ops The Line is a tricky situation. You can objectively compare it to other shooters (and it'll come up short) but you can also emphasize this isn't the point of the game without too much subjectivity. Spec Ops the Line is a borderline unreviewable game as it is, because it has a very specific audience, and a large number of people who simply would not like it. It's almost a "Fan of bro shooters - 6/10, not a fan of bro shooters but liked shooters before the Halo generation - 10/10" situation. I'm perfectly fine with some leeway in those cases.

When I say (other game) I mean that in regards to your comment that a 'objective' review would reference and compare a games mechanics to another games mechanics. You can't assume that everyone has played every game. This is why some subjectivity has to be allowed, even encouraged.

Ah, but you are now being 'subjective' about Spec Ops. We both share an opinion that the game is not about the core gameplay, but the story and the message, but that is all it is, an opinion.

It really isn't though, because it's very clear that it was also the intent of the developers that the game is not about the core cover-based-shooter gameplay.

I mean, if you wanted to be sure, you could ask the developers if that was the case. I'm sure they'd be happy to confirm it. (You're a professional, right? Not above asking the source?)

Figuring out "What the developers intended" is a huge part of being a professional reviewer, and in the parts of your review that are subjective you should be focusing a lot on whether they were successful or not.