shrekfan246 said:
Joccaren said:
Lets look at Yooka Laylee. He doesn't like 90s style platformer collectathons. He buys a 90s style platformer collectathon, and his review is largely "2/10, its a 90s style platformer collectathon".
I'd hesitate to say that he doesn't like them straight up. It seems he may not be particularly fond of them, but he was even into the demo Playtonic released for Kickstarter backers.
Considering his review quite literally starts with "If there?s one thing that can be said in Yooka-Laylee?s favor, it?s that Playtonic absolutely nailed the creation of a late 90s 3D mascot platformer.
Unfortunately, I do not mean that as a compliment."
If it is an absolutely perfect rendition of a given genre, but you hate it - its kind of implied that you hate the genre. The genre, to Jim, is a 2/10. He has explicitly laid that out in his review.
Primary difference: The vast majority of Metacritic 0/10 or 10/10 user scores aren't actually going into lengthy explanations for why they think the way they do.
I will agree there are many of them. There are others that don't write 3 pages of review, but do say that they dislike the game, and review it based on like/dislike rather than any technical merit. And he ridicules them the same as anyone else. Just writing "I don't like this game" for 3 pages doesn't make a review any more relevant, just longer. Jim's review can honestly be entirely summed up by that first line; you know EXACTLY what you're getting by reading it. The following paragraphs are basically just repeating it ad naseum for different sub components.
You ridicule others for reviewing based on feeling, you deserve criticism for reviewing based on feeling too.
Here's a question - Why is that useless? Assuming that someone reading a review from Jim Sterling knows at least a little bit about his general likes and dislikes and also has well-reasoned knowledge of their own likes and dislikes, why is getting Jim's opinion about the game bad? What do we, as readers and potential consumers, lose by reading the opinions of someone who had an incredibly bad time with a game, bearing in mind that other reviews still exist which might better inform the way we personally would feel about how egregious the game's problems are?
Lets say you know a little bit about Jim's likes and dislikes. You don't need to read the review. You already know what it'll be.
Hell, you don't need to read any reviews like this when you know anything about a reviewer - you already know what the review is going to be based on the genre and series. Its like people accusing Yoshi of in this thread; he'll come to the defence of Nintendo all the time [Haven't exactly followed most users enough over the last few years to know if this is true, but it seems to be people's impression of him]. When a thread about Nintendo is started by Yoshi, most people kind of seem to know where its going to go.
Without any baseline objectivity to a review, its pointless. Getting Jim's opinion about the game isn't bad, but the review is pointless, because you already have his opinion about the game. When I can get more information on the game's faults and strengths from an IGN review, and IGN is more unbiased, that's ridiculous. And that's what blows my mind here.
I'll be coming back to this, but for now I'm just going to say that people don't need to focus on whatever you seem to deem necessary - that's kinda why you shouldn't ever just solely follow one reviewer.
Its not that he's not focusing on what I deem necessary, its that he's inconsistent with his focus. For a game he likes, he'll focus on one set of criteria that he likes. He'll then completely ignore these criteria in other games he does not like as much, eschewing praise for the very things he praised other games for. If you're just going to change what you count as a positive based on how much you like the game... That's stupid, and unhelpful.
This is 100% conjecture on your part, as none of us actually know what goes on in Jim's head when he's going through his critique process. There are many times he's stated that he's gone into a game with one expectation and come away with something completely different; that tends to happen to many people and it's a pretty big reason why you can find weekly threads about how "overrated" any given game is.
Its fairly evident from the reviews he gives, however. He's often fairly open about this as well. Yes, sometimes he can be surprised by something being not at all what he expected; if he looks at something and goes "That's a CoD style FPS" and it doesn't turn out to be Spec Ops, his review is essentially already written though - and a CoD game doesn't need to be Spec Ops to get a different review from other CoD games. He eschews the details within a genre of what makes them fun or not, and just reviews it based on a handful of personal opinions he has before even playing the game.
You seem to be missing a primary component that comprises the difference between video games and other media. When's the last time a respected movie critic had active control over the movie they were watching?
If you don't think interactivity plays any role in how a person winds up viewing a video game, then... well, I'm gonna have to call into question the relevancy of any criticisms you're making here in this post of yours.
I think you're underestimating the extent of game design. Yes, you can interact with a game differently to another person. Good game design guides your interactions, has pre-planned how you'll act and react at certain points, creates a good interest curve - ect.
Its the difference between, say, Skyrim and Breath of the Wild. Both are open world games, both have a lot of different ways for people to interact with them. Skyrim is generally regarded as reasonably mediocre, though got a range of reviews, mostly positive, when it came out. It doesn't control the flow as well as BotW, and isn't as well designed. BotW gets consistently high reviews, and likely will for its foreseeable future, because it designs its world with proper interest curves, subconscious guiding, and various other game design tools that most reviewers aren't literate in, and don't even notice, but that greatly impact how enjoyable a game is, even for those who don't know they exist.
Additionally, you seem to be missing the idea that a reviewer can actually review the interactivity, and that it also has a baseline objective quality that has been designed. Yes, its one more thing to review than in a movie, that doesn't fundamentally change how the review has to be structured though. Its just one more thing to be literate in.
Have you ever read an Ebert review? Serious question.
Yes, and your point is?
We're gatekeeping video game critique now? I didn't realize that I needed to get an MSc in video game design to write about video games.
I think you'll find that later I say "Yeah, some of this is cool, we also need serious reviews, and for there to be a distinction between the two".
When serious and 'enjoyment' reviews are treated the same, and seen as the same, its problematic for understanding a game from reviews, and often in terms of criticisms and such as well. Were Jim widely considered an emotional reviewer that just rated things based on how much he liked them, rather than trying to present his reviews as more objective and fact-based, things like the BotW DDoS probably wouldn't have happened, because fewer people would care. Sure, it isn't a magic cureall for all the problems of the internet, but having an opinion-based review be well known and present themselves as opinion based, and fact based reviews known for being fact based, with respect and delineation between the two - things would be more informative for the consumer, and less flamable.
I'm being flippant here because the technical aspects of, say, film reviews written by people who have extensively studied filmography are entirely useless to the large number of people who have not. The layman doesn't care how well-shot a particular scene was, and will barely care about how "shaky cam and sporadic cuts make action scenes hard to follow". In fact, that's information which is just as useful to the reader as a video game critic describing their experiences with a game's control system--which is to say, it has wildly varying usefulness depending solely on who is reading.
You say this, yet you underestimate many things about game design, and how useful criticisms can be.
The translation of your 'shaky cam and sporadic cuts' analogy is "Scenes were confusing. Was bad". The former says the same thing, but gives a reason, which informs both your average Joe that some scenes are confusing or painful to watch, while also informing those more literate as to the exact reasons so that they know whether that specific thing will bother them or not.
Likewise, videogame design does this too. Jim's current review; "Level design is bad". Umm... Ok? In what way? His only example is the fact that the game didn't tell him the solution to a puzzle and he had to figure it out himself. That's not bad level design. Being more literate, as even IGN was closer to [Again, that's just embarassing], we find out that the maps are large, and lack a minimap to tell you where you are going, or pre-telegraphs to guide you subconsciously. Of course, the reviews only mention a portion of this, but you can glean some of it from the simpler statements they use - its just thoroughly ambiguous as to whether these are the problems, or other aspects such as walls that imply being climbable but aren't, and other such communications issues exist.
Or, BotW. "Item durability is bad, its always bad". Ok, fair opinion, but it doesn't actually tell me much about the game. Game design people have gone into depth about how it serves to balance difficulty as you enter a new section, and how it plays into the 'pick up enemy's weapons' systems, among other things, so that I know that sure, maybe I'm not going to like that my weapon breaks all the time - BUT I know that I won't have as many balance problems, and I'll appreciate weapon variety and other mechanics more because of it. Not only does this give me more information about the game, it also frames me to enter playing the game so I know how to enjoy it, rather than framing me to not enjoy the game and just focus on weapons breaking. More literate reviews are, plainly, more useful.
Reviews Don't (And In Fact Shouldn't) Need To Be Uniform.
I don't mean inconsistency between reviewers; I mean inconsistency within a reviewer's own reviews. Repeating a part from below; Jim himself was originally thinking of giving Andromeda a 7, even though he believed it was not as good as Zelda. That is him admitting the inconsistency in his own reviews, as a 7 doesn't have a uniform meaning for Jim - it has a wide range of meanings depending how he feels on the day about what a 7 is. That's problematic for understanding how enjoyable a game is.
Reviews sure as hell shouldn't review a game the same as each other just for the sake of it, but they should be consistent in their own reviews. That should honestly go without saying.
You do realize that the games aren't the same, right? In fact, you do realize that there are rather large, sweeping differences between the two games, even if they might share certain downsides?
Yes, there are genre-based differences. So again, we get to the point where Jim is reviewing based on genre, rather than based on the game. They share the same downsides, and positives. Get two completely different scores because they are in different genres. And half of Yooka-Laylee's negatives are genre based to begin with.
Again, the reviews themselves seem to be rather useless; I can just look at the genre of the games and see how Jim will review them. This is exactly my point.
Here's something that's really fun: You're subjectively asking for objectivity in video game reviews. You know what I don't particularly find interesting to read about in video game reviews? The technical aspects of a game from a detached, impersonal perspective. I don't need to read about the control scheme of a game and how it relates to the main character traversing the world; I want to read about how that system actually translated to the person controlling the game. It's a fine distinction, to be sure, but there's also this little line of yours:
Here's the thing; you're illiterate in game design. You think all that can be talked about is control schemes objectively. This is patently false.
Everything that you enjoy about a game can be talked about in game design terms, because it was designed so that you would enjoy it. Not just control schemes. Did you find that racing section fun? A literate reviewer could break down in proper detail exactly what made it fun; letting average joe know its fun, while letting others know WHY its fun, so they can tell if its their type of fun or not. And if there's a problem, it allows others to see whether that problem matters to them, or will be easily ignorable.
A number of reviewers try to do something along these lines, however they don't have the game design literacy to do it properly, meaning it again comes down to "I found this fun".
This isn't how... anything works, actually. I think Dark Souls is a fantastic game, but I'm never going to be able to convince someone of that if they don't enjoy it, and there isn't anything to be gained from them acknowledging that the game is or isn't well-designed from a purely objective standpoint. It doesn't matter. They don't like it, so to them Dark Souls is not a fantastic game. If reviews were based around any level of objectiveness, then there wouldn't be three negative reviews for the original Alien film. If criticism in general was based around any level of objectivity, then Ernest Hemingway would either be singularly celebrated or reviled, and not some weird mix of both depending on who you ask.
See above. You very much CAN convince someone that Dark Souls is a fantastic game, even if they don't enjoy it. Hey there, you've met someone that thinks that now. What you can't do is convince them that they can enjoy it. I know exactly what makes Dark Souls enjoyable, why it works, and how it pulls together, from game design literacy and experience. A review telling me what makes it so enjoyable before buying it would have let me know that I wouldn't enjoy it, because I could have understood the feel it builds towards, and how it does it, and noted that its not my thing, while still being well designed. Know what doesn't help? "Dark souls is a great game. The environments breathe atmosphere, and the combat is deep and engaging with many different approaches able to be taken, and...." - a standard review. Its glowing, and most will be. And the negative reviews don't really give me any context for it being negative either. What am I to believe about how I'll enjoy it without playing?
The answer is with a good review. An informative one that tells average Joe "This is a great game", while also giving the detail necessary for more literate readers to understand what makes it great, and whether they'll like it or not. It also frames you to enter the game in a way that'll be more enjoyable and maximise your odds of having fun, while increasing the literacy of game players. Higher literacy of game players means fewer slow boring tutorials as designers can trust we'll understand what's going on, and better more enjoyable games because of it.
You argue that there's little worth in the subjectivity of someone's opinions when they're ignoring or otherwise unknowledgeable about the technical aspects of what they're reviewing (apparently, since I could spend another hour going on about how the only way you'd think someone is entirely ignorant about the technical aspects is if you haven't even read the review yourself and wrap this all back around to the fact that you don't need to study video game design to understand how the basics fit together to form something that should be enjoyable); from my position I find little worth in someone couching their criticism behind clarifying that something is, in fact, technically sound and has met some baseline for quality. Technical prowess means very little to me, beyond any developer who just isn't capable of meeting a basic level of it. Many games have a basic level of technical quality, it does nothing for me to be told how and why they are capable titles on a purely playable level.
And again, you're still missing the extent of game design. It seems you think its chance and magic that make a game enjoyable to play, the designers just make sure its not buggy and that the controls work, and hopefully it all fits together. Average games, yes. The truly great games? Everything is designed to a T, and you can break down exactly why its fun.
You CAN'T do this without some education in game design. Much like a literate movie reviewer doesn't need to go to film school for 3 years and graduate with a diploma, neither does a literate game reviewer need to do so. They can't just be an average Joe off the street though.
Subjectivity is useful, and can be conveyed even in a predominantly objective review. It can still exist. However, the reviews become more informative, and more useful to everyone; from your average Joe, to a literate player, who likes, or who doesn't like. It loses nothing, and gains everything. At least if competently written.
It isn't couching your criticism in "Technically its playable", a well written review would honestly do the opposite. It'd outline that systems fit together, and point out where they fall apart and put it out as "Unfortunately, despite most of this being well designed, this one flaw pulls the whole experience apart in this way". A reviewer who reviews purely on opinion also wouldn't need to do this; They could do exactly what they do on Metacritic user sections ATM; "I don't like it, its this genre/developer/series". Because that's essentially what Jim's review was. Forgive me if I don't see the point in 3 pages of review just saying the same thing over and over. It does nothing for anyone to just repeat yourself "I don't like 90s platformers". Jim's review could easily be summed up by his first line, as I've already said, in full detail. If you want 3 pages of review trying to provide some objective, qualitative and useful information - like he seems to try to - you've got to actually provide some objective, qualitative and useful information. Pick one, or the other. Pretending to give design criticisms, while only giving out an uninformed opinion, is, as I've said many times, useless and pointless. Average Joe has to read 3 pages of stuff he doesn't care about, and informed Joe just looks at it and goes "This is rubbish" - or worse, gets confused by what you're saying, believing that your praise or criticism is objective, and buying games that they'll hate because you pretended to be objective while enjoying them, without actually being so, or missing games they might love, because you pretended to be objective in criticism whilst not being so.
Now, you might have the impression that I think video game reviews are completely fine and don't need to change after all of this, which I will expressly state is not true. I don't disagree that with better knowledge, reviews could be made better. I don't disagree that there is a market for reviews which are directly informed by intimate knowledge of video game theory and design. But this is the sticking point:
and reviews become useful for everyone.
Every review doesn't need to be useful for everyone.
Hobby reviewers, sure. When you're reviewing professionally, you should try and make your review as useful as possible, to as many people as possible. If you don't have to sacrifice usefulness to one group to improve it for another group, you should do so. Its kind of what goes with being a professional reviewer. Not every reviewer has to do so, sure, but the better reviewers will tend to.
Books have their markets. Films have their markets. Television, comics, magazines, music, board games, video games, phones, clothes, even makeup and certain foods, even schools. Why can't critics? Why must they conform to some arbitrary standard that deems their writing "useful" for a nebulous group of potential readers whose tastes they'll never be able to predict?
They can still have their markets. They still have subjective input. However their reviews are actually more useful than Metacritic user sections, and that should honestly be expected of professional reviewers. They don't have to have the same opinion on everything, they should be informative though, and not purely reactionary.
Its what separates a supposedly 'professional' and respectable reviewer, from just your average internet user.