I really enjoyed the article “yellow-Game Journalism.” I understood and agreed with the entire article. I feel like critics do not always get their critiques right. They come out with their critiques way before the game comes out and this is not fair to the gamers out there that want to play the game for themselves, especially if it is a bad critique. There have been times that I wanted to play a game and saw that there was a bad critique on it so I would not buy it thinking the game is not that good and then when it gets older and cheaper due to the poor sales I would get the game and find out that I liked it.
Gamers need to be very careful with the type of critics they read. Every critic has their own favorite style of video game even though they have to critique them all. They will always have their favorite, so their thoughts of a certain game that is not in their favorite category will not appeal to them. Not all critics have and open mind to all types of games.
I was extremely shocked when I read that some critics only play 15 minutes of a game and then write and entire report on the game based on just those 15 minutes. To me, this ruins their credibility. If I want to read a critique I want the critic to have played the entire game. Fifteen minutes is not nearly enough time to judge a video game. A person cannot get the story line figured out with most games within that. Most people cannot get the complete story line within that first hour of playing some games.
Another interesting point that the author brought up that I had never thought about, but as soon as I read it I understood it completely. I do not like it when critics compare parts in the games to another video game. I am not a big gamer myself, there are only certain games that attract me to them, so when a critic compares a game to one that never really caught my interest I do not have the urge to go out and play the game anymore. This could completely ruin my experience with this game. I could love the game but because they said the action is like another I lose complete interest.
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I agree with your perspective in that the quality of game critiques needs to be improved on many levels. A well-thought, deep artistic criticism cannot be developed from as little as fifteen minutes of gameplay. I also agree that critics need to be more objective in terms of reviewing games; if they dislike the genre, for example, they will be more likely to nitpick minor mechanical errors as opposed to reviewing the game as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI agree that too often critics write a review of a game and bring their own biases into the decision making process. The reviewers need to remove themselves from the game and look at what makes this game what it is. I think that it's great for reviewers to recognize something for its innovative ideas, but to compare the game they are reviewing to another as a way of describing the game doesn't help the majority of readers understand.
ReplyDeleteYou sez, "I was extremely shocked when I read that some critics only play 15 minutes of a game and then write and entire report on the game based on just those 15 minutes. To me, this ruins their credibility. If I want to read a critique I want the critic to have played the entire game."
ReplyDeleteYou've touched on what is actually a somewhat controversial topic in gaming journalism right now; whether or not a game reviewer need to have completed a game in order to be able to successfully write about/review it. I feel that it really depends on the game and the audience - I won't get into terribly many specifics, but consider the plight of the casual gamer. They may only /have/ 15 minutes to play - and what better a review to read than one based on 15 minutes of play?
Further, I'm not sure how credibility fits into the equation of a successful and/or popular games reviewer. Reading a review is an inherent act of trust - you haven't seen a screencap of their savegame data, you haven't seen screenshots with /their/ characters at the final boss - but you're assuming, automatically, that the reviewer has a successful and progressed savegame and has killed the final boss. But is this even relevant? Some games, like Farcry 2, play out radically different each time you play it - so the experience a reviewer has upon completing the game is going to be much different than your own. One of my favorite games, Medieval II, literally cannot play out the same way twice - so to read a review based on their experience is most certainly not going to translate into my experience. So, in a way, I would - as a gamer playing Farcry 2 or Medieval II - have a much more relatable experience with the 15-minute critic than the fullgame critic.
I as well found that 15 minutes of playing a game does not make a person an expert or qualified to write a critique on that game. There are so many things you cannot get the full effect of in a mere 15 minutes of playing a game. I especially liked your quote 'Not all critics have an open mind to all types of games.' I think this is also another factor that ruins critic’s qualifications of critiquing a game. If someone is not open minded to all types of games then they are highly likely to place a lot of personal bias in their opinions. Because of their extreme bias, gamers are not getting an adequate critique and may be detoured from a game they may have really liked.
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