Nonsense, it's not THAT hard to not play inFamous SS in the most boring and sluggish way possible. *stand in front of enemies and tap R1 whilst getting shot* *repeatedly try to blow up the van thing even though though it's clear that enemy bullets cancel the animation*
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Should Game Reviewers be good Gamers?
- Thread starter OsirisBlack
- Start date
Nonsense, it's not THAT hard to not play inFamous SS in the most boring and sluggish way possible. *stand in front of enemies and tap R1 whilst getting shot* *repeatedly try to blow up the van thing even though though it's clear that enemy bullets cancel the animation*
Riposte
Member
Saying that doesn't really change anything about how they play the game or what they write (they are no better than someone who doesn't say it). It just creates an out for them, as with less expertise comes fewer expectations and demands. At best, it is a pointless statement (no one cares if you don't win tournaments); at worst, an excuse to write just about anything despite admitting not understanding things beyond a wikipedia article level. For example, fighting game reviewers have always said it and continue to while still making shallow, if not pointless, judgments about a game. The lack of quality game analysis and criticism within those reviews speaks for itself, while the whole admission of ignorance doesn't change that (if anything, it encourages an approach where no real judgments should be made). Not understanding a game (but sheepishly respecting it anyway) eventually has the effect of pushing the published critic (or really, all published critics) away from that game, if not away from that genre. This suddenly matters a lot, for example, when it comes time to decide what are the best games of the year.
EDIT: What is the best fighting game of the year? It's either the one with the best newbie friendly single player content or the one that manages to gain the most sheepish respect (i.e., the one with the best reputation that manages not to spook the reviewer).
I don't think a "game journalist" has to be a good gamer, or even a gamer at all. The field of journalism is generally much larger than just critique on products. The fact that people associate game journalism almost entirely with reviews is pretty telling of how narrow the interest is in the industry for actual journalism. Kinda sad.
Should a game reviewer be at least a competent gamer who is familiar with the medium and able to apply personal experience and analysis to give more insight into the critique of a game? Absolutely. Should everyone covering games as an industry also be a reviewer? No.
Should a game reviewer be at least a competent gamer who is familiar with the medium and able to apply personal experience and analysis to give more insight into the critique of a game? Absolutely. Should everyone covering games as an industry also be a reviewer? No.
I forgot who it was that said it, but it definitely benefits to first and foremost love reporting, journalism, writing, etc. Having a passion for games is definitely important, but it's hard to really turn that into anything really resembling journalism if you don't have a genuine interest in reporting.
I would like to live in that world. I haven't really given much serious thought to a review in years simply because I feel like the contents never tell me anything. There seems to be way too much of an emphasis on how a game made someone feel as opposed to actually breaking down mechanics and telling me why they worked or why they didn't. It bugs me I can just click on a random review on any gaming site, go in and read it, and learn absolutely nothing about how the game actually plays and what mechanical flaws it may have. Even if a reviewer musters up something simple like "I enjoyed the gameplay" they never seem to actually give details as to why they felt this way outside of some passive comment "because it feels great!" Maybe I'm just expecting too much for a technical analysis in a review, but, isn't that what a review is for? Maybe I'm just missing something, because otherwise reviews seem like a pointless practice to me.
Riposte
Member
How a game makes someone feel should remain the basis of any criticism. What you want is just a better explanation of those feelings.
depends on the type of "journalism". REAL journalism? yeah I guess, or at least they need to have some gaming knowledge. Semi-serious journalism like Giant Bomb? not really
it also depends on what you mean by "good gamers". I play video games everyday, I eat and sleep video game, yet i'm not the greatest at games in general, but I think I kinda know what i'm talking about when I talk about gaming
EDIT : rethinking about it and reading this thread, it's really about what you mean by "good gamers"... if you can't beat a game on easy you most likely won't make a good serious journalist, but that seem extreme
it also depends on what you mean by "good gamers". I play video games everyday, I eat and sleep video game, yet i'm not the greatest at games in general, but I think I kinda know what i'm talking about when I talk about gaming
EDIT : rethinking about it and reading this thread, it's really about what you mean by "good gamers"... if you can't beat a game on easy you most likely won't make a good serious journalist, but that seem extreme
Do you mean game critic? Yes, they should be. Just as film critics need to be able to keep up with an intellectually demanding film, game critics need to be able to keep up with an intellectually demanding game. "This game is too challenging" strikes me as a film critic saying "this film is too intelligent."
If you just mean journalist broadly, I want a variety. Great gamers and purely distant gamers, and everything in between.
If you just mean journalist broadly, I want a variety. Great gamers and purely distant gamers, and everything in between.
HORRORSHØW
Member
they should be competent in the products they review, yes. otherwise, be conan.
There's certainly more of an overall interest in reviews and games criticism in general but I think the reason it's highlighted more so over other forms of of games media is due to the flammability that comes with opinionated pieces, as with all media really.
Modern games are designed to deliver constant gratification. They're built and marketed to make the player feel good about themselves. Reviewers consistently fall into the same traps as the gaming public when it comes to that stuff.
I too would prefer to read reviews that actually discuss the game elements of a game, where they succeed and where they fail, and not just reading them to learn how well they are able to psychologically manipulate their audience.
thelastcrusader
Banned
I disagree with this. They should be able to play through the game on HARD. Far too often I see reviews complaining that the AI is dumb or that the game was way too easy. I play every single game on the hardest difficulty and sometimes yes there are BS moments where the computer is just cheap and can be frustrating, but for the most part hard is imo the true experience. Just like I believe that any co-op centric games should be done by TWO reviewers and not one. Review both the co-op and single player experience and why not let the users know "if alone 6 due to AI, and if with a buddy it's a 9". Also I agree with the OP wholeheartedly. If you can't use advanced tactics or take advantage of all possible gameplay options, then why are you reviewing it in the first place?
Kind of surprised at how many are using false equivalence arguments. I mean how is a film critic not knowing how to make a movie the same as a journalist not knowing how to play games? Weird argument.
The best argument I've heard for no though, is that games have an artistic side of them that is separate from gameplay. So in that sense, a critic could be proficient at analyzing story and theme as well as game direction.
This too. A journalist is kind of a broad term. We aren't talking about critics only. But even if OP more so meant on the critic side of things, I do think games are varied enough in the various elements that make it up that I don't think a critics credibility 100% falls on how good they are as a gamer.
Although I don't know. I guess it depends on the review. If someone that can't play fighting games reviews a fighting game and there is criticisms that are wrong (I mean in that, they are factually wrong -- like they say something isn't in the game, but it is and they just didn't know how to do it) -- then I would say that is more problematic. Basically I'd only take issue if their review has criticisms that aren't true because their lack of experience made them miss it.
The best argument I've heard for no though, is that games have an artistic side of them that is separate from gameplay. So in that sense, a critic could be proficient at analyzing story and theme as well as game direction.
This too. A journalist is kind of a broad term. We aren't talking about critics only. But even if OP more so meant on the critic side of things, I do think games are varied enough in the various elements that make it up that I don't think a critics credibility 100% falls on how good they are as a gamer.
Although I don't know. I guess it depends on the review. If someone that can't play fighting games reviews a fighting game and there is criticisms that are wrong (I mean in that, they are factually wrong -- like they say something isn't in the game, but it is and they just didn't know how to do it) -- then I would say that is more problematic. Basically I'd only take issue if their review has criticisms that aren't true because their lack of experience made them miss it.
I want to say "yes they should be great gamers!", but knowing first hand how long writing and travel can take it, I'm not sure if it's feasible to ask them to be amazing at everything. And most outlets don't have enough staff to give each of them their own specific genres to review or hand pick each person to a game. It's a tough one.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
There's also alot of pushback on reviewers that go into mechanics, or even give off the airs that their relations with a game are mechanics-based. I've known two people who didnt' land jobs in the game industry on being "too technical".
I mean, yeah, basically. A review is a subjective way to tell how you feel about something, it wouldn't be a review otherwise.
That said, I just want to know the reason why most reviews don't actually go into detail of the thing they are reviewing. Do they just suck at games? Do they not care? Personally I've just always assumed because they typically have time constraints on reviews. I feel like just listening to a lot of podcasts over the years from various outlets one of the biggest things they all share is trying to get through a game as fast as possible to review it. That just seems so counter-intuitive to me. It's hard to actually learn the mechanics of a game if your goal is to simply beat it. When I play a video game my main thought is on learning how to play it. Maybe that's not normal, I honestly don't know.
Stuff like this always makes me think back to Uncharted 3, basically no reviewer (on mainstream websties anyway) made a point to talk about how the aiming had been changed yet when it got into the hands of actual players the confusion/outrage was so huge they had to push out a patch to fix it. I loved Uncharted 2 and bought Uncharted 3 on launch day but it felt unplayable to me and no review I saw warned me about that aspect of the game. Couldn't even play it until they pushed out the patch, had I known that I would have just waited and bought it used down the line.
I see you meant reviewers/critics, in which case no, I don't think they should have to be. Things I want from a reviewer: brutal honesty, the ability to express his thoughts (whether spoken or written) on the game in an engaging manner, at least a basic familiarity with the medium, and doesn't put much, or any, stock in silly numerical scores.
As a fan of fighting games, I'd like it if there were more professional reviewers who appreciated the genre, but I don't think being "good" at them is necessary to have a professional opinion on any one game. I always like checking out the reviews by people who I know aren't all that big on the genre and seeing how they approach the game in their criticism and seeing what aspects of the game they choose to focus on.
As a fan of fighting games, I'd like it if there were more professional reviewers who appreciated the genre, but I don't think being "good" at them is necessary to have a professional opinion on any one game. I always like checking out the reviews by people who I know aren't all that big on the genre and seeing how they approach the game in their criticism and seeing what aspects of the game they choose to focus on.
scytheavatar
Member
Game journalism will always be an enthusiast press, a game journalist who isn't a gamer is like someone reporting on the classical music scene when he/she doesn't listen to a lot of classical music. Why is someone reporting on video games if he'she don't play a good amount of them and have a great passion for them?
It's PAINFUL to see some critics playing 2d-platforms because they don't know how to play a fucking Mario game. I mean, c'mon, how is that even possible?
How can you trust in someone who doesn't run in Mario games? How can he know about platformers if they don't know the BASIC FOUNDATION of the genre?
That Totilo's DKCTF video was just sad, there was one part that he was having such a hard time with some treadmills that I couldn't believe. It's not a new mechanic, he wasn't having trouble just with execution, he didn't know how to avoid being affected by the threadmills. This shouldn't be a mistery in 2014.
I used to write reviews to some magazines and I didn't like to get games from genres that I'm not used to play, but sometimes I had to do and I really think I did my best, researching, trying do understand why people like that genre and training ~a lot~!
How can you trust in someone who doesn't run in Mario games? How can he know about platformers if they don't know the BASIC FOUNDATION of the genre?
That Totilo's DKCTF video was just sad, there was one part that he was having such a hard time with some treadmills that I couldn't believe. It's not a new mechanic, he wasn't having trouble just with execution, he didn't know how to avoid being affected by the threadmills. This shouldn't be a mistery in 2014.
I used to write reviews to some magazines and I didn't like to get games from genres that I'm not used to play, but sometimes I had to do and I really think I did my best, researching, trying do understand why people like that genre and training ~a lot~!
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
The problem there is that there is a benefit to the idea of a laymen's perspective. The JRPG guy is going to know the ins and outs of the genre, but that won't necessarily be helpful to the random Joe that's interested. The only surefire solution would be to have two people review it, a laymen and an expert, but that would require too many resources for most sites to realistically do.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
I find at these days they are more incompetent as journalists than they are as gamers.
HOMEBOY OVER HERE
Banned
no because a game journalist is an opinion piece writer and their review should be based off their experience of the game regardless of their background. if you rely on mass marketing and editorials for making $60+ purchases of software I can't say I really care if you end up buying one that actually kinda sucks just because the writer was doing their job. .
The thing is, it's hard to find good gamers with decent enough writing skills to be writers.
Also, it's even more difficult from some genres.
Example: the Lab Zero folks were once demoing Skullgirls to a bunch of game journos. Only one of them knew how to throw a fireball (SF2 hadoken motion)
It's not fair to expect them to be tourney-level players, but it's hard to write a fair review of the game if you can't even do the basics.
Strategy games also have this issue- with few good reviewers.
This is one reason I believe the opinions of game journos and what their audience views their worth has gone down- they know that these folks, in general, know less about what they like then they do, which makes it hard to take anything they say seriously, even when it's not on games itself.
Also, it's even more difficult from some genres.
Example: the Lab Zero folks were once demoing Skullgirls to a bunch of game journos. Only one of them knew how to throw a fireball (SF2 hadoken motion)
It's not fair to expect them to be tourney-level players, but it's hard to write a fair review of the game if you can't even do the basics.
Strategy games also have this issue- with few good reviewers.
This is one reason I believe the opinions of game journos and what their audience views their worth has gone down- they know that these folks, in general, know less about what they like then they do, which makes it hard to take anything they say seriously, even when it's not on games itself.
Whimsical Phil
Ninja School will help you
Tell that to his Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.
(of which Criticism is a subcategory)
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
This is probably my favorite "review" of a game that I've written and I wouldn't have been able to write it if I hadn't spent hundreds of hours honing my skills on related games (specifically Pac-Man: CE & CE DX) - http://zeboyd.com/2013/04/25/the-genius-of-the-game-design-in-monaco-whats-yours-is-mine/
But on the other hand, you can't really expect that level of skill from a reviewer on every game they review - they just don't have that amount of time to spend on a single game. For that matter, even very skilled gamers aren't going to have a high level of skill in every game. At best, you'll have a handful of games or a genre that you're really good at and then basic competency in most other genres.
I will say that it really bothers me when reviewers complain about difficulty and depth in a game that has adjustable difficulty levels. If the game gives you the tools to adjust the experience to your personal liking and you fail to take advantage of them, that's your fault, not the game's.
But on the other hand, you can't really expect that level of skill from a reviewer on every game they review - they just don't have that amount of time to spend on a single game. For that matter, even very skilled gamers aren't going to have a high level of skill in every game. At best, you'll have a handful of games or a genre that you're really good at and then basic competency in most other genres.
I will say that it really bothers me when reviewers complain about difficulty and depth in a game that has adjustable difficulty levels. If the game gives you the tools to adjust the experience to your personal liking and you fail to take advantage of them, that's your fault, not the game's.
Auto-Reply
Member
I think reviewers rush through games or developed time/gameplay effective game-styles... if there is such a thing. When they record video they don't get creative in how they play a game, I'm not sure I would call them bad players based on that.
When you listen to their opinions and read their reviews they hit the same negative/positives that you also noticed in a game but you can sometimes ask yourself how they've come to their conclusions when seeing them playing the game in a video.
They need to understand how mechanics in a game work and why they are designed that way, I'm not sure if it is mandatory to be a good player for that.
I doubt having a good k/d in CoD MP makes someone a good player though!
When you listen to their opinions and read their reviews they hit the same negative/positives that you also noticed in a game but you can sometimes ask yourself how they've come to their conclusions when seeing them playing the game in a video.
They need to understand how mechanics in a game work and why they are designed that way, I'm not sure if it is mandatory to be a good player for that.
I doubt having a good k/d in CoD MP makes someone a good player though!
RMS Gigantic
Member
Ideally, the person who reviews a game should be highly experienced with the genre of game that they're reviewing (have a shooter guru cover an FPS release instead of haphazardly assigning someone with the "dudebro" image in their head to do the job, and send someone who plays a lot of JRPGs and knows a lot about the genre's history to review a new JRPG instead of a jingoist. For games that relate to simulation, the reviewer should be at least passingly familiar with video games while being a credible expert in the subject that the video game depicts (for example, hiring a professional naval architect to review a game from the Ship Simulator series). Most often, someone who has a deep interest with the history of a game genre will also be highly skilled with games of that genre. For exceptions, there shouldn't be anything wrong with having two people co-write a review, one focusing on what past games a given game draws from or new things the game brings to the genre, while the other plays through, with at least a passing familiarity with the genre, to judge its degree of challenge and to help the genre connoisseur see parts of the game that he or she wouldn't see if he or she played through it on his or her own.
As for news, unless otherwise noted, stories should be as purely factual as reasonably achievable unless noted otherwise, and even when opinions or predictions are given, they should be done by someone who has studied the industry's history very closely, especially whatever topic they're covering.
Some might say that these are way too much to ask for, and at this rate it might certainly seem that way, but that would be the ideal situation in my eyes.
As for news, unless otherwise noted, stories should be as purely factual as reasonably achievable unless noted otherwise, and even when opinions or predictions are given, they should be done by someone who has studied the industry's history very closely, especially whatever topic they're covering.
Some might say that these are way too much to ask for, and at this rate it might certainly seem that way, but that would be the ideal situation in my eyes.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Precisely. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, he was never going to win the traditional Journalistic categories like Explanatory Reporting or Breaking News Reporting. Most critics aren't journalists in the traditional sense of "reporting." It's only in our gaming industry that we have conflation.
Journos that report don't need to be particularly good at games. Reviewers need to be competent.
EmptySpace
Banned
totally.
or else we'll get another god of war trials of archimedes bullcrap.
where, you know, they can't get past a section of a game but their pride refuses to make them play on easy then they blame the game for it. that section wasn't even cheap. 1) they don't want it to be hard but they also don't want to move to easy 2) there were no checkpoints so they had to re-do the whole thing which turned then off. apparently they don't like challenge he.
i still remember the person at one gaming website as he was trying to preview gt5 and the comments asked him during a livestream to show off drifting and he proceeded to pick an all wheel drive car and raced it on a snow track. and this was supposed to be the racing guy. i don't even like racing games yet even i had to do a facepalm at that.
also, don't give them codes to unlock everything or play whichever level they so choose to or provide them with a 100% save.
or else we'll get another god of war trials of archimedes bullcrap.
where, you know, they can't get past a section of a game but their pride refuses to make them play on easy then they blame the game for it. that section wasn't even cheap. 1) they don't want it to be hard but they also don't want to move to easy 2) there were no checkpoints so they had to re-do the whole thing which turned then off. apparently they don't like challenge he.
i still remember the person at one gaming website as he was trying to preview gt5 and the comments asked him during a livestream to show off drifting and he proceeded to pick an all wheel drive car and raced it on a snow track. and this was supposed to be the racing guy. i don't even like racing games yet even i had to do a facepalm at that.
also, don't give them codes to unlock everything or play whichever level they so choose to or provide them with a 100% save.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I think this is actually an industry issue, not just a definition problem in this thread specifically.
I actually meant the discussion in general, but I should have specified.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
I think a reviewer should know enough about a game or at least the genre to give the game a fair shake.
For example, if someone played Guardian Heroes and dismissed it as a button masher and gave it a 3 out of 10, they clearly didn't understand or care about what the game's actually offering.
Same with fighting games. "Same game as the last one." Some reviewers will say when there have been major engine changes etc that make the game play drastically different. Fans of the game know better, but the info being offered to the readers by reviewers like that is completely worthless.
Though a review on a FG is kinda iffy regardless since the meta keeps evolving and people tend to keep finding stuff in the better fighters for years and years.
I think there is some validity to this argument, but it also runs the serious risk of creating or amplifying the echo chamber. That is, imagine if a review team had a member who had an especially great fondness for traditional JRPGs in the vein of Final Fantasy. Of course, Square Enix would love for each outlet to have that sort of member review their next big JRPG game, because it significantly increases the chance that he will like it. If every outlet had such a guy on their staff, you'd get notably higher reviews overall -- with the same being true if every CoD was reviewed by "the multiplayer FPS guy" and every Mario game reviewed by "the platformer guy."
I think it's important for critical voices to be heard which are not already infatuated with a franchise/genre. It's good to hear from those infatuated people too, but not only from those people.
I approached my Hyrule Warriors review in a way that I detailed the idea of capturing outlooks, why it was important, & the sense of strategy involved in the game. It may be a button-masher, but players that learn the combos, capture vital outlooks, and so on, will be the ones who get the most out of the game. Some reviews I read today made generalized statements about the outlooks of HW and then went on to discuss its combat repetition. No mention of buying new combos or new skills. It was a basic overview with no depth. Either they didn't feel the need to explain certain game mechanics, or they failed to understand them.
It's important to remember this, yes. Especially since you may be looking at something out of your normal gaming sphere, and so it's good to have some people who are also going out of their normal gaming spheres to weigh in something; the huge JRPG fan who gobbles up most of those that Japan makes may end up loving Fairy Fencer F while those who either don't typically care about JRPGs or do but are more selective may be much cooler to it,
Well, that also highlights granularity within each genre too: you'd not just have racing fans, but fans of simulators, or more arcade like games, or more esoteric ones like futuristic and water racers. You don't want to just get THE Mario Kart fan on Mario Kart, you might want the GT or NFS fans on too, and those who usually don't play racers at all but ARE competent at them.
Paracelsus
Member
Good? Not necessary.
Enthusiast? Avid? Yes, mandatory.
Enthusiast? Avid? Yes, mandatory.
Agree completely. I think one of the main reasons game reviews average a score so much higher than movie reviews is that reviews are generally given to the person on staff most likely to enjoy a game based on their genre/franchise preferences.
There is absolutely value in reviews from people who aren't predisposed to enjoy a franchise or genre. I also think there is a value to reviews from people who extraordinarily committed to a genre or franchise, such as MOBA or Fighting game experts. In both cases, The review from one of these groups is going to be basically useless to people coming from the other group, but they are both worthwhile to those coming from their own side of the fence.
The answer is less homogeny in reviews, not a different kind of homogenous reviews.
