The Easiest Fix for Game Journalism

Listening to the Games For Windows’ podcast today, and a reviewer from 1UP was talking about how frustrated he is with those who pay too much attention to the number given in a review, and not enough to the information therein. This is something I can agree with; I, myself, am a rehabilitating review non-reader. I’d take the numbers, or worse, the “metanumbers” at face value, and assess whether or not I was interested in a game by these numbers. Of course, the numbering system is sort of a journalistic cold war; you need to keep the numbers there, even if they mean nothing to you, to keep attracting the stupid public. Remove them, and nobody will pay attention to you.

Imagine, though, this weren’t the case. Imagine every site and magazine stopped publishing numbers, but moved to some other ranking system. What could replace numbers and their obvious uselessness? First of all, I think the problem needs to be assessed more thoroughly; namely, what exactly IS wrong with numbers? Off the top of my head, I can think of four things:

1) The quality of a game is not quantifiable, while a number is.

This is probably the most obvious flaw. What makes this game an 8.5 and this one an 8? Is there any unifying system? Most reviewers I know start with what number they “feel” should fit, and work their way out. If the second thing I play is better than the first, I rate it higher, and the opposite. But these numbers are almost never based on any sort of metric.

2) Every publication, or even every reviewer, rates differently.

Some games get the shaft because their reviewer treats 5 as an average game instead of 7, or that reviewer won’t give out a 10 to anyting less than gaming perfection, whereas another throws them at everything he thinks you need to own. This is especially bad within one publication, because some people might trust that publiction above all else, not knowing that one man’s 7 was another man’s 9. Metacritic makes this worse, as you don’t even see who wrote an article, or get a context of their average score, or what other games that reviewer has given that score… it’s just an amalgam of contextless, arbitrary numbers.

3) It’s arcane.

New gamers aren’t privy to the numbering system, and it could be intimidating. It doesn’t tell them why they should like a game, or not like it; just rubs a number in their face that comes from a weird evolution over twenty years of games journalism.

4) It’s clumsy.

People, no matter what, want a quick answer as to whether or not they should play something. If they just trust a number, though, they’re only seeing an overall 1-10 bad-good scale. It doesn’t say what needs improving; it might be irrelevant to them that the story is juvenile, for example, while it changed the reviewers number. They

Right, so as I was saying, alternatives to numbers. Warning: The following ideas tread the fine line between satire and not-satire. What that means is, they seem silly, but they all probably work better than those cursed numbers. That said, let’s jump straight into the ideas.

A PICTURE IS WORTH 1000 WORDS.

Instead of a number, each reviewer takes a photograph of themselves that best represents how the game makes them feel. For example, if I were to take a picture of myself after playing Ico, there’d be this incredible sense of wonder on my face, maybe some sparkles in my eyes, or even a single tear. If I were to take a photo of myself after playing Descent: Freespace, I would be vomitting… but giving the thumbs up. Halo 3: I’d be yawning. Street Fighter III: Punching my friend in the nuts with a maniacal grin on my face. If any of those appeal to you, you should definitely check out the game!

The Positives:

+ More expressive than a stupid number.
+ Encourages and inspires creativity!
+ Plays to the user’s emotion, which is awesome, because so many games ellicit an emotional response, and a number can’t really get that across.
+ Takes about as much time to absorb as a number.
+ Very entertaining.
+ Throw Photoshop in there, and you’ve got an entirely unexplored palette for game criticism!
- Gives actors work.

The Negatives:

- Most nerds have about three facial expressions: blank screen stare, bitter bully-just-hit-me snarl, and dopey girl-is-talking-to-me?! face.
- The left-brained folks will hate that they can’t quantify it, and, more importantly, can’t contrast it to similar games.
- May leave even more open to interpretation (is that a grimace of pain, or a grin of deviant joy?).
- A lot of pagespace for print and a lot of bandwidth for Internet (weakest argument ever).
- Gives actors work.

THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE OF PERIWINKLE TRIANGLES

This is another one that will look like it fell out of a Montessori school. It’s also somewhat quantifiable, but that’s part of the magic of it; it will communicate several numbers in one simple, easily understood symbol. The workings would take some getting used to; you select the three most important criteria to you — we’ll pick control/gameplay, presentation (visual and audio), and theme (story, or whatever else you think fits here) and assign one of each to those: hue, saturation, and brghtness. Let’s say that gameplay is on a scale of red to green taking a detour through blue, presentation is represented by the richness of the color, and theme can modify the game by up to 50% darkness or 50% lightness (the former is Bioshock, the latter is Katamari Anything). What do you display these colors on? Shapes that represent the kind of gamer that will enjoy them. One shape might be the “critic” shape. Games like Bioshock or Knights of the Old Republic fall into this– let’s call them “heady” games. You can make up shapes as you go along. Maybe that one’s shaped like a head. Games that appeal to nostalgia get a heart, and Gears of War gets a giant crotch. Or, have every reviewer on your staff represented by their own face, and use the face of whoever champions the game most. If it’s nobody, just make it a generic smiley-face. If they only support it weakly, use a morph program to split the difference between your reviewer and the smiley. If everyone loves it unanimously, use a picture Shigeru Miyamoto or Master Chief or whatever inernet face-meme is in at the time of print.

Positives:

+ Gets many ideas across very quickly.
+ Aesthetically appealing, particularly when many are lined up beside each other.
+ Easily “scalable” for those scared of running away from the numbers game entirely.
+ Quickly rates a game based on multiple important criteria.
+ Funny.

Negatives:

- You look like an idiot.
- No, seriously, it’d look pretty dumb.
- It may be hard to tell some colors once darkened or desaturated.
- Still dumb.
- Some people will still complain; “Why did you give this game #ffc107?! Clearly it deserves at least #ddff12!!!”

SUM IT UP IN A SENTENCE.

Some sites already do this. Unfortunately, Metacritic just tends to pick a sentence out of the review, which, out of context, often paints the game in the light not actually reflected by the review. So, instead, a good option is to take all of your ideas and fit it into ten words. Avoid lazy games-journalism words like “if.” Seriously, you’re wasting everyone’s time if you say Luminous Arc is a decent game “if you’re a turn-based strategy fan.” Tell me why I might like it, and why I might not. For that game, I’d say something like “Easy, light TBS romp; but, generic and irritating menu system.” Ten words, and you have a good idea of the good and the bad. If it catches your fancy, you might read the more in-depth review contained after the tagline. Want another one? Bioshock: “Thrilling FPS; storyline beats average videogames’, but not genre-transcendant.” Ta da! Man, if I had more games, I’d totally be an amazing reviewist.

Positives:

+ Infinitely more useful than a number in determining why a game is good or bad.
+ Short enough that even the most ADD of readers can follow.
+ Encourages people who might actually be interested in the game to read the review, instead of anyone who likes numbers of 7.5+.
+ At the very least, gives metacritic something to quote you on, that isn’t a random sentence from the review.

Negatives:

- It’s not easy to say everything in ten words.
- A point that may actually be relevant is that non-English readers are in the lurch. Every other idea so far is not English-based.
- Okay, that point I made about the ADD readers? Probably not true. They will not read your ten words.
- Even if you’re a master of concise English like me (look at how concise this article is! Look how little of this is redundant of otherwise entirely cuttable!), you still will use the wrong words or fail to sum up your idea in ten words or something.

CONCLUSION

Those are my opinions on the matter. What can you, as a reviewist, do to contribute? Your editors are surely breathing down your neck for the numbers, whether you’re interested in delivering them or not. Below are some options for that:

1. Just say no. They can make up their own numbers based on whoever’s paying them the most, and you can say that “the man” is giving numbers to yor “work,” and you have mahbe even more cred than before.

2. Rate everything an 8/10. No matter if you loved it or hated it. This is what I am doing for my film reviews at The Spoilerist (look for Will! Reviews coming soon!). It’s like an act of protest and a totally stupid, silly thing… all at once!

3. If you’re going to rate seriously, PLEASE rate on an actual 10 point scale, instead of a grade-school scale. I know a C grade is average, but a 7/10 should not be. 5 out of 10 is average; this gives you five levels of excellence (6, 7, 8, 9, 10) and five levels of crapness (4, 3, 2, 1, 0). Give as many zeroes as you do tens. Give as many ones as you do nines. Remember that a great game might be average compared to others. Remember that a game with a rating of three may, in fact, be worth playing.

4. Fuck your dream job and go back to copyediting.

William

Are “indie games” the “New Wave” of videogaming?

I don’t mean “new wave” like the descriptor for the shiniest, newest games for next-gen, or “new wave” like the synth-heavy 80s music, but “new wave” like the movement(s?) in film. Big companies are sinking millions into games, so to ensure that they sell, they make them like games that sold well already. Wolfenstein begot Doom begot Goldeneye 007 begat Half-Life begat Halo, etc etc etc. Sure, each blockbuster, trillion-selling game broke new ground for the genre, but Halo 3 is still just a really fancy Wolfenstein 3D. Plenty of now-tried-and-true genres have gone through the same crawling evolution: real-time strategy wargames, Japanese role-playing games (a la Final Fantasy), North American RPGs (baldur’s gate springs to mind as an example), strategy RPGs (think Ogre Battle), stealth action (metal gear or splinter cell style), rhythm games (all guitar hero did was add mainstream songs and a novel controller), platformers, shmups (they’re fucking awesome, but they’re all still Galaga), third-person shooters (we also have The Matrix to thank for “bullet time”), and plenty more I can’t be bothered to think of right now. Even the (relatively) new genre of MMOs has already fallen into its own tired clichés, but that’s another debate for another day (the entire economy of MMOs is built on dissatisfied players. Ask me more!)

But then you have games that are just different. The flash app series “Grow” comes to mind; google it if you haven’t already experienced it. It’s a game, in that you have an objective, but it’s not immediately familiar. You interact with it, and it rewards you with fun animations. It’s got what video games have always been about, at least to me: it gives you an arbitrary system, and forces you to learn it and exploit it. The system is just very different from the systems we’re seeing over and over in games. There’s another, unrelated game called “flOw,” which, admittedly, I’ve hardly played, but it is similar in its difference from everything else. It makes no sense at first, but you learn it as you go along. Katamari Damacy (and the sequels), too, is a game whose concept wasn’t really explored before, but nonetheless worked out very well. These games aren’t the blockbusters, though; I’m unsure as to how much the Grow developer made via advertising and hosting and stuff, but it can’t be even one ten thousandth of what Halo 3 made in its first 17 minutes of availability. And that’s not even including the preorders.

But, that’s not why people are making these games, I don’t think. They’re making it because they’re unsatisfied with video games’ current climate. I could just be projecting, but when I play something like Toribash (the best turn-based hyper-violent sphere-based fighting game since Ballz was played on a shitty, slow emulator). The “auteurs” of games, however, are from an older age– an age before the videogame industry WAS something to reject. There’s always been innovation (look at R&D1’s masterpiece “Super Mario Land” for the Game Boy– commissioned with making a Mario game without Miyamoto, they made something that may actually be the best game with the name “Mario” ever) and there’s always been fantastic creativity (love them or hate them, the games that put Molyneux, Miyamoto and Kojima on the map are incredible). I think the point, though, is that the door is simultaneously more closed and more open than it’s ever been to young, fresh-idea-filled developers. On one hand, you have the EAs of the world, whose bread and butter is re-releasing the same games with a new cast of characters (that they don’t even need to invent– the sports world writes itself, people!). On another, you have the “creative” break-off developers like Lionhead and Clover, which, while producing something interesting, are not allowing NEW talent to be creative– only their auteur-of-olden-tyme of choice. The third option, though, is the web (and, to a lesser degree, modding other games). It’s free, and, while you may never see anything in the way of money or career opportunities, you get to make something you want to play. I think that’s where I see the similarity. Oh, and I just remembered the name of another amazingly fun flash game: “Gimme Friction.” Check it out, it’s also really cool.

First post! And, a search/destroy on DS games.

Hi there! This is my new blog. I plan to use it to talk about a lot of things. One of those things is video games. It won’t be strictly a video game blog, though, so watch out. Anyway. The DS is amazing and is getting a good batch of upcoming stuff. Here’s my SEARCH AND DESTROY (concept ripped off from a favourite messageboard):

SEARCH: Touch The Dead / May15
The previews say it’s pretty fun. I dunno how a shooter will work with the stylus, but it looks fun!

DESTROY: Marvel Card Trading Game / May22
Apparently even the playtesters are saying this game is shit. Avoid like plague. Not that you were planning on buying a card game (lol SNK v Capcom)

SEARCH: Naruto 3 / May22
I know some of you guys like Naruto, and this is apparently fan service + a fun side-scroller, what more could you want?

SEARCH: Etrian Odyssey / Q2 2007
Okay, I’m turning into an Atlus fanboy a bit… I don’t even really LIKE Atlus games, but I want to play them ALL. Fans of the old-school first-person RPGs should find something to dig here, cool use of two screens.

DESTROY: Nintendo DS Browser / June4
Apparently buggy. And if you don’t have a laptop or a cell phone already, you don’t deserve to check your e-mail while you’re at Second Cup, you berk. Just kidding, this one’s a “search” for sure. Because cell phone internet costs money and laptops are bigger than DSs.

SEARCH: Super Collapse 3 / June4
I don’t know how many of the features have translated from the original program for Mac OS X and Windows, but this one is fun. I liked it more than I like Puzzle Quest. But I don’t like Puzzle Quest. At all. And I was a HUGE Warlords fan when I had my Amiga, and I LOVE good puzzle games… but fucking puzzle quest… ugh. Butt ugly and boring and the AI is a buttplug. SC3 will be sweet though and give you your new puzzle game fix.

SEARCH: New York Times Crosswords / Q2 2007
The best crosswords on your DS. Apparently there are 1000 of them. So, more than you’ll ever finish. AWESOME.

SEARCH: Heroes of Mana / Summer 2007
Hmm. All the “Mana” games since the fan-translated SD3 have been shit, but this one looks cool. It’s a strategy game.

SEARCH: Hoshigami Remix / Summer 2007
Probably more of a destroy, but I am a sucker for tactical RPGs. And Atlus. And things with “remix” in the title.

SEARCH: Phoenix Wright 3 / Sept
Here it comes, it’s in the trees

SEARCH: Dragon Quest IX / Sometime 2007
This is a destroy for me but i’m sure someone will enjoy it. Fuck old school RPGs (unless they’re by Atlus).

SEARCH: Phantom Hourglass / Sometime 2007
Zelda. DS. Why am I saying ANYTHING?

SEARCH: Warlords DS / Sometime 2007
Remake of Warlords 2, the best warlords game ever. Turn-based strategy in the vein of Heroes of Might and Magic but way, way better IMO.

SEARCH: Lost / Sometime 2007
lol guyz their in pergatori