Further thoughts about game reviews

A while back I posted about game review scores, and in the mean time, Extra Credits has done an episode about game reviews and one of Metacritic’s co-founders had stuff to say. Then I wrote a lengthy post that was mainly about how I rented inFamous 2 and was disappointed enough in its sameness to stop playing after only a few hours and never want to touch it again. I knew it was terrible and chose not to post it, and then the article about Metacritic was posted, so now I’m starting over and actually being relevant.

        While it makes sense that most of the games we play are pretty damn awesome and could rightfully be given an 8 or 9 out of 10, I almost think it’s unfair to compare them to games nobody in their right mind will review. Compared to Carnival Extravangaza Mini-Game-Collection-for-the-Wii DX, inFamous 2 is probably the greatest game ever created. So, fine, there are games that are absolutely terrible and deserve low scores and others that are “average”, somewhere in between shit and gold, that deserve middle scores. But why shouldn’t games be reviewed in relation to each other? Why shouldn’t you give an 8/10 game like inFamous 2 a score of 6/10 as an action-adventure title (or whatever you want to call it)? Why does Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood - which I’ll admit I enjoyed the tiniest bit more than AC II, and it does have the benefit of its actually worthwhile multiplayer mode - get a high score despite being almost the same as last year’s game?

        I know that people’s jobs depend on review scores, and I know that tons of people (hopefully) worked really hard on these games. But a reviewer has every right to say that it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, and you may as well go pick up last year’s Game X for half the price because it was marginally better. That’s something I’ve seen before in film and novel reviews, though it’s not like I read a huge amount of them. It makes more sense for more knowledgeable readers, who will know exactly what you mean if you say “it’s like X, if they took out the interesting characters” because they’ve played/watched/read X already. Meanwhile, less knowledgeable readers get a good recommendation and a better idea of what they’re getting into.

        I know it’s uncouth to compare games to… well, anything else, because we’re all tired of being in the shadow of other mediums. But criticism for other mediums is very well established, and most game reviewers don’t deserve the title of “game critic.” They can be useful in their own ways, but I feel that reviews (with an occasional splash of critique) are naturally inferior to critiques (with an occasional splash of review). How many war films have been released recently that have nothing new or interesting to offer? Not many, because there’s more to film making than making an easy profit.

        And how many military shooters have been released that have nothing new or interesting to offer? Too many, because there’s little more influential in mainstream game development than the need to make a profit.