To be glib, I’d say reviews are what journalism majors write, while criticisms are what English majors write.
A mildly interesting article, but anyone who invokes “game criticism” without mentioning sites like the Escapist and RPS or bloggers (99.9% of whom are crap, but the remaining .1% put the so-called professionals to shame) gets marked down. Heck, the amount of digital ink spilled on Bioshock’s behalf in the last six months should prove that there are people trying to grapple with this thing Costikan calls “games criticism.”
By the way, the recent The Club discussion on RPS is a great example of the kind of game writing I like. It’s also a very typical example: it appears online, not in print, and it’s much longer than a typical print feature; it’s some guys ranting on their private blog, not a publication on a big commercial website; and it’s an informal conversation, not an article that adheres to some kind of journalistic style template. Podcasts also sometimes deliver this kind of highly informative detail about concrete games (as opposed to the social implications of bisexual virtual prostitutes) that for some reason is rarely found in the “official” articles by the same journalists.
If I had to pay for a magazine subscription to read this stuff I’d actually do it. But apparently the employees of these magazines insist on offering their best stuff for free. Doesn’t make any business sense to me but hey, that suits me as a reader!
The OP is correct that at some level this comes down to the games as art debate (they clearly aren’t).
In my mind becoming to cerebreal about game critique risks losing the most important consideration, is it fun. I know fun is subjective, which is why I tend to find game reviewers that have similiar tastes to mine and take their views more seriously. And also why I appreciate reviewers that list their tastes or compariosons to other known games as a part of their review. Bounded by the context of their personal taste I am all for subjective description of “is it fun”.
Without that game review process becomes futile at best and mastabatory at worst (or the other way around depending on your preference). I like to compare it to food critics that have quantified their analysis down to such a degree that it is only meaningful to themselves and the chefs, no one else really cares and their review is useless to bulk of people looking for a decent meal.
Although I appreciate the intricacy’s of brilliant design, innovation, and technical leaps forward that is not why most consumers buy games. it makes me wonder how such heady analysis would review a game like Peggle (before it became obvious that its a massive hit). Would they be willing to say that its a great game despite the inclusion of anything specifically worthwile?
Other media (art) can be viewed objectivly, paintings, books, movies, etc. But interactive forms have to be judged interactivly, the person has to be a part of the review, they are subjective by nature. And that subjectivity is the most improtant part.
disclaimer: I have nothing against the specific reviews linked here. Just making a point about the original article, and that critical analysis of an interactive medium isn’t as simple as the author suggests (and maybe shouldnt even be our goal). As in his example of critical analysis of handjobs the results of the study will be worthless to the consumer.
But criticism isn’t about being objective; I’m not sure reviewing is either. It’s about “value” (like in the Twain piece Costikyan cites) or “meaning” (I think Tom’s No More Heroes review gets pretty critical along this line.) You could argue that critics are more able to embrace the subjective than a reviewer.
There is no more objectivity in reviewing art or film than there is in gaming, as a quick dip into the Movies subforum will quickly make you aware.
What “risks?” If you’re not interested in the high-falutin, hoity-toity analyses of games, then don’t read `em - simple as that. It’s not as though Costikyan (cranky blowhard troll that he is) is suggesting that conventional reviews will be going away in his perfect future vision for gaming.
Good point, but I would argue that “value” and “meaning” shouldn’t be significant goals of gaming (because its interactive). Its okay if games deliever along these lines, its just not key.
It would be like someone tryign to offer a critical analysis of men’s suits. Things like “value” (in the way you used the term, not to mean price vs quality) and “meaning” don’t apply.
At some level I know this comes across as knocking our favorite hobby. I don’t mean to disparage gaming, I love gaming. I just think that Peggle may be a better game than Psyconauts (Yeah thats right, I said it!!!) and critical analysis doesn’t serve anyone except the developer/author.
Now if you want to talk about critical analysis within the developer cycle, the kind of sharing that goes on between developers and those they trust for opinions. Then I think its absolutly essential. One of the things I love about gaming is that it is such a shared medium, not many lock themselves up and create their game without input as occurs with books, screenplays and art. So that analysis is a part of the process.
@unbongwah- Thats a fair rebuttal. As you say it is only a risk if it becomes a trend. If those sorts of analysis become popular or developers begin to make decisions based on those criteria instead of the fun factor. Outside of that any individual article doesn’t do anything as you mention.
Meaning doesn’t have to be conscious. Games, as products of an entertainment culture, necessarily absorb some of that culture’s ideas. How does Civ reinforce Western conceptions of progress? What are the implications of silent protagonists in shooters? At what point did the “kill seven rats” quest become self-referential parody and not a real quest? Gamers don’t have to have the same reactions to all these games in order for the critique and analysis to still have merit, anymore than I need to agree with C.S. Lewis about Grendel’s mother.
Will all games withstand critical analysis? Of course not, but neither do all books nor all movies. But even if an individual item doesn’t reward deep analysis, a lot of similar items may. See the plethora of film articles in recent years on “torture porn” or books for young girls. As a cultural phenomenon, games take on meaning whether they are interactive or not.
And let’s be honest - for most gamers, the interactivity is pretty meaningless. Thousands of people will run down the same corridors, triggering the same cutscenes and killing the same monsters. Just because I’m pointing Vin Diesel’s gun doesn’t mean that I’m interacting with the plot or environment in any significant way.
And I’m not entirely sure you couldn’t write at least some form of criticism about Peggle of worth. I mean, you have worthwhile emotional responses to the game. How does the game do it? What does it take it from? How does it achieve it? It doesn’t have to be about how it relates to cultural mores.
I mean, I just re-read what I wrote about Peggle for our end of year round-up. I don’t claim it’s brilliant criticism, but it’s certainly more in the mode of criticism rather than reviewing, without making any claims about Peggle that are unsupportable.
Peggle’s success primarily comes from two aspects of its design, and how they intermix. Neither of which seem to work on Walker the way they seem to for the rest of us, which does make me understand his relative antipathy towards the game which begat more RPS running jokes this side of a certain Companion Cube.
Firstly, it manages to judge the exact ratio between skill/non-skill and then uses it as a device to ratchet up tension. In most levels of Peggle, you make that single, meaningful decision - that is, where to shoot the bloody thing. Then you sit and watch and hope and pray and growl and shout at the screen. In the same way as a you sit and watch a deck, hoping that the odds turn right and your card turns up - even though you know the chances are so small - you watch that ball in Peggle, and the pegs and the dance between them. The game expertly plays up to this, the ever-ascending scale as you take peg after peg down, not forgetting the perfect slo-mo and zoom for that final shot.
Secondly, it delivers a pay off of the tension. Obviously, it’s the EXTREME FEVER!!! and fireworks and Ode to Joy and air-punching. The fact you made so few decisions, and have spent so much time just sitting there and staring… you need that moment, that glorious release. It needs to be big, and PopCap make it as big they can. Unlike Walker, I can’t imagine wanting to move onto the next puzzle immediately, without leaning back and grinning and wiping my brow. The tension stretching out forever, without moment of jubilation would make it more like a horror game than the puzzle creature it is.
That said, it’s in the Survival Horror where we find the closest comparison to the Tension/Release structure, except with the emotional axis inversed. In - say - System Shock 2, it’s fear of what will inevitably happen interspersed with brief moments of that inevitable happening. In Peggle, it’s about anticipation interspersed with brief moments of intense, rhapsodic joy.
Everything about the game feeds into one of the other of the two poles. And it’s brilliantly concieved, perfectly executed and - as such - quietly immortal.
We didn’t used to call these Casual games. When I was an Amiga kid, we just called them Puzzle games, because games were just a fantastic continuum of pleasures and I was capable of a love which didn’t differentiate between Bob’s Bad Day and the Bard’s Tale, and aware that as a gamer your life is worse without both. Perhaps what most earns Peggle a place in my heart that, due to its mass acceptance and love, it kind of gives me hope that in the future of PC Gaming there’s a chance that those boundaries between Core and Casual will dissolve a little.
I love chatting about games so I would love to talk about all of these topics. But in the end they all fit into the “futile” or “mastabatory” qualifiers I mentioned before.
Will all games withstand critical analysis? Of course not, but neither do all books nor all movies. But even if an individual item doesn’t reward deep analysis, a lot of similar items may. See the plethora of film articles in recent years on “torture porn” or books for young girls. As a cultural phenomenon, games take on meaning whether they are interactive or not.
Im not saying that we can’t draw conclusions from gaming, just that there is little value in those meanings.
And let’s be honest - for most gamers, the interactivity is pretty meaningless. Thousands of people will run down the same corridors, triggering the same cutscenes and killing the same monsters. Just because I’m pointing Vin Diesel’s gun doesn’t mean that I’m interacting with the plot or environment in any significant way.
Troy
Interactivity is everything, it is what defines it as a game. The thought that interactivity has to be unique or effect the plot in a significant way is exactly the sort of concern that comes from viewing games as more than what they are. It doesnt matter that all players run down the same hallway shooting the same monsters if the developer is able to make that process fun.
@KieronGillen- Your review does a great job of talking about Peggle and why it’s fun. But you don’t get into any of the “fluff” (to use Aeon221’s term) that I would consider to be a part of a critical review and search for deeper meaning in the game. You only say thats its fun, and you describe why its fun in a way that people who haven’t played the game will understand. thats a review (and a darn good one).
And no more masturbatory than any other criticism, I would argue, or than gaming itself. Maybe you think C.S. Lewis was wasting his time talking about Gawaine and the Green Knight and that Paulien Kael’s thoughts on Bonnie and Clyde are useless. In the end, they probably are. But so is 85 per cent of human thought. Yet here we are.
Would you say a review is more useful because it tells you how to spend your money?
Im not saying that we can’t draw conclusions from gaming, just that there is little value in those meanings.
What type of value are you looking for? What value is there Campbell’s “Heroic Narrative”? I would say lots. You would say, apparently, little.
It doesnt matter that all players run down the same hallway shooting the same monsters if the developer is able to make that process fun.
I think books about the Roman army are fun.
I agree with you that it doesn’t matter if everyone has the same experience or not, but this high importance you place on interactivity should imply something more than “turn here. Now here. Shoot.” If mere fact of control is more important than what and how you control, then I get why we won’t see eye to eye on this.
Yes, it’s all about the experience, but as considering how much of this coming generation has had this experience, isn’t it worth thinking more seriously about it than “Fun game, not fun game”?
That’s kind of my point though - that “the fluff” isn’t the only way you could do a critical approach. To choose a relevant bit of the original essay, Costikyan notes some possible critical modes.
Some valid critical approaches? Where does this work fall, in terms of the historical evolution of its medium. How does this work fit into the creator’s previous ouevres, and what does it say about his or her continuing evolution as an artist. What novel techniques does this work introduce, or how does it use previously known techniques to create a novel and impactful effect. How does it compare to other works with similar ambitions or themes. What was the creator attempting to do, and how well or poorly did he achieve his ambitions. What emotions or thoughts does it induce in those exposed to the work, and is the net effect enlightening or incoherent. What is the political subtext of the work, and what does it say about gender relationships/current political issues/the nature-nurture debate, or about any other particular intellectual question (whether that question is a particular hobby-horse of the reviewer, or inherently raised by the work in question).
I mean, the RPS piece certainly fits several of them - the novel techniques bit especially, and the evolution of such techniques, as well as placing it in a historical (and games-cultural) context. These are primarily formalist critical parts of it, which I think are actually absolutely the antithesis of fluff.
Is this fun? is what a review asks. Formalist criticism may as why or how something is fun. How did that game make me feel the way I did?
(Which is why you get flashes of actual criticism in many reviews - the reference to Ebert as a reviewer who dabbles in criticism in the original piece is kind of the same thing. The idea that you’re serving two masters.)
I always feel I need to point out that in dragging poor Pauline Kael into this kind of discussion, people seem to forget she wasn’t writing for the 1960s equivalent of Entertainment Weekly. She was writing for The New Yorker, which is full of critical essays. (And terrible, terrible cartoons; it’s pre-Rimbo.) She was also championing a lot of “lowbrow” movies to an audience of people who were busy noodling and brooding over the latest Bergman epic.
So, I’d say Costikyan has it backwards. There’s no precedent (that I’m aware of) for long, drawn out critical essays in mainstream publications. The mass audience doesn’t really care, though there’s clearly a niche that does. So instead of hassling the Gamespots of the world, he should be asking The New Yorker why it isn’t running game criticism think pieces.
You also don’t see a lot of breakdowns of movies from so-called movie critics because they lack the formal knowledge and training to do so. Most of those kinds of pieces are from film students and actual moviemakers. So again, I’m not sure why anyone would expect those from IGN.
Thats a fair point. I haven’t read Kael’s thoughts on Bonnie and Clyde but I do think Gwaine and the Green Knight is about more than entertainment. As in most myths and legends half of the value was in the deeper meaning, not just the entertainment of the story. So exploring those deeper meaning is valuable.
I dont know about Bonnie and Clyde specifically. But I can say that I dont have a problem with people talking about larger cultural issues int he context of given project. So if people want to talk about female/Male relaitionships through the example of Bonnie and Clyde thats fine, but to explore Bonnie and Clyde for deeper meaning (other than the intent to make an entertaining movie) is probably a lost cause. But again I haven’t read it so I may be wrong.
We have a long history of “critical analysis” going way deeper than the author ever intended. The kind of BS that comes up with screenwriters are asked abotu the inifinite detail of their story’s as a comment on some social situation. More often than not this is the examiner seeing what they want, not any intent in the work. True this is just bad analysis, but I think gaming is even more likely to be overthought when the real core precepts of game design have nothing to do with cultural impact or social issues.
Would you say a review is more useful because it tells you how to spend your money?
Yeap, I have no problem with reviews.
What type of value are you looking for? What value is there Campbell’s “Heroic Narrative”? I would say lots. You would say, apparently, little.
I love Joseph Campbell, Ive been a fan forever. I do think his anaylsis has a lot of value in writing because the intent of writing is to touch on some universal theme’s that resonate with the reader. As such examination of the stories that have stayed with humanity over the centuries, and continue to effect us now, is incrediably important. Writers should study Campbell in the same way that game developers should play Mario and Tetris. They need to understand their medium, but the kind of analysis Campbell does for mythology (reaching universal themes) isnt the type that is required for gaming, where we just need to understand different rules (fun trumps all other criteria, deep does not mean complex, simple designs done well are the goal, etc).
I think books about the Roman army are fun.
I agree with you that it doesn’t matter if everyone has the same experience or not, but this high importance you place on interactivity should imply something more than “turn here. Now here. Shoot.” If mere fact of control is more important than what and how you control, then I get why we won’t see eye to eye on this.
Yes, it’s all about the experience, but as considering how much of this coming generation has had this experience, isn’t it worth thinking more seriously about it than “Fun game, not fun game”?
Troy
Not if your a developer. Not if your a consumer. Who is left? Those that want to have the conversation just for fun, thats fine but whats the payoff?
I’m curious: What deeper meaning do you think should be searched for in Peggle?
Also, why do you think that the question of why a game is fun is off-limits to criticism? Most games try to be fun. It seems as if a game critic would be deeply interested in how a game succeeds or fails at that goal.
