http://anonymousblogger.blogspot.com/
This post is a “discussion” based on his Dec. 10th post on videogames. The comments section renders discussion so positively irritating that what would be a “comment” on his site will be a post here instead, to avoid me putting my fist through the monitor when it tells me a comment can only be 1000 characters long.
There was a review on IGN the other day, or some column, or some crap – written by the editor, that was wistful about the ’80’s – back then, you didn’t have to worry about graphics, so the discs were “packed with actual content.” I almost wrote him a really nasty letter explaining than in a medium as *visual* as videogames, that graphics *were* content. I think that that’s patently obvious these days. Yesterday, I was playing “Shadowman” on the Dreamcast. The gameplay was by and large, standard modern 3-D platform fare. At the time, the graphics were immersive, atmospheric, and creepy. Now, compared to games like Riddick and Halo 2, they look *awful*. As a result, the game is almost unplayable for me. The experience is essentially ruined, or it would take such a larger suspension of disbelief, that it fundamentally alters the experience. A similar argument could be made for all sorts of technical “non-gameplay” issues, like V-sync tearing, texture pop, bad MIP-mapping, jaggies, lag, poor frame rates, etc. – at some point, it becomes totally irrelevant what the core gameplay is. If a car as a 300 HP engine, and suspension tuned by Lotus, it doesn’t matter at all, if the wheels have been pulled from a horse-and-buggy cart.
I totally agree with your “hire non-idiots” perspective. The difference between the reviewers I like to read, and trust, isn’t that they write in an “immersive” fashion – it’s that they’re thoughtful and detailed about their reviews. Greg Kasavin believes games are worth higher discourse, and he makes an effort to bring it there. In contrast, the jackasses at IGN can barely string a sentence together without talking about polygonal breasts, and think that a 6 page review filled with crap writing is more relevant than a tight, well thought out 3 page review. Not all of Gamespot is as good as Greg Kasavin, but other writers, like Wagner James Au (who I often disagree with, but writes extremely thoughtful, well-written articles), or Stephen Kent (MSNBC’s game guy) are definitely in the same group.
Now, in regards to your comment about videogames being pretty stupid themselves, I’d disagree. I agree that by and large, there’s not a lot of really substantive writing in the majority of games, that there’s not a whole lot of “art” in the medium, when viewed from a holistic level. But (and I know you’ve heard this a zillion times), take something like Ico, take something like Rez, or even something like Prince of Persia.Are they uniformly “serious”? No. But to me, Rez is almost the apex of the “videogame experience” – it takes the interactivity of games, and applies it to stimulate almost every sense you have, and produces an experience that elicits some emotional reaction. Yes, I know there’s a huge argument to be made about the “emotional reaction” bit, but Rez, to me, is an *experience* that deserves higher discourse. It’s something that’s simply impossible to do in any other medium as yet.
Similarly, take Knights of the Old Republic. The plot twist in that game is so game-centric, and based around the sense of interactivity, that a similar plot twist in a movie would have lost most of its impact. There are things that games can do that no other medium can. There are games that push the boundries of the medium, and I think that those games deserve critical attention on par with the best that movie or book criticism has to offer. I’m not saying “film” or “literature” – I don’t intend to tie the level of discourse to the perceived “quality” of the examples of the medium. There are many intelligent, thoughtful discussions on “lowbrow” examples of the various mediums – I only hope the same will be said about games, and soon.