• Corruption in Gaming Journalism Discussion V2 - Back from the dead!
    5,003 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Comrade_Eko;47207565]GG has examples of journalists that are doing things maliciously, I don't think anyone here disagrees with that. But I think those are a few bad eggs, most of this, I believe, comes from the difference between toys and art. Bayonetta receiving bad reviews is most likely reviewers going into work thinking that this is game is an art and treating it as such. As an art I think Bayonetta is horrible, as a toy, it's fun as hell. I don't have time to go into this anymore with you, but I am looking forward to this, I'll go through all the replies once I get back home and answer any you guys post. (I just want you to know I'm not ignoring you when I don't answer after this post, I'm just gone and wanted to be courteous and give you a heads up)[/QUOTE] The issue you're glazing over is that what art is is subjective.
[QUOTE=_Axel;47207604]Alternatively, you can try to think about political issues in a rational light instead of rooting for whatever caters the most to your feelings at first glance. If your political beliefs are based on a sturdy argumentation and backed up by facts, they're quite unlikely to be challenged by media that doesn't actively debunk it. If your convictions are flimsy enough that simply absorbing a piece of media that doesn't explicitly challenge them makes you reconsider them, they were probably not rooted in any kind of solid logic in the first place and were thus of little value.[/QUOTE] I think the problem is that these people don't really know anything about what they're preaching, but are very zealous about it. If you read through progressive video game articles and the various idiots on Tumblr, it becomes apparent that they don't know a damn thing about social justice except for some jargon they learned from a Tumblr effortpost that makes them look smart. Even then, they misinterpret and misuse the jargon. You can see their jargon misinterpretation in how intersectionality has been interpreted in pop-social justice. Intersectionality has gone from how being a part of certain groups affects you to *your favorite cause here* must take on everything, like patriarchy, misogyny, racism, bigotry, religious discrimination, unequal starts for certain groups, police brutality, gun violence, homophobia, transphobia, facsists, and mom telling you to do your homework instead of writing Avengers fanfiction, or else it's a bigoted piece of shit that isn't any better than a KKK cell. By trying to take on everything at once, these people are making movements inert because they can't get anywhere without an in-fight started because of some petty issue or a "wrong" word used in a declaration. I find that these types are a bit like your average conservative evangelical Christian; they barely know anything about the subject outside of a key concept a 7 year old could understand, but holy shit they are very zealous about the subject.
[QUOTE=Comrade_Eko;47207565]GG has examples of journalists that are doing things maliciously, I don't think anyone here disagrees with that. But I think those are a few bad eggs, most of this, I believe, comes from the difference between toys and art. Bayonetta receiving bad reviews is most likely reviewers going into work thinking that this is game is an art and treating it as such. As an art I think Bayonetta is horrible, as a toy, it's fun as hell.[/QUOTE] I would agree that there are "bad eggs" in the context of "gaming journalism is suffering", but there are quite a few of them, and they are very prominent and make a lot of money. There are lists of websites known to push specific ideologies through all of their writing and probably lists of journalists who write nothing but biased garbage for the sake of cashing in. As an aside, I don't agree that the situation with Bayonetta was caused by a technical misinterpretation. As of writing this, I only found one review with a critcally low score and that's Polygon's review, which supposedly docked points due to sexualization but still highlighted that it was fun to play. That problem is two-fold, and I believe TB has covered this before, in that firstly the reduction in points was for a reason of the reviewer's personal bias and not actually a flaw in the game. Unfortunately he didn't clarify what would have regained Bayonetta's marks. Secondly, the points system contributes to some big metacritic shitfest that negatively affects developers which has been written about more eloquently elsewhere than I can write in one sentence. (I think Drasnus explained this perfectly below) I don't think art vs. toy is applicable to video game reviews either. If you want to criticize the art of a video game, a critique is more apt, but I believe video games are first and foremost mechanical with the application of art as a bonus. Sure there is some design ability required, but a fun game isn't always the most attractive, provocative, or meaningful. In this regard, too, there's a whole other debate about what qualifies to be a video game or just interactive art.
[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;47207474]Reviewers are going beyond just "what they think about a game" and trying to tell games "If you don't put x into the game then you are a bad game and we will give you a bad score!" See : Bayonetta.[/QUOTE] The way I see it, a good review calls for balance. If I wrote a review of a game, it wouldn't be about simply whether I liked it, but whether I thought the audience might like it. The only detail I'd presume to know about the audience is that they play games and are interested enough in a game to read my review of it. If a game had good mechanics but a story I found distasteful, I'd mention my dislike of the latter while still informing the audience about the former, and ultimately letting them decide which is more important. I wouldn't presume to decide for them. If my review score had influence, like on metacritic, then I'd consider it my responsiblity to be fair. If I gave it an unfair score (ignoring all the technical and artistic accomplishments of the game because of some minor detail) because I had an axe to grind, this could negatively affect the game's business and I'd be holding my own beliefs against them in an unethical way. Fox News is derided because they cherrypick details so that they can push an agenda. They presume to know better than their audience about what details are important or not, such as their completely dishonest controversy concerning Mass Effect. They exaggerated the controversial elements and left out the context, and public perception of gaming was dragged through the mud again. Reviews have the power to affect sales and shape the industry. Journalists have to be responsible with their influence. It's not a journalist's place to try to reshape the world in their image, or herd their readers around like sheep who need a shepherd to guide them. When something horrible happens in the news, it's not necessary for the article to then go on about how 'super gross' it was and why everyone should get upset. People will just get upset.
Ironically, [url=https://archive.today/l3GFY]Jim Sterling took the piss out of people looking for things in games that weren't there[/url] some years back.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;47207782]The issue you're glazing over is that what art is is subjective.[/QUOTE] Adding onto this, the presence of art in games is subjective as well. To the people last page who're saying that we shouldn't look for artistic or deeper meaning in games that aren't explicitly 'art games', that isn't always the case. Especially since there's no solid line between a 'game' and an 'art game'. Spec Ops has deeper meaning, but only because (as much as I love it) the commentary is blatantly spoonfed to the player through GUIs, loading screen text, and the actual narrative of the game itself. There isn't much left to 'interpret'. Is it only OK to analyze those ideas when they're completely objective? There's something in common between someone who says Mario was the first unconscious example of patriarchy, sex objects and damsels in distress for gaming, and someone who says HL2 & Red Faction Guerrilla have subtle commentary on the Iraq War. Both are entirely subjective. Does that mean it's bullshit? Did the developers intend it? We'll never know. The point I'm trying to make is, the only person who can dictate if games have a subjective deeper meaning are the people who find those meanings; art is in the eye of the beholder. The same rules apply to paintings, music, literally almost every form of modern art - nobody says that artistic analysis should be kept away from things where the intent isn't obvious, or can ever be objectively proven. In fact, they say the opposite. That's where deeper understanding of a medium comes from. The problems you're talking about only begin to arise when someone takes one of these subjective opinions, and begins to tout it objectively. We shouldn't suppress or discourage artistic discussion of games that aren't 'art games'. As long as a game review focuses on the game, then I don't see any problem in including the author's opinion of the undertones and thematic analysis, as long as it isn't disguised as fact.
I think there's a point where you can tell whether or not the reviewer is looking for a non-existent meaning. Also, yeah, it's disguised as fact almost always and effects the review score by a major amount. Again, Bayonetta is a huge example of this. The political and deeper meaning stuff is [I]usually[/I] a very minor part of a game - but they are being treated as the biggest part.
The way I look at it is that it's fine to consider political issues in games, but docking points for them is a bad idea because it provides a distorted look at the game as a whole. Take, for example, Deus Ex. Parts of Hong Kong, like some of the accents, are pretty damn racist, but the game is a blast to play. If I were doing a review, I'd write a brief sentence or two about how cringeworthy Hong Kong's racism can be, but I wouldn't dock any points for it because, in the grand scheme of things, it's not relevent to the game as a whole. Things like Tracer Tong occasionally doing the R/L mixup even though he's Chinese is a very, very small part of a huge package.
I'd say Tropico 5 is the biggest example of this kind of thing. Polygon gave it a 6.5 just for the fact that it makes it fun to be a dictator.
[QUOTE=Thlis;47208536]I'd say Tropico 5 is the biggest example of this kind of thing. Polygon gave it a 6.5 just for the fact that it makes it fun to be a dictator.[/QUOTE] That reviewer must the the type of person worshiping overpriced games that's about simulating menial tasks.
[QUOTE=Thlis;47208536]I'd say Tropico 5 is the biggest example of this kind of thing. Polygon gave it a 6.5 just for the fact that it makes it fun to be a dictator.[/QUOTE] To be fair the game is literally an expansion pack for Tropico 4 for a $60 tag. The game deserves a shit review, I was so mad when I bought it and got essentially a second copy of 4. Oh, did I forget to mention the day 1 DLC? [editline]25th February 2015[/editline] Either way, the Polygon article completely missed that angle and simply whined about dictatorships. I used to like their reviews until both that one and Gone Home, then I realized something was up.
[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;47208664]To be fair the game is literally an expansion pack for Tropico 4 for a $60 tag. The game deserves a shit review, I was so mad when I bought it and got essentially a second copy of 4. Oh, did I forget to mention the day 1 DLC? [editline]25th February 2015[/editline] Either way, the Polygon article completely missed that angle and simply whined about dictatorships. I used to like their reviews until both that one and Gone Home, then I realized something was up.[/QUOTE] It's a shit game, but they gave it shit for the wrong reasons.
[QUOTE=Snake7;47207207]You don't HAVE to analyze every video game like (I use to play quite a lot of COD in my console days, and I enjoyed GTA 5 generally) that but that's not to say there is nothing deeper there. It can be good sometimes to think about the types of subtle intentional or unintentional messages in whatever medium you consume. This can help you not be affected by any subconscious ideas are attitudes that may be present. Think about it this way: advertisements have been proven to work in affecting people or they would't be worth spending money on. This is when people know the ad is trying to sell then something and they are wary to a certain degree. So it's not much of a stretch to say entertainment itself could help strengthen or lessen viewpoints without a person being aware that it is happening. As for reviewers owing for an unbiased review, that simply doesn't exist. A truly unbiased review would be simply "This is the game. You can do some things. Here is some information they gave us about the game. Buy it or do not buy it." A reviewer is paid for their personal opinion about a game. If you don't like the views of a reviewer simply don't read their reviews or (if you feel strongly) visit the website they write on. You could start a petition to the site to remove the reviewer, but how would that be different than people in Austria starting a petition to get GTA off the shelves at Target?[/QUOTE] Okay, I'm late but I need to point something out. [B]It takes at least a month of analysis, history, research and understanding to fully consider the political, cultural and moral ramifications of a game, the actions it supports and the message it is trying to send.[/B] You cannot, ever, EVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER pull all of these very complex, very deep and very important messages out of a videogame in a single half assed playthrough as most reviewers have to. They don't get to spend a mountain of time on a game and most never actually complete the game. That is not a platform for critique, that was never a platform for critique and it never will be.
[QUOTE=Swilly;47208737]Okay, I'm late but I need to point something out. [B]It takes at least a month of analysis, history, research and understanding to fully consider the political, cultural and moral ramifications of a game, the actions it supports and the message it is trying to send.[/B] You cannot, ever, EVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER pull all of these very complex, very deep and very important messages out of a videogame in a single half assed playthrough as most reviewers have to. They don't get to spend a mountain of time on a game and most never actually complete the game. That is not a platform for critique, that was never a platform for critique and it never will be.[/QUOTE] Following on from this, would you trust someone who's barely gotten through half of a novel to pick its symbolism apart?
[QUOTE=Swilly;47208737]Okay, I'm late but I need to point something out. [B]It takes at least a month of analysis, history, research and understanding to fully consider the political, cultural and moral ramifications of a game, the actions it supports and the message it is trying to send.[/B] You cannot, ever, EVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER pull all of these very complex, very deep and very important messages out of a videogame in a single half assed playthrough as most reviewers have to. They don't get to spend a mountain of time on a game and most never actually complete the game. That is not a platform for critique, that was never a platform for critique and it never will be.[/QUOTE] The only time I've ever seen that sort of critique being acceptable is from someone who's invested a hefty amount of time in playing the game to completion and beyond. So there's an implicit commitment to the game on a personal level instead of doing it for the sake of being paid. Reviews in retrospective tend to not pull any punches even if it is a game that they have found endearing. A hobbyist has a much better time picking into the nitty gritty over a game's underlying messages because there's no money getting in the way of opinion and time is no longer of the essence. Someone who does reviews for money should focus instead on surface-level topics as that's all they are exposed to in their brief time playing before writing the review. A no-nonsense first-impression of the gameplay is what people want, which is why people such as TB have garnered such a following. Kind of funny looking at it, the most-diligent reviews come from people who don't have it as their job title and instead do it out of passion.
[QUOTE=Psychopath12;47208937]The only time I've ever seen that sort of critique being acceptable is from someone who's invested a hefty amount of time in playing the game to completion and beyond. So there's an implicit commitment to the game on a personal level instead of doing it for the sake of being paid. Reviews in retrospective tend to not pull any punches even if it is a game that they have found endearing. A hobbyist has a much better time picking into the nitty gritty over a game's underlying messages because there's no money getting in the way of opinion and time is no longer of the essence. Someone who does reviews for money should focus instead on surface-level topics as that's all they are exposed to in their brief time playing before writing the review. A no-nonsense first-impression of the gameplay is what people want, which is why people such as TB have garnered such a following. Kind of funny looking at it, the most-diligent reviews come from people who don't have it as their job title and instead do it out of passion.[/QUOTE] It is definitely TB's job to do the things he does, he just does it for the sake of getting information the consumer as oppose to excessive fellating of ones own cock.
So apparently Laura Kate was doing a podcast with TotalBiscuit last night (my source is my friend whose sister is her girlfriend, she was in his house whilst doing it and he doesn't bullshit). Looking forward to that, especially considering she regularly does stuff with Jim Sterling.
Reviewers don't have to have good reasons for liking or disliking things. You go and find out how a specific reviewer's preferences compare to yours, so you can use the reviews as a reference point. Also common knowledge to never trust a single review. So if you're the kind of person who cares about deep sociophilosophical messages in Quake, it's okay that someone has reviewed it from that viewpoint. We shouldn't care. What matters is that the reviewers are honest. Not saying good or bad stuff because of undisclosed connections, not lying about or misrepresenting the content of the game. Bigger problem: reviewers planning together who to cover and who not to.
[QUOTE=Hypershadsy;47206714]MD is kill.[/QUOTE] Oh. [sp]Garry!!!![/sp] To be fair it had declined pretty badly though. [editline]25th February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Talishmar;47209040]Reviewers don't have to have good reasons for liking or disliking things. You go and find out how a specific reviewer's preferences compare to yours, so you can use the reviews as a reference point. Also common knowledge to never trust a single review. So if you're the kind of person who cares about deep sociophilosophical messages in tetris, it's okay that someone has reviewed it from that viewpoint. We shouldn't care. What matters is that the reviewers are honest. Not saying good or bad stuff because of undisclosed connections, not lying about or misrepresenting the content of the game. Bigger problem: reviewers planning together who to cover and who not to.[/QUOTE] It becomes a pretty big issue if they start lying about the motivations behind games because of their dislike though. The most blatant recent instance may be that one journalist saying Tetris was a propaganda piece because it has Russian embellishments even though that's verifiably untrue, but it's also possible to do this second-hand by for example unquestioningly praising Sarkeesian/McIntosh while they continue to lie about pretty much everything to make it fit their agenda.
I didnt notice it brought up yet (though that was a lot so maybe i missed it) but there is a reason GG is favorable towards [url]https://www.christcenteredgamer.com/[/url] despite it being an obvious not even politically, but even worse religiously motivated review site. They know how to separate their politics and the game itself well. Another thing about the current discussion. Just because something is or isn't art doesn't mean it doesnt have objective technical and mechanical merits. You can call car making an art, and obviously cars have a very big artistic component to them from their profile to interior design, but you can't just say "this car was made by dirty japs, and my political ideology says foreign made cars are evil, therefore im lowering its rating from 9/10 to 6/10" Like, nobody will stop you if you want to be this retarded or you want to read reviews that are that retarded. Gamergate isnt about forcing people to adhere to some law or ruleset under penalty of death (or threat). It's about informing people about these egregious biases certain outlets have that many are unaware of (and they actively try to hide) so they stop reading their shit if they agree with our arguments. Ultimately GG is a consumer revolt because we're using our market power, not legislative power. But a lot of people claim that criticizing on the basis of these biases is either censorship or harassment. This is simply not the case, though. It's a relative criticism to the reader, and it lines up with an objective and ethical set of standards. Again, if you want to be unobjective and unethical, go ahead but fk if you try to claim that what your doing is ethical or objective then we have the right to call you out on your blatant bullshit and point out the mountains of hypocrisy to hopefully move this shit forward. edit: fixed an un
[QUOTE=Tamschi;47209075] It becomes a pretty big issue if they start lying about the motivations behind games because of their dislike though. The most blatant recent instance may be that one journalist saying Tetris was a propaganda piece because it has Russian embellishments even though that's verifiably untrue, but it's also possible to do this second-hand by for example unquestioningly praising Sarkeesian/McIntosh while they continue to lie about pretty much everything to make it fit their agenda.[/QUOTE] I changed the example because I mistakenly implied the Tetris debacle was analogous. Yes, the Tetris article is an example of poor journalism and also not a review. Still lying about motivations is an honesty issue which I mentioned. Perhaps we or the journalists themselves don't know whether to treat their writings as reports, reviews or opinion pieces? They often seem to be a mix of all three.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;47209229]I didnt notice it brought up yet (though that was a lot so maybe i missed it) but there is a reason GG is favorable towards [url]https://www.christcenteredgamer.com/[/url] despite it being an obvious not even politically, but even worse religiously motivated review site. They know how to separate their politics and the game itself well. Another thing about the current discussion. Just because something is or isn't art doesn't mean it doesnt have objective technical and mechanical merits. You can call car making an art, and obviously cars have a very big artistic component to them from their profile to interior design, but you can't just say "this car was made by dirty japs, and my political ideology says foreign made cars are evil, therefore im lowering its rating from 9/10 to 6/10" Like, nobody will stop you if you want to be this retarded or you want to read reviews that are that retarded. Gamergate isnt about forcing people to adhere to some law or ruleset under penalty of death (or threat). It's about informing people about these egregious biases certain outlets have that many are unaware of (and they actively try to hide) so they stop reading their shit if they agree with our arguments. Ultimately GG is a consumer revolt because we're using our market power, not legislative power. But a lot of people claim that criticizing on the basis of these biases is either censorship or harassment. This is simply not the case, though. It's a relative criticism to the reader, and it lines up with an objective and ethical set of standards. Again, if you want to be objective and unethical, go ahead but fk if you try to claim that what your doing is ethical or objective then we have the right to call you out on your blatant bullshit and point out the mountains of hypocrisy to hopefully move this shit forward.[/QUOTE] Their review on Huniepop was quite alright. Like, they appreciated the gameplay mechanics and the quality of the game but also said in their review of christian values in that game that it really doesn't fit into that. Which is not really surprising for a harem simulator.
As far as I can see from the arguments presented, the issue is not really with journalists presenting their political opinions, it's with journalists presenting those opinions as facts or objective critique or downright lying about a game and using unsubstantiated evidence to back up their claims. An example of this is the whole thing with Tetris being Russian Propaganda despite that being heavily disproven. Even though that isn't a review it's a good example of the shitty practices people are upset about. Another example of this type of behaviour is when journalists insert their own brand of social critique and ideologies within their reviews of an entertainment product and then present that view as fact. They don't consider any other views which can be problematic and misleading for someone who just wants to find out information about whether they should buy the game or not and could heavily impact the sales of the game for the developer. Speaking of, why don't they just ask the developer whether the things they disagree with were intentionally sexist/racist/genderist/transphobic/etc.? How can they possibly know what the creator's intent was without asking them? This is skewing away from a review into more of a editorial or opinion piece territory. If you're wondering why any of this kind of ethical practice mumbo jumbo matters, just look at your local newspaper or highly respected movie review site and you'll see a clear separation between the main 'articles' and 'reviews' and the 'opinion pieces', 'editorials' and 'letters to the editor'. Believe it or not, this didn't just pop up out of nowhere, the main prerogative of a news source is usually to provide information that the reader wants, that's what keeps them in business and stops consumer advocacy groups and the local ethical media watchdog from beating down your door. Sure, various newspapers still have a political slant, but they are forced to be rather controlled about it at least and can't be caught producing too much propaganda or else they might have their licenses revoked by an ethics board (which happens all the time here in Australia). Why shouldn't games media be held to the same standard? If we REALLY want to evolve as an industry and become a respectable art-form then we need journalists who actually perform in a fair and ethical manner. It is entirely possible to stay within certain ethical boundaries and still present your opinion in a review, people do it all the time in movie reviews (which in itself is almost an art-form) where there are clear ethical guidelines that are followed. Most gaming sites have their own code of ethics, but up until recently they would break that code constantly because no one could stop them. In the wake of Gamergate, most of the well-known games media websites have updated their ethics policies out of fear of being the next 'target'. That is the power of a consumer media watchdog, a kind of thing that exists in every other media and art-form and is just now coming to effect in the games media space because of Gamergate. Gamergate is the consumer watchdog of the video games industry, that's why journalists are so god damn pissed about it.
[QUOTE=Teddybeer;47209440]My bigger complaint is that at times they completely dropped pretending they were writing for a gaming blog. Just like how the sporting branch of Gawker had a gamergate article.[/QUOTE] Technically speaking, if they believe that you can't have present political views in a video game because that's problematic and people will automatically believe anything that is presented to them in a piece of fiction, shouldn't they also not insert politics into their own non-political publications? Or is one kind of political agenda just blantantly better than another? Basically this: [QUOTE]Videogames can have an adverse affect on people unknowingly.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Journalists can't have an adverse affect on you, it's your choice on what you want to read![/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Comrade_Eko;47207565]GG has examples of journalists that are doing things maliciously, I don't think anyone here disagrees with that. But I think those are a few bad eggs, most of this, I believe, comes from the difference between toys and art. Bayonetta receiving bad reviews is most likely reviewers going into work thinking that this is game is an art and treating it as such. As an art [B]I think[/B] Bayonetta is horrible, as a toy, it's fun as hell. I don't have time to go into this anymore with you, but I am looking forward to this, I'll go through all the replies once I get back home and answer any you guys post. (I just want you to know I'm not ignoring you when I don't answer after this post, I'm just gone and wanted to be courteous and give you a heads up)[/QUOTE][emphasis mine] That right there is the problem though: It depends entirely on what your personal interpretation of art is. If you let your impression be so clouded by your own beliefs that you judge something based primarily on that alignment, it means you stop judging merit and start judging an entirely different metric: Conformity. From many angles (politics is likely not one of them) Bayonetta passes the "art check" with flying colours, since art can be manifest as superior craftsmanship or extreme polish, which the series seems to have pretty uncontroversially. Now if you want to make an analysis or judgement of a work against a particular political agenda that's entirely fine, it's very common in feminism and philosophy in general [I]when they are done properly, i.e. with genuine effort to explore the issue using the scientific method to arrive at a conclusion that is true but not necessarily convenient[/I]. Personally I'm really not fond of most "philosophical" exercises I encounter, but that is largely because they lack merit through triviality, misinterpretation or outright shoddy work. On the other hand there are some truly great pieces, but unlike a technical review or one that focuses on the intended qualities of a work, these require a proper framework to get their point across in a way that's not destructive through spread of misinformation. Let's for example take a game that I recently finished (The trailer is fairly spoilery.): [video=youtube;cFrs5UGB-ns]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFrs5UGB-ns[/video] For the usual format of a game review the question that's answered is: Is this game worth buying [I]and why is it so or not so[/I]? (Were the latter point not a requirement we could just use numerical scores and nothing else, but since the judgement depends on preferences that differ from person to person it's necessary to expand on them to make the review useful.) My verdict in terms of craftsmanship is a distinct [I]maybe[/I]: Individually most pieces of art in the game are gorgeous, and most of the texture work is amazing too, especially concerning the main characters. The soundtrack is fitting too. However, as you proceed through the game you will notice blatant art bugs: Texture stitching errors in the level geometry, seams in the level geometry itself, bad collision geometry, sometimes even completely unlit entities that appear pure black. Some living creatures are completely not animated, like most homeless and one horse that appears frozen stiff. Similarly the writing and voice acting are (usually) very good (in the German version I played at least), and the writers(?) manage to nail a style that's reminiscent of the source material. The characters all have personality, even the ones that don't appear directly at all. The problems appear, again, when you examine the game as a whole: Some of the scene transitions are very badly done, sometimes there seem to be parts that are completely missing. All this is very obvious and extremely abrasive. It's even true for the gameplay: The jumping and running are fun and by far the best 3D platforming experience I've seen so far. However, it's "spiced up" with barely polished minigames like a shmup, sliding puzzles, badly done "play this melody with your analogue stick" exercises at ~4fps (seriously) and overall extremely boring since even the optional paths are far too easy (and extremely repetitive). Only the latest levels (the doll house and, before that, to some extent the card bridge) are more interesting. The combat is very mixed: It's relatively fun against common enemies (even the more difficult ones that require relatively precise timing), but rare enemies are often unbalanced or can make you wait for vulnerability for upwards of 15 seconds. Some of the win conditions are nonsensical too, like when beating a middle-strength enemy clears all others including the much stronger one, with no explanation. The camera in the game is normally good but sometimes entirely terrible: If you float it twists into a weird angle for no good reason (so the horizon isn't horizontal until you land). Every single button press starts an unskippable cutscene showing you exactly what happens, every time. The game keeps running too, so you are vulnerable and wasting time while you can't see Alice. This applies to timed buttons and the clockwork bombs too, which continue ticking down while you're unable to see where you're going. The best remedy for the latter is probably to step on the pressure plates, wait out the cutscene, and [I]then[/I] place down the bomb. As for the story, the game focuses on Alice's development as a character for the most part, and it does so pretty well all things considered. The presentation is lacking but the main points come across. There's a (very spoileriffic) theme that's touched on, but it's done as necessary (inspiring a unique spin on a specific setting that appears relatively late) and beyond the obvious there's no deeper examination or judgement on the part of the game. Now since the game has a relatively large percentage of female characters it's possible to examine its portrayal of women and whether that's something that has an impact on the overall merit of that game. Since it's set during the industrial revolution, the first thing to check would be how women were seen during that time (with sources), what their position in society was (with sources), how much the "real" situations portrayed in the game deviate from reality (with sources) and how prevalent each of these portrayals are in the game (with statistics). If a game is foreign it's also important to take the culture it was created in into account, as well as the one it's marketed towards. As you can see the topic is fairly convoluted, so it's necessary to provide a good base to even start with deeper examination, or there's a very high likelihood that the results will be coloured by the reviewer's/researcher's personal views in a way that's in contradiction with the creators' reality or statistically speaking with society at large. Ignoring this risk of confirmation bias is unethical, since it accepts the prospect of likely doing damage (in the form of propagating falsehood and thereby conflict) for uncertain gain. Once the above is done, it becomes possible to examine what the game says about the women it portrays, and whether there is something said about women in general. However, the proper base for this examination would normally already be too long for a game review by a factor of two or three. It also still doesn't examine immediate context, like a scene focusing on an entirely different element than the one examined. The second part of the analysis would have to be whether this portrayal has any impact on the game's merit. [I]This is extremely inconclusive since the impact of video games on sexism is harshly unresearched and what little is there is not well known.[/I] This means that to continue with the examination (without basically guessing and presenting that as fact), it would be necessary to cite and summarize sources, define terms as necessary (which is very important in sociological contexts as far as I can tell, in order not to leave the examination open to complete misinterpretation), or even to run studies to fill in missing pieces of information. All of this is the domain of a researcher and not a journalist, and for good reason: The journalist is supposed to relay the findings of the study in an approachable manner but without own judgement in order to inform their readers. When a journalist tries to do science as they do journalism, they [I]basically have to invent half of what they write since there is no prior concise conclusive knowledge in existence that they could draw from[/I]. Doing science sloppily is generally considered unethical to the point where it's actually illegal if a scientist does it. While journalists (and Sarkeesian) are not bound by the same laws due to not publishing explicitly as science, I do think they should be held to the same standards when entering that domain all except nominally also. As should everyone else really, since it's usually mostly destructive to broadcast uninformed judgements. [editline]25th February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Talishmar;47209326][...] Perhaps we or the journalists themselves don't know whether to treat their writings as reports, reviews or opinion pieces? They often seem to be a mix of all three.[/QUOTE] That's quite likely the case. In usual journalism opinion pieces are labeled as such and I haven't seen GG at large criticise anything that prominently had that label. The problem comes in when something is titled "News" but is a review or opinion piece, or if something is titled "review" but then bases itself around personal biases not shared by a large majority of the readers. It's simply bad work, propagating misinformation as side effect of money-making or agenda-pushing. On the topic of how to treat something: It's usually clearly labeled. If it's called "review" then it should [I]be[/I] a review and not an opinion piece (which would misinform) or verbatim repetition of some press release (which would be "news", since it's missing the judgement on the part of the "reviewer"). If it's "news" then it should, for the most part, just repeat external sources verbatim. If the writer inserts something personal then that's fine but has to be made clear to prevent spread of misinformation. If it's an opinion piece then everything but factual lies are fair game, but it must be open to criticism since it can't assert to be "right" in any way.
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;47208776]Following on from this, would you trust someone who's barely gotten through half of a novel to pick its symbolism apart?[/QUOTE] 5 million people did for mass effect 3, so why not? :shrug:
[QUOTE=27X;47209537]5 million people did for mass effect 3, so why not? :shrug:[/QUOTE] What are you talking about?
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;47208776]Following on from this, would you trust someone who's barely gotten through half of a novel to pick its symbolism apart?[/QUOTE] I think the difference here is between review and artistic criticism. I have no problem with someone watching a movie once, or reading half a book, and then telling me about it and whether it's worth my time and money. But if they're going to hold it up to any lens of criticism or discuss its merit as art, they better have gone through it minute-by-minute or line-by-line, and ultimately the product of that is a piece of analysis, not a review. Killing is Harmless is an analysis of Spec Ops: The Line. It's not a review and it won't tell you whether you should buy the game or not, it's just an exploration of the deeper meanings to the game. Conversely, an IGN review of the game discussing its gameplay, with perhaps a paragraph or two about its themes, will tell you whether or not it's worth buying and mention the presence of those themes without exploring them too deeply. Its purpose is to inform. The issue, as I see it, is that some reviewers want both. They want the informing ability and concise format of a review, but to base it on lenses of criticism more suited to academic papers. They want to view a game through a critical lens, and then put a score on it. I think that's mixing two disciplines that ought to stay well apart.
[QUOTE=27X;47209537]5 million people did for mass effect 3, so why not? :shrug:[/QUOTE] I hope you're not talking about the ending, because I've played through several times and the ending is still dogshit. One of the worst I've ever seen. [QUOTE=catbarf;47209952]The issue, as I see it, is that some reviewers want both. They want the informing ability and concise format of a review, but to base it on lenses of criticism more suited to academic papers. They want to view a game through a critical lens, and then put a score on it. I think that's mixing two disciplines that ought to stay well apart.[/QUOTE] This is exactly how I've felt about the Kotaku/Polygon style "reviews" that kept coming out. Are you trying to talk to academics or gamers? Sure there is some overlap (hell I was a psych student before I did programming) but that doesn't mean I want to see a feminist critique in a functional review. If it's seriously bad enough to warrant attention, warn people there might be some shady stuff and link to a discussion about it or something. No need to insert your beliefs into everything. As for christ centered gamer, the reason I have no issue with these people is they never pretended to be neutral. You know precisely what you're getting yourself into reading their stuff. And the fact they blatantly separate the morals and the gameplay? That's just a bonus.
[QUOTE=Psychopath12;47208937]the most-diligent reviews come from people who don't have it as their job title and instead do it out of passion.[/QUOTE] And that's the problem, since game "journalists" treat it as a 9 to 5 or commission based job instead of a passion they happen to get paid for.
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