from Call of Duty: Black Ops preview in EDGE #216, July 2010
Wait a second. Didn’t we just leave this party a few years ago? I know I can’t wait to revisit the past (again) in a military first person shooter.
John Smedley, President of SOE and one of the creators behind the original EverQuest (from interview in EDGE #215, June 2010)
Before acknowledging the unnecessary sequel to EverQuest, Smedley also admits to SOE completely decimating Star War Galaxies with NGE. I’d probably still be playing that game.
from Steven Poole’s column in EDGE 214, May 2010
I will forgive Steven for dragging out “rich and deep world”, because I am with him for the entirety of his column. There is so much more to experience in a video game, like…I don’t know…places you could never visit in “real life”. And in light of recent attacks on Alan Wake for not being “scary”, or how the horror genre in video games can be “fixed”, is fear not an emotion that is worth pursuing in players?
Like Steven Poole, I am having a hard time figuring out where this criteria for video game’s cultural legitimacy came from.
I never understood the fascination with No More Heroes and its alleged “homage” to video games through a series of winks and nods in its ridiculous design. The praise seems to be deeply rooted in the reviewer’s recognition of the many inside jokes from designer Suda 51, making the perfect defense of its quality since “regular folk” will never understand. Perish the thought of it simply being a bad video game.
Upon the release of the eagerly-awaited sequel, out comes the hyperbole again:
“A brilliantly twisted love letter to the videogame medium, scrawled in blood and pixels.” - Gamespot
“This isn’t a game that begs you play it. It’s a game that knocks on your front door, waits for you to answer in a towel and your favorite pair of slippers, rips your head off, and shoves itself down your throat.” - IGN
“Perhaps No More Heroes 2, like its predecessor, works on a level our feeble brains aren’t capable of comprehending. Perhaps it’s so post-modern it’s post-post-modern.” - VideoGamer
However, the game reviewing metaphor that got me to write this post at all is one from EDGE’s review from April 2010:
“It’s endlessly satisfying to watch this thin, nervy loser attack again and again, hacking like a wolverine that masturbates too much.”
I’d stop buying the magazine if I didn’t know this was an outlier.
“Don’t rely on the logic of your design, but balance for the player’s understanding, however illogical.”
- Sid Meier, GDC Keynote March 12, 2010.
I am no game designer. Nor do I ever want to be one. I just like writing about games. Examining them. What works, and what doesn’t. Why I enjoy them, and why I hate them. Simple stuff, really.
Games are mostly systems of rules. And they are based on reality - with some flexibility added in to make them interesting, naturally. So to say that a game’s “logic” should come from this mythical average person who is “illogical”, what does that say about what designers should expect from their players? That they are to act illogically on purpose? Why would they do that? What kind of game would you be making?
He talked a lot today about strategy games - his expertise, of course - and about the player’s expectations about winning. If I am attacking an opponent with 2:1 odds, why should I assume I’m going to win? It doesn’t make any sense; this is basic probability.
His talk wasn’t condescending. This is someone who is bitter because no one is playing his games “right”, giving up, and suggesting that other game designers should follow suit in making their games stimulate the player’s self-esteem. This is the same line of thinking that brought us the “No Child Left Behind” policy in the education system that creates a generation of self-important, entitled lackwits.
This is your impact on humanity, game industry.
(Many thanks to Brian Creeden (@judicialfiat) for the transcript: http://bit.ly/cLdWMa.)
Chris Hecker at the IGDA Leadership Conference (from gamesTM issue #92)
I wasn’t aware that Braid was even capable of having an impact on humanity. I don’t see why games even have to satisfy this criteria to be worth discussing or acknowledging. How about, oh, I don’t know…just being a good video game?
“If you’re looking for a decent story with minimal interactivity to occupy a wet weekend, one cut with mystery and suspense, Quantic Dream’s latest might be right up your street, but gamers looking for anything else will be left out in the rain.” - The Sixth Axis
Being non-committal is not what reviews and criticism are for (this was a 7/10 review). But I guess they had to get “rain” in there somehow.
“Ultimately, Heavy Rain is an experiment that both succeeded and failed, when it could easily have been a total success if the brains behind it weren’t trying so hard to be smart.” - Destructoid
It succeeded and failed, at the same time. Doc Brown would be excited about that one, I’m sure. This one is especially delectable, because it also drags out everyone’s favorite criticism that is levelled at video games, where game developers “try too hard to be clever.”
“You aren’t playing the game, the game is playing you.” - Teletext
Holy shit that sounds scary. It’s the tagline for a horror film. About video games!
“Gameplay-wise, it’s not as open as it was supposed to be, thanks to the limits imposed by Quantic Dream.” - Meristation
Annnnnnnd there it is. Another appearance of the hideous stepchild of the word “gameplay.”
Speaking of gameplay (and emotional thrill rides):
“Heavy Rain is a revolution in video game storytelling offering an emotional thrill ride. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite hold up on the gameplay end of things.” - Hardcore Gamer Magazine
Doesn’t that just make you want to jab a pencil into your eye instead of playing video games ever again?
Some people have asked how I come up with all this stuff, as if I have some kind of terrible quote vaccuum in my computer. It’s easy: the worst quotes are usually the ones pulled to advertise the review on Metacritic, because it’s usually the writer’s attempt at summarizing their thoughts using every writing cliché imaginable. It’s as if Metacritic want regular humans to laugh at the state of game reviews and criticism! But I can only cry.
