The following is a cut and paste of what I blogged about at BitMob.com. I encourage you to go there if you want to find some decent community written gaming journalism. If you want to see the article in it’s original form, follow the link:
http://bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/where-do-you-get-off-are-franchise-preferrences-coloring-reviews.html
Love, GrrSnort
Recently, Halo 3: ODST released to millions of frothing Halo fans in the US and around the world. Firefight was universally lauded and, for the most part, the campaign was well liked. I had already purchased the game before it’s release, but as the embargo for the review scores lifted, I found myself troubled by a good number of them. Not for their scores, not for their criticism of the story or graphical fidelity, but their complaints about the series and how they impacted their review of it. One reviewer on a well-known gaming podcast said that he felt he had an axe to grind with the game because of Halo 3 and how he felt it was given scores that were too generous. He follows that same statement with a comment about how he felt that the series was shoved down his gullet. In the minutes that pass, he gushes about the upcoming Call of Duty release and never once makes the same complaints about it that he levies toward Halo. Aren’t Call of Duty sequels more frequent? Why does this series get a pass when it’s on it’s sixth sequel in as many years and Halo is on it’s (arguably) fourth?
I disagreed with this particular games journalist for a number of reasons, but not because of partiality to one game over the other. Rather, it’s the seeming hypocrisy of his criticisms that worried me. I’ve never reviewed a game for any type of publication before, but the editorial voices I value are the ones that acknowledge a games lineage, but don’t predicate their opinions on whether or not “Game X: The Sequel” is a giant leap in game design or if they think it’s their God given duty to humble a game series with a poor review score. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t be based on what’s before, as a game that is cut-and-paste the same game as it’s predecessor should be discouraged and looked down upon. My concern is that this individual is reviewing for the wrong reason.
Gaming journalists and reviewers have come along way since the start of Electronic Gaming Monthly. What used to be barely passable high school fare has been replaced with mostly insightful writing with a snarky comment or two thrown in for flare. I’ve grown to appreciate editorial about video games and the voice of those editors that write them. Yet, it seems that with the recent death of EGM, curbing ones biases (I hate the word, by the way) has become increasingly passe’. I actually bemoan the passing of print magazines, not for the pictures, but for the reeling back of ones personal feelings in a review or feature. Shane Bettenhausen, a former editor for EGM, was often on the podcast, 1UP Yours, saying things that got him branded a fanboy (amongst other things). I didn’t necessarily like or agree with many of his opinions of gaming there, but I respected his journalistic integrity when it came to writing a review. His criticisms in print were often fair and balanced, and if it was a sequel, he would make comparisons, but never base his review upon those comparisons. It’s this kind of restraint that the blog-centric gaming journalism of today is sadly lacking.
Kotaku.com is probably the most visited gaming news website out there today. The news stories are mostly press releases, with smart-ass remarks thrown in for good measure. The writing sometimes screams for copy editors, but they do one thing that I think more game websites should be doing: Reviewing games without giving them a score of any kind. Their format has their likes (highlighted in blue) and their dislikes (highlighted in red), but nary a mention of a review score. For the most part, they keep the extraneous chatter about other games to a minimum. I mention Kotaku here because of Steven Totillo’s review of Halo 3: ODST. In it, he heaps praise on the combat (which has largely seen small, incremental change over the years) and in the same article dumps on it for the level design, where he compares it to the infamous “Library” from Halo: Combat Evolved. This kind of knock against ODST is wholly deserved and is based on the developers habit for confusing level design, not against it’s notoriety as a series. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there’s the review for ODST on a site called “Game Arena”. It reads like someone trying to badmouth a basketball player for the publicity, not even taking into account that the whole review comes off sounding like a fifteen year old that found a thesaurus. In the very first sentence, the reviewer makes plain his intentions with the article, snapping that “Halo fans need not apply – this review will only serve to infuriate you, each word reading like a punch in the face as I pick apart what is probably your “Game of the Year”.” Do good journalists really engage this kind of blatant flame-baiting? If so, I know about three thousand “good journalists” on NeoGaf.
In closing, I just want to thank most of the more prolific gaming journalist’s and editors for their great work in fairly reviewing games in recent years. And on the same note, decry those that score games with the intention of fulfilling an agenda. Reviews like the one found on Game Arena are, thankfully, few and far between. I just hope that more websites and gaming sites can set aside their prejudices in the future and judge games based on their merit, not their history.
