Game Reviews

There’s an interesting article here about video game reviews:
Video Game Reviews Are Broken, Please Fix

I think the key point it makes is that Art reviews (books/movies) are an evaluation of whether it worth your time, whereas Product reviews are an evaluation of whether it is worth your money. It’s an important thing to consider if we want to move towards video games are an art form, we need to move towards evaluating them as art.

Secondly, as I think we are moving on in our lives, our priorities are different. I don’t really need a time-sink anymore. Different games serve different functions. WoW and other MMORPGs can take up as much time as we give them. An important consideration is how much time they require… Cano told me one time that it’s not really that fun to play WoW unless you play it a lot, enough to be at the top. I remember that one of my favorite things about FFXI was exactly that we were addicted and we were all addicted together. Halo can take up plenty of time as well… but the main function of it for me now is as a vehicle for having fun with friends, namely, you guys. I rarely play single-player games anymore. But I still look back on games like KotOR or Prince of Persia as something awesome, that I really enjoyed playing regardless of how many hours it took. And now, as I look forward, I’m actually looking for games that won’t take too many hours, but will give some sort of unforgettable experience.

But what do you guys think? Moreover, what would you guys think of writing our own reviews, and trying to evaluate the games based on separate criteria, rather than trying to combine value, length, multiplayer, artistic merit, etc, into one generic 1 dimensional scale? (Hopefully more successfully than last time Ryan, Joe, and I tried this.)

kg at 8:42 am on Wednesday, October 31, 2007

2 Comments

10077

Comment by Boughter

October 31, 2007 @ 2:32 pm

I’ve been talking about this with Dylan over the last few weeks, mainly in my neverceasing quest to get him off the CRACK that is WoW.

We really have to look, as video games continue to progress, towards there ultimate place in the artist world. And what do we, as gamers, truly want from our video games? Is it hours of diversion? Or simply an hour of engrossing gameplay and story? Can video games be taken seriously as an art form if there are games like WoW and MMOs being made by the hundreds (which completely disregard most elements that make games deep and enjoyable)?

I am moving more towards KGs stand, but I’m still an addict when it comes to things I enjoy. I just started playing Earthbound and can hardly put it down. But thinking about this has reminded me that I don’t need to blow through the game to enjoy it (though I do this exact same thing with books I enjoy). Anyway, I think it’s a really good subject to bring up. I’ll be giving it some more thought and posting when I have some more time.

10173

Comment by Cody

November 1, 2007 @ 9:29 pm

I’ve been in Kg’s camp for some time now on this issue. I like to be able to pop online and play a round or so of halo 3 or a round or so of DOA 4 (though i think im selling it cuz virtual fighter 5 just dropped for xbox) or guitar hero. I’ve become much more of a social gamer (mainstream? shudder), there are always people around here (when the girls come over we play this singstar karaoke game thats hilarious). And frankly, i dont find the single player games rewarding anymore really. Last year saw the release of games for what were at one time my two favorite series, zelda and FF. I bought em, beat em, and then sold em. It was sortof a hollow experience. I could see that they were great games, but i just didnt feel it anymore (not that 12 is really traditional FF, but phantom princess is like uber traditional zelda). I think the reason was i loved those earlier games because we all played them together back in high school, we were competing in games that werent multiplayer. I mean, pokemon was rad over the summer, because we were all doing it together, it wasnt the game itself. I guess what i’m saying is no time + i love you guys=I like short social oriented games now.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.