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nice. Alright, back to the typewriter.
Ah! Like comparing a Smith Corona to a Royal. Clever.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
I’ll add my voice to those arguing for shorter reviews. I usually find myself deciding from the first one or two paragraphs whether a game is for me, then skipping to the end if it’s not.
I don’t want to see the writing quality here degraded, but maybe shorter reviews capturing the essence of a game rather than all the minor details would allow for more games to be covered on the site, and that can’t be a bad thing.
I also approve of Blubba’s idea of separate articles on e.g. “Social justice in adventure gaming” or “Undiscovered hybrid adventure classics”.
AKA Charo
Another aspect to improve are lists like ‘Top list of Best Adventure Games on PC’. They are only based on the staff rating although the readers rating - when available - often is more valuable because it’s more considerate. Same seems to be true for all the other selections. You would browse through lists in a different way. Also the ‘Top 100 All-Time Adventure Games’ is dated and badly (full of outré from another time) put together.
It also shows that Adventure Gamers lacks competent VR/AR coverage.
A reader’s rating doesn’t show up until there is a review.
Speaking of reviews, who is responsible for the editing etc now that Jack Allin has left?
The review of Catie in MeowmeowLand ends as follows: Catie in MeowmeowLand is still a captivating and enchanting experience that had me laughing and forgetting the dreadful world that is out there, at least for a little while.
I’d like to think that Jack would have deleted or changed the bit about a “dreadful world”. This personal and useless comment has no place in a review.
Story about good. Story about bad. - The Neverhood
Speaking of reviews, who is responsible for the editing etc now that Jack Allin has left?
The review of Catie in MeowmeowLand ends as follows: Catie in MeowmeowLand is still a captivating and enchanting experience that had me laughing and forgetting the dreadful world that is out there, at least for a little while.
I’d like to think that Jack would have deleted or changed the bit about a “dreadful world”. This personal and useless comment has no place in a review.
Well, Covid-19, Putin, reggaeton… It is a dreadful world haha.
Currently translating Strangeland into Spanish. Wish me luck, or send me money to my Paypal haha
at least Catie is not in WoofWoofland
Well, Covid-19, Putin, reggaeton… It is a dreadful world haha.
Mine is not dreadful haha.
Story about good. Story about bad. - The Neverhood
One has to separate oneself from the long history of reviewing things when considering a contemporary opinion. A long list of things influences the numerical score a game receives at the end of a review, and one of those things is definitely not what x game scored x number of years ago. Time and circumstances change everything. All the reviews posted are relevant by the standards of the reviewing system here, and are a balance of objective and personal opinions.
I recently saw someone ranking all of the available Stephen King novels on Youtube. They put one of King’s much more recent books at no.37, saying that even though it was a really great book, it just couldn’t compete with the “classics”. Which is true. After a number of years (or decades) some things enter a league of their own and it doesn’t really make sense to judge them by the standards of the current times.
Contrary to books, games also contain a technical aspect which has an influence on the rest of a game. Looking at science fiction you have to differ. There exist stories which are, at least till now, pretty much timeless but there also exist others which have fallen out of time regarding their ideas, how they’re written etc.
A reasonable up-to-date top 100 list certainly looks different. Some games would remain, some with altered ranking, whilst others would be replaced by better games. There is lots of dust, without Thimbleweed Park.
I recently saw someone ranking all of the available Stephen King novels on Youtube. They put one of King’s much more recent books at no.37, saying that even though it was a really great book, it just couldn’t compete with the “classics”. Which is true. After a number of years (or decades) some things enter a league of their own and it doesn’t really make sense to judge them by the standards of the current times.
SK is a special case when it comes to ‘before his accident, and after’, there is nothing he can do himself to match his work from the early 70s to late 90s, so if one ‘want-to-be’ as objective as best, really need to consider that.
An interesting thread (which I’ve only skimmed—so feel free to shout if I retread old ground!). I don’t often read “official” reviews any more and I suspect I’m not the only one (as I think has been mentioned), so I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but a couple of thoughts:
1) while I agree that reviews are inescapably subjective, I like it when a review outlet has on overarching ethos which the reviewers abide by. My favourite reviews used to come from Amiga Power, back in the 90s, and their overall approach gave their reviews a certain consistency, even while each reviewer had their own tastes and style. Which leads to my next point…
2) AP reviewed solely for the player’s sake, not the dev’s. It was a point of pride that they were brutally honest, making their reviews much harsher than their peers’, but more trustworthy, and much more fun to read. Some developers black-listed them for not playing ball, but it was a win for the consumer. (Old Man Murray is another good example of this ethos in action.) I’d recommend this approach to any review site, especially with the glut of games being released these days, and would also point out that protecting devs’ feelings doesn’t do the industry any good. With that in mind, the average review score should be around 2.5. If it’s not, there’s a problem!
Another dev for another game (I can only apologise!).
Check out Mistmoon Falls, a weird murder mystery set in a Stardew Valley-inspired setting. Or don’t! Choices matter.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684290/Mistmoon_Falls/
https://mistmoonfalls.com
SK is a special case when it comes to ‘before his accident, and after’, there is nothing he can do himself to match his work from the early 70s to late 90s, so if one ‘want-to-be’ as objective as best, really need to consider that.
That book reviewer was talking about how the weight of elapsed time had given SK’s earlier books a sort of untouchability, rather than the quality of the book, but I don’t think I made that clear enough.
Another point: one of the reasons scores are not usually given when writing contemporary reviews of older works (like those from Infocom, for example) is that they would just not be relevant. So much has changed: tastes, trends, computer performance, etc, etc. I’ve heard that some adventures even have pictures these days! A numerical score is just a fleeting way of expressing the quality of something, but its relevance wanes.
I’ll add my voice to those arguing for shorter reviews. I usually find myself deciding from the first one or two paragraphs whether a game is for me, then skipping to the end if it’s not.
In the spirit of Leisure Suit Larry, I will say that longer is better.
Unless the writer is very bad and keeps repeating the same thing over and over, the longer the text is, the more detailed description it gives about the game content and quality.
For those who like just a quick overview, many reviews in magazines and on websites have some kind of “summary/in conclusion/what is it about” box somewhere in the review.
portmantoga got me thinking about reviewers and magazines and how things have shifted.
I typed some stuff, but it wasn’t that interesting, except for maybe one thing. Here goes.
There’s been a gradual shift in how we consume and how we “manage” our identities. The classic reviewer was educated and spoke with some authority on the media of their choice. Whether this was considered earned or hubris was generally based on experience playing games and ability to unabashedly express their experience in print.
The subjectivity was earned. It was respected. Sometimes people complained about it, but that came from sour fans or disgruntled developers, it only solidified the status of the reviewer.
(they were also generally professional writers and part of a broad editorial team - and some required more “managing” than others)
It was based on an identity model of authenticity. I think media and consumption culture have shifted towards a model of profilicity.* One part of traditional video games journalism moves towards social media. The other towards aggregated scores and reviews - and engaging with this, as consumer-reviewers.**
I’ll stop here before it gets out of hand. I’ve already used 3 asterisks. Stuff you can skip behind spoiler tags:
* not an original VP thought but a layperson’s understanding of Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio’s theory on profilicity as a new identity model.
** Not just in games, but in general: looking up any business, leaving a good or bad score based on your experience. Both nursing homes I worked at sent us e-mails asking us to encourage family members to leave good scores (you can leave a 0 to 5 star review on a website designed for this). I learned that insurance companies use these aggregated scores to determine the conditions of their contracts with health care providers.
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