Criticisms and Why We Need Them

          Before I start this off, I just want to ask a simple question: do you have to technically finish a game before you can review it? I haven’t finished Antichamber, but I know how it works. I love the mechanics and the bits of vague advice given to the player. If you do have to finish a game, what about online games? You can’t finish those because they have no end. Maybe if there is a story mode that can be completed, then yes they can still be finished I suppose. I think so long as you play the game enough to understand what it’s all about and you’ve had time to really try out as many features as possible, then it can be reviewed. And yet, some games are so dull that most players won’t even bother playing it for more than twenty minutes. Worse, if the game has game breaking glitches that render it unplayable, then it becomes impossible to fully review. In that case, it’s getting the lowest scores possible.

          That being said, why do we bother reviewing games anyway? The same reason we review anything: we want to know what we’re investing our money into. We look at reviews for books to see if it’s something worth reading, we check Rotten Tomatoes to see if a film is “Certified Fresh”, and we swarm to game review websites to see if the games are fun and engaging. As consumers, we want to get the most out of our dollar, so a little research is perfectly normal. But we do get a bit lazy when looking at critics’ opinions.

          The most convenient of game review sites is probably Metacritic. They have scores for every game out there. Critics put up a brief write-up, enter a number, and we look at the number and the color of the circle around that number. Green means it’s good, yellow means it’s mixed, and red means it’s bad. Now how many of you have actually read some of the things said in these reviews? They look like the paraphrased quotes put on the back of the box. Stuff like “It looks graphically impressive… worth your money.” That’s part of a bigger quote. It might actually say “It looks graphically impressive, but the framerate drops below 60 way too often, it crashes harder than Maya, and the story is non-existent. This is not worth your money. It’s not difficult to take something out of context and make it have a new meaning. We also shouldn’t rely too much on just one person’s opinion.

          A single person with a reputation for reviewing games professionally can influence just about any consumer. As soon as you see the name, you might think “Oh, this guy’s steered me away from terrible games in the past. I bet I can trust him when he says this game’s phenomenal.” Maybe, but different people have different opinions. It’s best to get a few perspectives from various critics in order to understand how a game might work out for you. And just because a game is deemed “critically acclaimed” or “a cult classic”, it doesn’t mean you will like it.

          An example of this is The Witcher. It’s a highly praised game… and I can’t stand to play it more than an hour. I get people like it, but one thing pushed me away and that was the combat. The story was not quite pulling me in, but I was giving it time to build up. Maybe it was going to be stunning. The graphics were dated, but I’ve played games with worse looking aesthetics and they turned out fine. But when it came to a core element of the gameplay, combat was literally a quick-time event. I didn’t feel like I was actually fighting. I felt like I was in a cutscene where I could move around a bit and hit something. This made me lose interest and I never played it again.

          As for me, probably my fault for not reading enough reviews on it. It was just deemed a good game by the gaming community. No matter how great of praise a game gets, you should always look into it first. It might not be what you want… or it could be everything you’ve ever wanted. Dust: An Elysian Tail was arguably that game for me. It had a good story, memorable characters, a great combat system, and stylized graphics. I only checked one review, but I should have checked more. That decision payed off this time, but it won’t work every time.

          However, I noticed that the gamers and the developers have some kind of war with critics every time their game is panned. In the case of the developers, they make a game, have it shipped, and it turns out terrible. Most developers know when they messed up and they take criticism quite well. They make improvements and make a better game (hence why I liked The Witcher II a lot better than its predecessor). But a few of the other devs take offense at what the people say about their games. They defend it as if they are martyrs and sometimes insult the players for not playing their game properly. There’s honestly no proper way to play anything. You can make up your own rules and mess around if you want. I did this with Goosebumps books. I read the last paragraph of the last page before anything else, then I read the whole book. I don’t know why, but it was just more interesting that way.

          As for the gamers who get upset at critics, they get furious. They will see a particular IP as perfect and immune to criticism. Once a critic gives a negative review (or worse, an 8 as opposed to a 9), the fan base loses their heads. I get it, though. They grew up with this game and it gave them great memories. It’s a nostalgia thing. But when one entry doesn’t turn out quite as expected, sometimes the loyal player wants to desperately find something redeemable about it. And maybe they can, but a few harsh words aimed at somebody who disagrees with you won’t help.

          But why do we need criticism in the first place? To get better at what we do. It’s so we can point out when things aren’t as good as they could be and then taking that feedback and expanding upon it. One of the most important lessons I learned was when I took a class in 3D Design. I was good at coming up with concepts based on prompts, but I didn’t do a great job with the aesthetic and construction of the pieces I made. As such, I got pretty low grades due to poor craftsmanship. The professor emphasized the importance of building a strong, presentable piece. If you make something with as few flaws as possible, it becomes incredibly hard to break down. And I don’t mean you can throw it against a wall and it doesn’t even crack. I mean the work you create ends up not only looking great, but it doesn’t break, it’s engaging, and ultimately no one will be able to think of something bad to say about it.

          And I know criticism can hurt. It feels like a direct insult, especially if you think the critic doesn’t understand what you are trying to portray with your work. Thing is, you must learn how to grow a thick skin and take in the feedback to improve your work. It also helps to know how to sort out useful feedback from pointless information. Someone saying your work is “pretty good” doesn’t really tell you what makes it work. It just means that they sort of like it. As for little nitpicks such as “I don’t like pink. Why did you use pink?”, you can always defend your reasons for picking which colors. A more useful piece of information will sound more like “Pink works pretty well, but what if you used a dark red? It might make your piece appear more bold.” That’s something worth considering.

          Ultimately, we need people to look at our works and provide feedback. It’s really easy to look at your own stuff and deem it perfect, but without a fresh set of eyes from a different perspective, it could have several flaws you may have overlooked. The critics may say things that feel like insults, but they aren’t trying to hurt you; they want to help you. Well, most of them anyways. If you want, you can review this article. Was it worth a read? Was it grammatically correct? Or was it just a bit short and in need of covering more points?