[Lumines, which I've begun to play lately despite embarrassing level of suckage]I continue to believe that games have far more in common with music than with any other media, in terms of how the biz is experienced and discussed -- regardless of how useful the film and game connection can sometimes be.
I started to realize this when I began, for the first time, to really take stock of how broad the audience for games really is, and what the culture is like far beyond the audience that reads video game websites. In particular, learning how opaque and generally useless most people find game reviews was the catalyst -- because the attitudes I observed for them eerily mirrored my own feelings about music reviews.
Having recently moved to Brooklyn, it's been tough to avoid becoming a music hobbyist, and I've taken much more notice of local music, independent bands and new acts than I did previously. And yet, is it really possible to be "content complete" in one's knowledge of music? No matter how much I listen to, I'll never hear everything, not even within a given niche that I prefer.
Some tunes are artful, others are formulaic -- and while to an extent there is a "right" way to play an instrument, there's such a thing as "bad" singing, it's ultimately a fully subjective experience, with such a broad spectrum of variety that it's hard to judge the quality or appeal of any given song or band on a consistent scale.
Further, any given song has such a complex balance of elements at work -- there's technique, and in many cases technology; there's innovation and creativity, there's melody, lyrics, to name just a few -- and all these elements must combine seamlessly.
The "Objectivity" Issue
So as with games, music's very hard to judge "objectively", because of that weird marriage of subjective elements with technical ones that can be said to "succeed" or "fail" -- and like games, the selection's so broad and so continuous that there is a need for a prevailing critical opinion to help audiences shape their listening habits.
I used to have trouble reading music reviews, actually, because they didn't really tell me anything. High-level music reviews of the Pitchfork ilk are incomprehensible to casual listeners, requiring readers to not only understand the finer points of the art of music, but to care. I used to scan through them frustratedly, and huff: "But this doesn't tell me if I'll like this band."
Sound familiar?
Reviews that compared artists to other artists were slightly more helpful -- but it reminds me of the conflict we as game reviewers often have as we're pressed to weigh each game solely on its own merits. It's considered weak to compare games to other games, isn't it?
My reaction in general to music reviews was so like to the complaints I usually hear about the inadequacy of game reviews -- a long-overdue revelation!
But Will I Like This?
Now that I have a slightly larger appetite for music and a somewhat further evolved interest in it than I did, say, a year ago, I find I'm reading music reviews more often -- even though they still can offer me only clues onto whether a band is worth investigating and can't tell me whether or not I'll like it.Notably, in our internet age, I can scrounge up a couple tracks by the artist under consideration and have a listen before buying an album -- but there's not always a way to check out a $60 game without going all-in. Hopefully the rise of digital distro and the increasingly common pre-release demo offerings will help evolve this a little.
Most often, though, I read album reviews to validate my own opinion on things I already own and listen to. I read to find out from an expert if my taste is good, or to look for articulation on why I like this or that, to stash information, descriptive adjectives, that might help me choose another artist in the future. And I believe that's what the majority of people use video game reviews for, too.
That doesn't make them useless, though -- or inadequate. Perhaps, with games as with music, it's just a small percentage of the audience that reads them, the hardest-core adopters -- but the impact and influence of tastemakers on the music biz can't be denied, despite the democratic nature of music.
And again, the score comes into play -- a music review analyzes such a range of factors, some personal and subjective and others not, that the number feels necessary to unify the text into a single, understandable rating. The assignment of a number helps readers take what's essentially a stranger's opinion and distill it into a ranking they can weigh against the strength of their own sentiment.
It Totally Speaks To Me, Man
Speaking of sentiment, another point of comparison for music and games lies in just how strongly people personalize them. I think this happens for slightly different reasons -- music's such a primal part of culture, which leads lots of enthusiasts to adopt their musical taste as a form of self-expression, making it personal.
Games are very experiential too, and people seem to take game reviews just as personally -- I think this might be rooted in games' development as a misunderstood "niche" medium, where the audience responded by adopting a defense of gaming as part of their identity. Our unheard-of, unappreciated video game favorites become as important to us as the undiscovered indie band is to the passionate music fan.
The similarity between music and games extends far beyond the way we cover them and respond to them -- for one thing, consider the spectrum of huge-manufactured, precisely engineered formula hits versus independent cult favorite acts. Both games and music have venerated classics that have been knocked off again and again through the ages until they've become memetic. Music has a huge schism between its mainstream and its indie, where the latter's considered more sincere than the former, just as we've begun to see happening in games.
Agree, disagree? What are some other ways you think the game industry might be like the music industry -- or some ways you think it's not?
26 comments:
Aside from the obvious that both deal with piracy, I'll more into more insightful points.
I think that the maturation and recent trend toward democritization of games is what's allowing the medium to be develop more like music. Take Braid, which wasn't made on the cheap, but which was an idie game released to the market in a way that would have been impossible in days past. Braid would not have existed in the NES days when it would have required larger capital and certification by Nintendo. Meanwhile, music has been producing garage works and indie music for as long as people have been able to buy a guitar and round up some buddies.
That point leads me to a slight revision from before: I think that music, games, in fact all media, are evolving simultaneously right now thanks to, and I hate how lame this sounds, the internet. In the past indie bands would be generally loved and enjoyed mainly within their geographic region. Now you can listen to them almost anywhere online and bands can garner self-made followings without labels.
I disagree with your point about games being more like music though. I feel that music, more than film, is chiefly subjective. Either you like it in your gut or you don't. Film has more objective qualities (that are still objective): is the acting good or wooden? Is the story brilliant or out of the mind of a fifth grader? And so on...and some games are actually more like that than like music. Are the controls good? Is the story sophomoric? What's the voice acting like?
Where I agree with you comes into play with Lumines, Meteos, Rez, Flower, Amplitude, or a multitude of other games more aptly described as "experiences." Those experience games are always the most hotly contested and the ones where reviewers have least to say. Tons of people "don't get" these games. Braid was a critical darling, but there were some who found it pretentious or boring. I, for one, am more in the Tim Rodgers school of thought on Bioshock, which reviewers almost unanimously praised for its brilliance, originality, and poignancy, which I found to be predictable and far too familiar.
On the subject of reviews, you have hit it right on the money. Most game reviews function solely to justify gamer's opinions on a game, not to inform. Just today I was reading 1UP's RE5 review and the FIRST comment was decrying its B score stating that IGN and other sites rated it better and that the game was better than a B. I will argue with you that movie reviews are generally equally useful, but perplexingly taken more to be gospel than game or music reviews. I always check Rotten Tomatoes before I shell out to see a movie. With video games and music, I know what I like and I'll listen online/demo a game or just go pick it up without ever consulting a review. I have no idea why I inherently trust my own opinions over the press in books and movies, but cede control to the reviewer for movies, but I suspect it has something to do with the way our culture legitimizes movies more than games or music.
I've rambled enough, but I hope I've said something useful.
I really only listen to scores, game OSTs, and the like. Hell, I'm actually listening to "Suspended Doll" from the Code Veronica soundtrack right now.
Anyway, I don't generally dip past a certain area when it comes to music. However, I've always recognized that it is a medium in which as you also pointed out, the experiential factor is greatly enhanced. I'm of the opinion that things like games and music are the few mediums that aren't bogged down by their own limitations. I'm not purposefully trying to crap on anything else, but even literature, the progenitor to pretty much everything except classical art, has it's own mapped boundaries.
Music is something that seems to perpetually maintain status of “insert subjective experience here” on the part of the audience. A good deal of our dear industry’s “issues” stem from the simple fact that it hasn’t taken a step outside “formulaicism”…not yet anyway.
Yay for making up words.
~sLs~
I read game reviews constantly, and I think they are great things to write about. There are a lot of writers in the industry that at least know what they are talking about, and when they communicate with their audience, they can use some interesting game terminology without having to worry too much about a vocabulary clash.
I have two music degrees, and I can definitely understand any music terminology that comes my way, and I really feel like Pitchfork misses the mark most of the time. I will look to them for reviews at times, but I really wish there were music critics out there that actually did speak the language of music. What I look for in music I can most easily express in musical terms, but I'll settle for a music critic that has a pair of ears. I haven't found one yet.
For example, "complex harmonies" can mean more than one note being sung at the same time to some dumb reviewer, while it means having more than three chords in a progression to someone that's a bit knowledgeable but too used to crappy music. I don't really get much better quality in harmonic analysis than the latter. "Dynamic contrast" can mean large shifts in content in the music to some, and large shifts in volume or intensity to musicians.
Of course, if any music writer wants to start saying things like "This band goes in-between using blues and octatonic scales for melodies while using a bitonal harmonic structure" they've probably lost their job right then, only like ten music geeks will love that writer and everyone else will stop reading. I understand why some critics stick to easier-access topics, like lyrics, which can actually be quoted right there on the page.
I tend to follow this quote by Elvis Costello- "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do." I love the new 30-second samples that digital music vendors are providing, along with the freely streaming music on Hype Machine or Last FM; they give me a lot more insight into a band than a reviewer ever will.
I'm in a similar boat when it comes to music. I know what I like but am clueless when it comes to music reviews. A tool I've found useful for finding new bands I like is pandora.com. It lets you put in the name of a band or song and finds similar music. In the background, it has classifications for millions of songs and as you add more songs you like, it has an easier time figuring out what new songs you might be interested in. So even if you don't understand all the buzz words in reviews, it does and matches you with music you might enjoy.
Got into a similar conversation with Chris Dahleen about this, he was talking about how he uses a lot of his music writing to work on games. I find myself enjoying music critics because they need to have a million pair of eyes to be very proficient. I picked up Pitchfork 500, a collection of short reviews, and they use everything from history, culture, cross-referencing, poetry, and just gushing adulation to get their point across.
With a medium as diverse as games, I'm starting to take a cue from the music folks and trying to broaden my tools as a critic.
One of the major ways that making music and game design are similar is the method that’s often been used for coming up with great “new” stuff: taking two or three existing pieces and mashing them together to get whole genres that somehow sound/play fresh. Ragtime + brass bands = jazz. Country + blues = R&B. R&B + ‘60s pop = Beatles/Stones etc. How many game reviews have described a title as parts of two previously winning formulas put together into a new package that just works?
Totally agree about the shameless ripping off of what sells to the masses.
Not sure I agree altogether about the subjectivity, though. We’re starting to see that as designers broaden their (and our) horizons, but historically a good game has been a good game and they have been very easy to spot. There has never been that much disconnect between what reviewers like and what players buy. Unnoticed games like Ico and BG&E are much more the exception than the rule, while critically acclaimed bands go unnoticed all the time. This might be because game reviews have always tended to be akin to product reviews, and whether or not that’s a good thing is a whole other conversation.
Ok first of all sorry for the slight Knee-jerk reaction on twitter. It's just media comparisons of any sort evoke something in me.
Speaking on topic, I agree that appreciation of both seems similar but I feel music probably (due to cultural/civilizational training) is more forced into making a person feel something. A game tries to invoke that experience but Music is more like the written medium while Games a bit more like the Filmic medium (in the sense both require you to let your imagination run free, which is why instrumental pieces sometimes evoke something even without words).
Reviews for a personal experience is basically validation of your viewpoint just like you said. In fact there was a whole discussion sometime back that film-reviewers will be getting the boot. But thanks to the internet and a younger generation seeking validation for their viewpoints, there's more demand for film reviews now than before (though very rarely does it always dote on the technical side and moreso impresses on the entire experience).
Game and Music reviews however focus a bit too much on the tech side and forget the experience that the reader is hoping to get validated. It's more of how the reviews are structured in some cases. Not a knock against IGN but if the final words was only about the gameplay that's all that matters - it matters little to the general audience about the music or the graphics (because the medium has evolved out of it to an extent; not entirely but still more so than not).
The whole if you like this, you will like this doesn't entirely work though. In this case it's a bit more like a film than music. For instance you will find that more fans of Muse will also like QOTSA but you will have a dichotomy if you were to say compare Platoon and Apocalypse Now. That's where gaming and film are similar, in that someone who say enjoyed Halo 3 may not enjoy say Killzone 2.
Also the more gaming evolves the more it's starting to be the same structure which is more noticeable in film. It's present in music but unless someone actually appreciates music they'd be hardpressed to note a few notes that have reappeared in songs as often as The Hero's Journey does in visual medium.
For instance Resident Evil 5 (Ok some *****SPOILERS*****)
plays a lot like old capcom games, kill a bunch of enemies, mini boss, more enemies, mini boss and at the end of the third part of the chapter the final boss. In fact there's even the old 16 bit gaming mainstay of consistent run(vertical/horizontal motion) shoot a lot of enemies without dying till you reach a checkpoint.
***SPOILERS end***
Though as with any media, the more one is into it, studies it the less of an experience it becomes and the more of a nitpicking it remains - until you cross that boundary and decide to enjoy it for what it is and not what it's trying to be.
Meh I think I've said too much but I should probably reply again when I can add more to the discussion.
I think players will learn what they like about certain experiences as time goes on. I don't know about you, but I don't really feel a need to read reviews before a purchase. I generally know enough about a game's characteristics that I can accurately assess whether or not I'll enjoy it.
The same goes for music, which is why comparing one band to another is really helpful if I don't have a chance to listen to a music sample. Take Pandora for example. Most of the radio stations I listen to play artists I am already familiar with, but every now and then I pick up a new musician. Now wouldn't that be nice to have for games...
I definitely agree, and I'm particularly fascinated by the concept of people identifying so personally with a specific game, the way some people adopt a song as a personal anthem or theme music.
Furthermore, like music, games have a strong set of "basic" genres, but we've only recently started seeing these core genres blended together. The results are mixed, of course, but the general consensus seems to be that the cross-pollination strengthens the industry, even if some worry that their preferred genre is being diluted.
What's more, the blending genres does a good job at introducing fans of one type into a new type of game/music, and broadening the general fanbase's horizons.
EBA! EBA!
What was it that someone said about capitalism? It wasn't a good system, but it was the best one we had?
I believe the same can be said of music and game reviews. If you don't read them, you are buying the product based on the recommendation of someone with a financial stake in you buying the product (unless you're lucky enough to have rich, early-adopter friends). If you think reviews are bad, you should see the writing in the press kits that get sent to critics. "Resident Evil 5 makes the second coming of Jesus look like a pile of crap" is a sentence you might find in a press kit sometimes.
For my part, I trust reviews, but only in aggregate. Whoever invented metacritic is a genius; it cancels out everyones biases and leaves you with something that usually has most of the insanity surgically removed.
As game demos and streaming records get out there more and more, this will all change. Hell Pitchfork has taken to usually posting a stream of the record their reviewing on their website now.
Also, back when I was doing record reviews in another life, I came upon something that saved me a lot of sanity:
Just because I like something, doesn't mean it's good.
Just because something is good, doesn't mean I have to like it.
(same for bad and dislike).
Fallout 3 seems to have a lot of care and craft put into it, but you couldn't make me play that game if you put a gun to my head.
Onechanbara on the Wii has so many objective problems and runs 2 hours and is repetitive, etc etc but it put a big, stupid, unironic grin on my face.
Also, Leigh, if you're getting into Brooklyn music, allow me to recommend My Teenage Stride, if you like jangly, Go-Betweens-ish pop. Their song "LiveandDieintheAirportLounge" is probably an all-time favorite. YRMV, but they're highly underrated to me.
--Niles
I agree with most of the post. But I think that music is much more about subjectivity, because there's really a lot of weird music that some call masterpiece and others 'just noise'.
In games there are more technical aspects to it. No one will be happy with crappy gameplay.
I agree totally.
I checked out Frog Eyes a few weeks ago on the strength of a Pitchfork review you tweeted, and I still can't tell you whether or not I actually like them and why.
Of course, I read through the whole thing and agree with you. Thing is, the only thing that stuck with me is how you coined the term "digital distro" and now will have to spread the word.
Thanks, Leigh.
Josh
I love Pitchfork reviews... and I probably love it for the reasons you hated it. I like a reviewer who can wax philosophic about esoteric ideas about the interplay of music and culture. I love when the reviewer has a deep understanding of the entire lexicon of music history. I like when they can drop names like John Cage and Richard D. James in the same sentence and see the connection. I like them because I am a music junkie and I want to hear from others that understand my obsession so we can actually discuss music itself.
I'm the same way with my videogame reviewers. If a game reviewer creates an all time top 10 list and I see that it is full of nothing but the blockbusters (God of War, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, etc.) then I suddenly don't care about that person's opinion... and it's not because those aren't great games. They are fantastic games and they deserve their blockbuster status. But a reviewer that can't make reference to the quirkiness of a Mr. Mosquito, the nerdstrom humor of a Disgaea, the aritstry of an Okami, the old school joy of a Red Star, or the innocent romance of an ICO... well, that kind of reviewer just isn't doing enough to prove to me that we are a kindred spirit, so I lose interest. They haven't exhibited that they understand videogames, so they must not understand me.
I'm an outsider, and it shows up in my taste in music, movies, and games. I stand comfortably and proudly on the fringe. As such, I'm less interested in good/bad review distinctions and more interested dialogue on innovation and artistry. I like to dive into the richness of any of these artforms and experience all of the variety and subtle nuances that each new song, movie, or game provides. I want to understand how each one fits into the larger historical tapestry for its medium, as well as the pop-cultural history.
I guess ultimately the main reason I read reviews isn't because I want to know if I will like something. I read them because I want to more fully understand MUSIC as a whole or GAMING as a whole, and reading reviews and having discussions allows me to do that. With any new game we can talk about how fun it is to play, how beautiful it is to look out, what it says about our culture, the emotions it pulls from us, the embedded philosophies in the narrative, the innovations, the relationships to other genres in the existing gaming history, and all the references back to the days of Zork up to the days of Persona 4. It's about a love for the medium and all of the ways it affects our lives. It's an ongoing dialogue about art expressing life and life expressing art. That is why I care about reviews.
@JT - I hear ya there. I do like when music writers combine composers/ensembles to explain what's going on, and power to the fringe guys who at least know who Cage is!
People are mentioning Pandora a lot, and that's okay, but everyone needs to keep in mind that it's run by a company, and if it so chooses, it could just sign itself up with certain record companies and only recommend their artists - basically be wary, just as we have to be about Google doing just about everything on the internet these days.
What I don't get about Pandora is its skeletal frame - the Music Genome Project. If you find out how Pandora is describing the band you like with its list of features, you may be surprised to find blatant inaccuracies depending on your preferences. For example, I put Stereolab in there, and I got a description that would have fit Blink-182 a bit better (this was earlier, hopefully they've refined their stuff by now). Pandora is run by computer people with an interest in music, and music business people. It can work, but I wouldn't look at it as anything near perfect or even as a reference tool for music in general.
Chesh -- it took Frog Eyes a long time to grow on me, too. I had to be acclimated to Carey's singing via Swan Lake; it was the song Spanish Gold 2044 that did it for me and now I can't get enough Frog Eyes! Tears of the Valedictorian is maybe the most listen-able album of theirs? Or am I just saying that because I read it in Pitchfork?
Josh, did I coin "digital distro?" I don't think so! But hey, I'll take the credit.
Also, once again you commenters rock my world with your depth and civility.
I think that game reviews, as with the review medium in general, do a lot more than shape the tastes of consumers. They can also play a vital role in shaping the future of gaming by critiquing the fundamental assumptions, for example, that developers make about what types of gameplay, subject matter, etc. consumers enjoy. I think that the best reviews within any medium (music, movies, books, etc) have comments for consumers and producers.
This type of reviewing, which critiques and makes suggestions about what will be produced, may not seem of dire necessity for video games at this point. But the game industry is only recently starting to come into its own as a dominant force, a true player in the "entertainment industry." But just think of the other big entertainment industries: music, movies/TV, and books. Without criticism, these industries, which came into their own long ago, would only have time-tested formulas and gimmicks to rest on. The book industry is a slight exception, given that anybody can write a book, and books are, compared to say movies, incredibly cheap to produce. But criticism drives the music and movie industries to a large extent, by not standing by and just rubber-stamping every idea that comes out of the big studios and production houses.
Critics can provide a fresh eye. They can see things in perspective, in interesting contexts. But most importantly, they can provide visions about where these industries might head in the future, primarily because, unlike the industries in question, they risk very little by doing so.
"What was it that someone said about capitalism? It wasn't a good system, but it was the best one we had?"
Churchill said that, and it was democracy not capitalism. ^^
"I read them because I want to more fully understand MUSIC as a whole or GAMING as a whole, and reading reviews and having discussions allows me to do that."
I believe you said everything. I only read movie reviews after i watch them because i can learn the references, the jargons. It's like a language; in order to build your meaning in to the work you must know the words, why the director used that angle, what that angle means in a historical point of view, etc. You can like or dislike but you can’t say that Bach wrote great fugues if you don’t know what a fugue is. And knowing what a fugue is can make you fall in love with Bach. In my personal radical opinion any work is good as long as you project the right interpretation in it, and that’s what I search for in reviews.
There's a bit in Douglas Adams' novel 'Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency' where he explains the very basic appeal of music.
It has a ring of truth to it.
And I think games have an appeal for the same reason he describes the appeal of music.
Don't know if any other reader here has a copy of the book at hand to quote the relevant section.
I just thought of another interesting parallel between the world of music reviews and the world of videogame reviews: genrefication.
In the world of music, particularly electronic music, people desperately struggle to slap genre labels onto every new piece of music that comes out in some attempt to describe it. To a certain extent, genre labels are useful as a consumer because they give you a basic idea of what you are getting into, but at the same time they pigeonhole a lot of artists into categories they don't really belong in. Some are a category of their own. If a reviewer describes some new band as "proggy ambient acid neurotech funk house" I actually have some idea what that might sound like, but at some point don't we have to say that this attempt to genrefy everything has become ridiculous? And the sad thing is, there will be some kid out there that will decide he likes that style and will listen to nothing but proggy ambient acid neurotech funk house. It's all music. To try to cram it in some genre box that doesn't fit shapes people's expectations of what it SHOULD sound like, when the decision of what it SHOULD sound like should be up to the musician as it is his/her creation.
Videogame reviewers are not quite as genre crazed as music reviewers yet, but they seem to be headed down that path. If I said a new game was an FPS, hack n slash, adventure RPG wouldn't you have some idea of what the game would look like? But even though these labels give you a sketch of how the game might play, they don't say much of anything that is actually of value. The game experience isn't about the genre format, it is about the emotions the game's story and atmosphere create, the mastery you feel from the structure of completing objectives, the degree to which you feel at-one-with your character because of the play control and NPC interactions. It's about a lot of things... and a great reviewer can do more than just jam a game into some genre boxes, but instead, actually bring their readers into the gaming experience and say something about how it makes you feel.
The problem with a lot of reviews is that they easily become a vehicle for the journalists ego rather than to use knowledge, skill and curiosity to inspire and teach. That goes for any medium, really, but popular music has arguably suffered from it the most. A beautiful thing about videogame criticism, that I think we still got intact, is that we all share an enthusiasm for great things, whereas in popular music and its vague and shattered set of subcultures there is, in fact, a lot more personalization going on that is more rooted in the discourse than in how the music actually sounds.
One largely heterogenous field, however, is classical music. Art music has a common set of values and conventions built around centuries of shared culture. There are, of course, schisms about interpretations and performance practise and so on. But you can still tell what does or does not work - the quality of the instrumentalists timbre, balanced dynamics, being consistent within a style etc. - on a fairly "consistent scale".
In the same way, I think we still have a lot going for us in the "classic" videogame criticism, seeing as there are a lot of things which still comes down to practical issues. You can criticise levels for being repetitive, you can attack interfaces for being clumsy or experience systems for not being rewarding enough - without offending anyone personally, because no one likes issues like these.
Popular music, however, has become so shattered, diverse, experimental and cross-pollinated that there practically aren't any common values any more. In that way, it reminds more of games where the traditional building blocks, like controlling a character, is not a main factor - you can't criticise "The Passage" for gameplay issues, only how well it gets its point across.
Therefore, I doubt we will someday move out of the need for criticism entirely - there will always be the solid ground ("does it work?") to stand on, as well as the expressive side, and both sides need to be adressed.
I consider many video games to be a form of literature and judge them on that basis. Movies and live theater are also usually considered forms of literature, and many games, especially those in the RPG genre, are as much works of literature as, say, Casablanca.
On the other hand, many games clearly aren't literature. Tetris is a great game, but it's not literature. Neither is Super Mario Bros. What makes games like these great is something altogether separate from literature: their ability to allow a player to enter the mental state known as flow. These games are simply fun to play, and don't aspire to be anything except to be the most fun they can be.
Can most video games on a scale of literariness and "game-ness" with Tetris at one end and, say, Kana Little Sister on the other?
Er, that last sentence should read:
Can most video games be placed on a scale of literariness and "game-ness" with Tetris at one end and, say, Kana Little Sister on the other?
I do enjoy reviews now and then because they can offer some interesting insight and background information that I might otherwise miss. But I've grown weary of them as well as more and more, pressure is being exerted to provide positive reviews or risk getting demos late (or not at all).
Also like all reviews, you run into the problem where you initially liked something, and here comes an "expert" telling you that the game's controls sucked..."but, but I beat the whole game and didn't notice that!"
Games more like music...sure in many ways and in other ways, not so much. I find that they fill in very different needs so to speak. Even just playing a game like Audiosurf (lets you "ride" to any chosen song) and then listening to the same track on its own are two different experiences. But on the other hand, you can also share games with friends thanks to the internet, lan, or even co-op.
One thing about music and games that might differ in the future is input from the user. Good musicians create music on their own terms (otherwise why not let the other guy do it?). Games though are increasingly seeking to get input from their users who are directly interacting with the medium. Some recent good examples are World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2.
“And again, the score comes into play -- a music review analyzes such a range of factors, some personal and subjective and others not, that the number feels necessary to unify the text into a single, understandable rating. The assignment of a number helps readers take what's essentially a stranger's opinion and distill it into a ranking they can weigh against the strength of their own sentiment.”
@Leigh: I get the point, but I am going to disagree with the paragraph’s assumption that a score, for a review, is a necessary component in a reader’s interaction and understanding of the writer’s intentions.
I think the border between reviews as a consumer shopping guide and as an instructive think-piece on the possibilities of the medium has been well-covered in Shawn Elliot’s round-table discussion. I won’t rehash it here. But I do want to say that there needs to be an antidote to the automatic writing and reading that makes up most reviews. There are so many sites, including GIANT BOMB (which I really enjoy) where I look at the score, the summary, and then don’t even bother reading the review because the review itself is pretty much the summary, point by point. It feels much like trying to read a Harry Potter book after watching the movies, and realizing the redundancy of it. It’s hard to have a discussion when a review comes down to “I liked this…” or “that was cool…”
The blogosphere has remedied some of these problems, and hey, I don’t think there’s a problem with consumers wanting a consumer guide. But isn’t that what demos are for?
Yu Zun Kang
Editor-in-Chief
http://www.nomorelives.com
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