A Critique on Video Game Criticism
I was 17 years old when I got my first gig as a video game critic. The internet was still relatively new to most people, and I happened upon a website that was publishing daily news and reviews for PC games and actively looking for writers. I applied by writing about some of my favorite games, got the gig, and soon found myself in the enviable position of receiving review copies of games like Quake II, StarCraft, Blade Runner, Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Half-Life and Thief: The Dark Project. It was awesome enough that I got to play them. But even better, I got to write about them, and in greater detail than any of the writers in the gaming magazines I read.
I felt like an expert on video games - definitely more expert than anyone I knew, at least, and certainly better-acquainted with many releases than most people. And, I’ll admit, I had a lot of fun reviewing games as well as interviewing game developers, visiting studios to see games in development, lining up previews and staying on top of the latest gaming news. (My one regret was that I never made it to E3 - the timing just never worked out for me, though many of my friends and fellow writers went and sent me back huge boxes of swag!)
As I got a little older and flipped over to the retail side of things, my confidence in my expertise dissipated as I quickly realized how many more games there were out there than I’d ever bothered to notice. Our PC gaming section alone covered an entire wall and only included recent releases. And then there were the console games and handheld titles, many of which were unfamiliar to me and which had goofy games or premises. My co-workers and I were stunned that horse racing simulators like G1 Jockey existed. We mocked the covers of games like Mobile Light Force (featuring Charlie’s Angels lookalikes), got annoyed by terrible games with nonsensical titles like Gravity Games Bike: Street Vert Dirt and chatted endlessly about odd games we’d discovered in the pre-owned section like Mister Mosquito, Mad Maestro, Intelligent Qube, Chulip, Choro Q and Gitaroo Man. We also became big enthusiasts for unusual titles like Odama, Phantom Dust and Katamari Damacy and were constantly trying to get serious gamers to try out heavily-ignored titles like P.N. 03, Otogi: Myth of Demons and Steambot Chronicles.
As a reviewer, my views on gaming were all about expressing my own preferences, but it was in retail that I learned that many gamers have dramatically different tastes, and it’s important to try to match the game to the gamer. One series that really helped me to understand this was Koei’s Dynasty Warriors, which I personally could not stand due to its shallow mechanics and repetitive gameplay, but which I soon learned had a devoted fanbase who would eagerly pre-order each entry and who’d ignore the scathing critical reviews that bellyached about the very things those players enjoyed about the games.
Another series that sold well despite its low quality was Mortal Kombat, which had long since ceased being an arcade darling by that point and shifted into the doldrums of the Deadly Alliance and Deceptions games. It didn’t matter that the games were b-tier; they were loaded with over-the-top characters, tons of secrets, plentiful unlockables and gory fatalities, and that was all most players really wanted.
2003 was a particularly eye-opening year because so many good games debuted and were largely ignored as gamers instead demanded more first person shooters and open-world experiences like Grand Theft Auto III. I sold far more copies of the forgettable Medal of Honor: Rising Sun and True Crime: Streets of L.A. than the excellent Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy or Beyond Good & Evil in my first year of retail, and I will never forget trying desperately to convince everyone who walked into my store to give the newly-released Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic a chance only to discover that even if they did happen to own an Xbox, they just wanted more games like Halo: Combat Evolved.
As I worked in retail, I continued to read game magazines and review sites, and I began to notice some problems with the ways in which video games were being assessed. Most reviewers weren’t actually that critical and tended to give higher scores to games with established pedigrees (especially Nintendo) and also tended to focus their coverage on big budget games. Previewers were even worse, often spotlighting bad games in a wonderful light. Online sources were often extremely unfair to niche titles. And as the G4 Network began to appear on TV and provide additional commentary, a lot of the discourse was centered around what made for good clips to show on television, not necessarily what made for a great game.
Game reviewers also had a bad tendency to utilize review scales that don’t make any sense. In the 1980s and 90s, many reviewers assessed games on scorecards that would rate things like graphics, sound, polish, design and fun. That actually did make sense because it provided some information that consumers might care about in an era where games weren’t returnable once they’d been opened. But today, most game reviewers utilize a single scale that’s either based around 5 points, 10 points or school-like grades ranging from A to F. One score is meant to encapsulate an entire set of impressions, and predictably, that score usually describes four attitudes:
Great, which is usually reserved for AAA titles with a ton of hype behind them and a blind spot for their noticeable flaws. (I’m looking at you, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.) This is generally represented with a 5/5, 10/10 or A+ rating. It’s the least common range of scores. (User reviews, on the other hand, tend to utilize the “Great” range significantly more often to express excitement, fandom or support for the developer.)
Good, but…, which is more often assigned to games that are actually good but which the reviewer wants to hedge their bets about. This is generally represented with a 4 or 4.5/5, 8 or 9/10 or an A- or B rating. It’s the second most common range of scores.
Mediocre, which is often assigned to niche titles, uninspired sequels and licensed titles. It used to also be the domain of many handheld games prior to the Nintendo Switch. This is generally represented with a 3 or 3.5/5, 7/10 or a C rating. It’s also the most common range of scores.
Bad, which is fairly rarely assigned and usually encompasses a wide range of scores including a 2.5/5 or below, a 6/10 or below or a D or F rating. Surprisingly, it’s nearly as uncommon to see a “Bad” score as a “Great” score in professional reviews. (User reviews, on the other hand, love to utilize the lowest scale point to express displeasure, even for fairly minor issues.)
What’s most damaging about review scores is that they can have very real consequences for game developers because publishers tend to presume that games with good to great scores sell well and games with mediocre scores don’t. But the industry has known for quite some time that it isn’t true and doesn’t fit reality at all. Gamers put far less stock in review scores than they do in familiar franchises, publishers and genres. If a game is buzzy, even if it’s low in quality, it will see a sales bump; if a game is promoted badly, even if it’s exceptionally high in quality, it will be ignored simply because no one is championing it. Reviewers sometimes make it their personal mission to promote a good game that would be otherwise overlooked, but it doesn’t happen often enough.
Worst of all, game reviewers have never seemed to understand actual gamers very well. Most have little idea what went into making a game, and very few seem to have any insight into how people enjoy games once they purchase them. The argument reviewers make about protecting gamers from spending $60-70 on a bad game is also disingenuous; in the old days, it ignored people who rented, traded or borrowed games, or those who’d trade in their games once they completed them. Even today, gamers are using deep discounts, bundles and services like PlayStation Plus or Xbox GamePass to get access to huge amounts of games for a very low cost. Many big games also have a free to play component or free weekends. I’d argue that time, not money, is the real barrier to gaming these days.
It was during my time in retail that my misgivings with game reviews really took root. They’ve only grown in the time since then.
Game Reviews Fall Into Familiar Patterns
One of the problems with much of the content regarding games in both print and audiovisual media is that it’s often narrowly focused on a handful of different narratives that assess games using the following schema:
The latest and greatest, typically accompanied by a significant amount of hype for what’s inbound on current platforms. The gaming enthusiast press has long been susceptible to manipulation from the marketing departments of developers and publishers, and over the decades, there’s been a noticeable disconnect between pre-release and post-release coverage of hotly-anticipated games. A recent example is CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, which previewers couldn’t praise highly enough, but which was beaten bloody once reviewers got their turn to speak up.
The best of the best, which are a handful of titles that pretty much everyone agrees are good (or are at least popular enough to be well-liked). There’s only so much coverage one can read about Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. 3, Mega Man II, Street Fighter II, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, Doom, Tomb Raider, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, Halo: Combat Evolved, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Batman: Arkham City, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Elden Ring and other titles like them. They’re great games, but they’re the icing on the cake in terms of what’s available.
The franchise entries, which tend to be games that are part of lengthy series or franchise like Castlevania, Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, Dynasty Warriors, Shin Megami Tensei, Final Fantasy, Ratchet and Clank, Battlefield, Call of Duty or Yakuza/Like a Dragon. There’s usually at least one game in these franchises that is regarded as being a “best of the best” title, but many others which aren’t as popular. Being part of a series or franchise is an important marketing tool because it improves overall interest and sales; it’s much easier for a publisher to sell a spin-off of an existing game than to create an entirely new IP, and it’s also more fun for gamers to imagine how games are connected. It also guarantees that audiences will be more likely to remember your game down the road.
The pop culture staples, which tend to be games that are either connected to other media (films, comics, TV shows, books, manga, anime, etc.), which feature crossovers of popular characters or which are connected to real-world licenses like professional sports, wrestling or racing. Even poorly-made games that are connected to a popular license tend to be played and remembered; for example, who can forget the awful Mortal Kombat spin-offs and PS2-era sequels or the wide selection of truly terrible superhero-themed games like Silver Surfer, Superman: The New Superman Adventures, Batman: Dark Tomorrow or Iron Man 2 that have come and gone over the last four decades?
The niche hits, which tend to be games that have a smaller group of vocal fans, which reviewed well and sold decently upon release and which still have commercial value despite a limited appeal. Often, they’re created by smaller developers or are intended to be side projects between major releases, but sometimes, they become long-running series of their own or inspire many spiritual successors. Some examples would include Silent Hill 2, Katamari Damacy, Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed, Catherine or the Danganronpa games as well as series with recent entries like Deception IV: Nightmare Princess, Earth Defense Force 5 or Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories.
The slow burners, which tend to be games that are notable or special today but weren’t that popular upon release (even if the critics were really pulling for them). Some examples would include Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, Ico, Demon’s Souls, Spec Ops: The Line or Vanquish.
The cult classics, which tend to be games that are notable or special today but lacked commercial appeal when they were released. Some examples would include KISS: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child, Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, The Typing of the Dead, Killer7, Odama or Wet.
Kusoge (Japanese for “crappy game”), which tend to be games that are so legendarily awful that the entertainment comes from something other than the gameplay. Examples include The Cheetahmen II, Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool, Guardians of the ‘Hood, the Mega Man DOS games, Super 3D Noah’s Ark, Tattoo Assassins, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing or Deadly Premonition.
Bakage (Japanese for “stupid game”), which tend to be games that are intended to be ridiculous and which were primarily made for their comedic value or over-the-top storylines. Examples include Parodius, Cho Aniki, Lollipop Chainsaw, Metal Wolf Chaos, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse and NARC.
Unless you’re really, deeply into gaming as a hobby, I’d wager most games that you have heard of fit neatly into one of these categories, and the narrative surrounding each of them is practically a boilerplate by now.
Three More Destructive Narratives
But what about everything else? There are many, many other games that are just overlooked because they didn’t attract enough attention for anyone to care about them or because they lacked the commercial appeal or buzzworthiness to stay relevant past their initial release and review period. Digital games are also frequently ignored because they aren’t released with any sort of marketing support and thus don’t seem to be worthy of a write-up unless a reviewer has a personal affinity for them.
There are also plenty of legitimately bad games that are neither fun to play nor worthy of anyone’s attention, but these titles rarely attract enough interest to warrant a serious review. Unfortunately, these lead to three other categories that tend to reoccur within gaming media that are a bit more destructive.
So bad it’s good, which tend to be those sorts of games that are so bizarre or broken that they’re still fun to try so you can join in the chorus of hating on them. Often, there’s significant context as to why they’re so bad, and at the very least, they tend to get a fairer shake because they’re profiled, explained and recontextualized. Even so, once a game gets labeled as bad and is treated as such by the fandom, that IP loses most of its luster – just ask the developers of recent remakes like Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn or Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back or sequels like Deadly Premonition 2.
So bad I’m angry, which is an attitude unfortunately inspired by satirical media like Seanbaby’s reviews of little girls’ handheld games or James Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd videos*. As often happens with satire, many audience members and imitators don’t get the joke and instead think that the outrage is what they’re supposed to mirror back at the gaming community. This creates toxicity around many gaming spaces and makes it hard to have a serious discussion about any game that seems easier to mock than to play. It also creates a disincentive to actually play games that angry critics have already savaged since it’s so much easier to just take their word for it.
*A NOTE ON THE NERD: While I love the AVGN as entertainment and think Rolfe generally does a good job of presenting context, I sometimes cringe at the way the Nerd centers his experience on terrible ports of otherwise decent games (with one notable example being Hydlide, an important and influential JRPG that was localized badly for the NES). But I’ll also give him credit for actually playing the games through himself and articulating insightful points about his experiences. He’s also put out videos revising his opinions as he’s matured, which I think speaks to his quality as a gaming personality. It’s his fans and imitators who tend to be the problem.So old it’s bad, which is an attitude often expressed by younger gamers who aren’t interested in playing the games their parents are always championing. This viewpoint was particularly prevalent in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s and became so toxic that many publishers were afraid of creating games that included pixel art because their perception was that most gamers only wanted things that looked new and cutting-edge by showcasing 3D graphics. That led to many years of popular games that were mechanically and visually similar, and it wasn’t until indie games and retro gaming began making a big comeback in the 2010s (and when popular games like Minecraft and Roblox made pixels, voxels and chunky polygons fashionable again) that the broader audience of gamers and content producers started recognizing that “old” didn’t equal “bad.”
While all of these categories have been problematic for the gaming community, the reaction to the “so old it’s bad” attitude in particular has also produced two groups of gamers who are equally insufferable: the elitists who lord their love of retro games over others in a holier-than-thou fashion (often complaining about modern games being too easy or not deep enough) and the tourists who only want to assess retro games by the standards of today (often favoring easily accessible games over any that provide the least bit of complication).
My Own Attitude is Different
I tend to approach games as an exploration rather than an evaluation, and as a result, I play them with an earnest desire to find the fun before I write them off. I’ve found that most professionally-created games, if given a chance, do have a kernel of fun to them, and if I take the time to understand what the game is about and what it’s trying to get me to do, I can often make the most of my gameplay experience.
I wasn’t always this way, of course; as a younger gamer working as a PC game reviewer, I had very strong opinions about what was good and what was not, and I was quite prone to beating up on the easy targets simply because it was fun to do. Later on when I worked in video game retail, I again expressed very strong opinions about what customers might enjoy and what they should avoid. But in both of those jobs, I was at least exposed to games I might have otherwise avoided, and I learned that there was a big difference between having a critical eye for flaws and a cynical attitude towards things I didn’t want to like.
I also learned how little I actually knew about gaming, and I committed myself to learning more at every opportunity. Even during my research for this book series, I’ve found that what I thought I knew only scratched the surface of what there was to know and experience about gaming. I love that, and I’m hopeful that as you read this series, you’ll discover the joy of exploring games that aren’t as well known today, but which are still a lot of fun once you take the time to get into them.
Game Criticism Needs to Evolve
The sad truth is that video game reviews are now so deeply enmeshed with video game marketing that the reviewers themselves provide very little value to gamers as critics - their job to ring the glorious bells game publishers have set up to announce the arrival of new releases, only occasionally sounding the alarm when a hotly-anticipated title is off. More often than not, bad reviews are reserved for games that never looked good to begin with, and reviewers also love to pull the knives out and pop the hype balloon every now and then for titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Anthem or No Man’s Sky when it’s clear that they’ll get rewarded with clicks for doing so.
And what do bad reviews usually focus on? Quite often, it’s bugs caused by games rushed to publish before they’re ready - bugs that eventual players might not even see because they’re patched out by the time the game is available to play! For over 15 years, there’s been a big difference between the release code reviewers play and the actual game version gamers play. What’s more, further patches, modifications, DLC packs and overhauls can make a base game quite different as the years go by. Game reviewers very rarely go back and re-evaluate if a later patch improves upon a game; they insist their initial impressions are the ones that matter.
(In a strange double-standard, there are times when reviewers ignore bugs or flaws. Overwatch shipped with many of its promised features missing; many reviewers praised it and ignored its considerable limitations under the assumption those features would eventually manifest. Baldur’s Gate 3 shipped with nearly a third of the game buggy and borderline unplayable; few reviewers called that out because they assumed official patches and player mods would eventually fix the problem.)
Beyond that, there’s also little value in the written reviews anymore because very few people actually bother to read them. This is evidenced in the comment section for many reviews where most comments react to the score, not the reviewer’s actual impressions. Content writers know they’re just feeding algorithms and Metascores, and the review embargo terms of the modern era often place strict limits on what they can actually say anyhow.
Streaming and playthrough videos have also provided a much stronger argument for gamers to watch the games they want to play before they play them and to then allow their preferred communities to shape their decision-making. Personally, I feel this is a nice evolution on reviewing anyhow because it provides would-be buyers with the information they need to make a decision: “Gee, this game sure does look fun, but it’s mostly just cool cutscenes and boring gameplay. I’ll save myself $60 and just watch the story for free online.” Streamers can even answer questions live for those curious about certain features. There’s far more transparency about what a game really is and far less need for imprecise written impressions.
The Role of the Game Critic in the 2020s
What, then, is the role of the critic in an era where anyone can just watch a stream or pre-recorded video of a new game and see what it has to offer, and when the roughest edges of games are bound to be patched, modded or evolved upon? It’s a tough question. Game reviewers ceded the ground of being tastemakers long ago by getting too cozy with marketers, and if the score is all most readers care about, written reviews seem to be an exercise in futility. The endless focus on high review scores also is quite limiting to most critics’ imaginations; they tend to reference the same old games over and over when they’re comparing new titles to past ones, and they often get stuck in the pattern of assuming that the bigger a game’s budget, the worthier it is of a detailed evaluation.
Where I find game reviewers most valuable today is when they take time to write a piece about a game that’s lesser known that they have found some personal affinity for - usually a downloadable title that was built by someone as a passion project rather than for commercial appeal and which speaks to that reviewer on a far deeper level than the latest Assassin’s Creed or Call of Duty game might. And that, I’d argue, is where game criticism probably should shift its focus down the road: away from being an instrument of marketing departments for large publishers and more towards helping gamers connect with lesser-known titles from deserving creators who aren’t getting nearly the same exposure or level of discourse.
The critique reviewers provide can also shift away from the narrative of whether or not a game is good enough to play - as we’ve established in my piece on the reason for this series, nearly all games are! - and instead discuss why a game is good to play and how it stands apart from the other offerings available on the same marketplaces. That would be valuable.
And those nearly useless review scores that might as well be four points (“bad,” “mediocre,” “good…” but and “great”) instead of five or ten? They’d also be a lot more helpful on an aggregator like Metacritic for helping to ensure that the lesser-known games still get indexed and have some representation outside their marketplaces.