Erik Twice Reviews: Overwatch!

[Erik_Twice]

It has been bothering me lately how often people and specially critics judge a game before it has even been played by anyone so I wrote about it. Hope you find the article insightful and we can talk about this.

Ignorance is not Criticism

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[Ack]

I read it, and I agree with you for the most part, though I have mixed feelings on a few points:

1. You mentioned Hotline Miami 2, but that particular criticism was first remarked upon by a journalist who had played the demo. While it isn't the full experience, playing a demo is something that can give the basic feel of the game. It may not establish all of the themes and motifs, but it is something to consider.

2. Certain criticisms and complaints can be leveled solely based on a few images or video clips. The argument about sexism in games often points to how female characters are dressed or physically proportioned, and this can be noted based on a few screenshots. That said, those screenshots will lack context within the game, whih leads me to my next point...

3. Playing a game is necessary to establish the context of paticular imagery that might be labeled "offensive." Now sometimes this context may not change things based upon the initial image: Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball is about females in skimpy clothing and suggestive situations solely for the sake of titlation. And that can be summed up in looking at a couple of images. But on the other end of the scale, you have something like the sex scenes in Mass Effect, which were harshly criticized by journalists who had no concept of context for those scenes and who were arguing from ignorance.

[Erik_Twice]

I know what you mean Ack. I actually thought about expanding on those points while writing the article but it would have lost all focus so I left it out.

It's true that you can gain some insight on a game by watching its trailer or playing its demo. But it's not enough to be fair to it, your readers or the artists and I think they deserve better. And if the concept of social justice is involved, it also deserves better than a skin deep analysis.

Judging a game for its cover is like not wearing your seatbelt. You are safe, until you aren't. Yes, most of the time the shameless pandering will be shameless pandering. But sometimes it will be far more and I'm not willing to fling shit to a game that doesn't deserve it.

EDIT: Here's a better example. Imagine I'm playing Gradius II. What is better:

1) To watch it being played
2) To play only the first three stages
3) To play all the stages.

Obviously the third one will produce a better review and will give my words more weight than 1 and 2.

[isiolia]

I don't think the point was so much to promote ignorance. Really, just the opposite.

I think a good part winds up being something you complained about in the thread about games criticism. That there's less of a "guide" as it were for important games. Part of that results in being able to point at a piece of media as an example for something without having intricate knowledge of every last bit of it.

Someone could, for example, understand what kind of game Gradius II is, what sort of appeal it has to players, whether or not it was well received, how it relates to other games in the genre or in the series, how that genre relates to other genres, and more, without ever even seeing the game.
Their own opinion is subjective, and will change each time they play.

[Erik_Twice]

I'm not quite sure I get what you meant Isiolia, sorry.

[isiolia]

I'm not quite sure I get what you meant Isiolia, sorry.

The essence of the article is to take the principles from the book How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read and apply them to video game discussion. The author references and quotes it fairly prominently, pretty much with a search/replace of "read" with "played".

If you read reviews/synopsis of that book (here's the NYT review for example) it might clarify things.

A good quote from the book to explain:

“As cultivated people know, culture is above all a matter of orientation. Being cultivated is a matter of not having read any book in particular, but of being able to find your bearings within books as a system, which requires you to know that they form a system and to be able to locate each element in relation to the others.”

That's exactly the thing that the Edge column says about GTAV. He hasn't played it, but he knows enough about it to know where it fits in as part of the system of video games.

It's not about ignorance, but more about understanding video games and video gaming in a larger sense. It's something people already do, just like they do with books, movies, or plenty of other things. Consider how many games you're aware of, what they're significance is, how they fit in with other games, and so on...without actually ever needing to play them to find those things out.

[Erik_Twice]

It's one thing to say that being cultivated helps you place games in the wide system of video games (I haven't played Gradius IV, but I can place it in the late 90s, shooter revival) but it's another to argue that your opinion on a game is equally as valid whether you have played it or not, which is one of the points of the article.

For example, he think his opinion on whether GTA V glorifies tourture is valid even if he has never played the game which is the same "I don't need to see shit" that got Coonskin out of the theaters.

[isiolia]

It's one thing to say that being cultivated helps you place games in the wide system of video games (I haven't played Gradius IV, but I can place it in the late 90s, shooter revival) but it's another to argue that your opinion on a game is equally as valid whether you have played it or not, which is one of the points of the article.

For example, he think his opinion on whether GTA V glorifies tourture is valid even if he has never played the game which is the same "I don't need to see shit" that got Coonskin out of the theaters.

Well, it's not an article about critical review though. It's one about discussion.

He doesn't pass judgement on GTAV. His opinion is more one of observation. He did research (such as it is) on the game, and had read discussions regarding whether or not the torture scene succeeded in changing player's views. He felt like it didn't, as apparently did plenty of people who actually pushed the buttons.
That's not a critical review of the game, that's a cultural discussion held about one thing a game tried to work in.

I think his intent (other than writing some click bait) was to encourage non-review type discussion. Practically speaking, it's necessary for approaching gaming in a scholarly way.

[Erik_Twice]

Well, it's not an article about critical review though. It's one about discussion.

Yeah, but why discuss anything when you are knowledgeable about the subject? Why argue that a baseless opinion is as valid as one that is? It's pointless, isn't it?

But I try not to talk about anything I don't know about, so here's that, it's not exclusive to video games.

[isiolia]

Yeah, but why discuss anything when you are knowledgeable about the subject?

Why would you not?

Why argue that a baseless opinion is as valid as one that is? It's pointless, isn't it?
.

Why do you think it's a matter of knowing nothing about whatever is being discussed?

There's quite a lot of you can see about a game without ever actually playing it yourself. Read up on it Wikipedia, watch Lets Plays, read hundreds of pages of forum discussions, etc. That's the kind of knowledge stated in the column.

Besides that though, I think it's intended as a critical thinking exercise of sorts. The way it's titled, like the book he keys off of, is tongue-in-cheek. Do they really mean you shouldn't ever become familiar with the actual content, or spout baseless opinion? Well, no.

The purpose is to consider what's significant about a book/game/whatever in the larger context. The easiest way to shift to that way of thinking is to consider something you haven't played, as you can't just fall back on stating what the content is, or what you happened to think about it at the time.