| Garcian Smith said: I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Craig Harris' awful New Super Mario Bros. Wii review: http://wii.ign.com/articles/104/1044744p2.html |
That Harris quote is funny for a few reasons. I mean... what's a game critic's job if it isn't ultimately to let his audience know if they'll enjoy a game or not? And who's his audience if not primarily gamers?
If "as a gamer" he loves NSMBWii, then shouldn't that also be his critical opinion? But instead he writes as though critics are looking at issues that wouldn't necessarily matter to a gamer. That there are "flaws" with this game that won't bother the people playing it, but that must matter to him as a critic, for some unspecified reason. A higher mission, if you will, or a greater agenda.
This sentence aside and regarding all of these suspect reviews that ping Nintendo games 'cause of "lack of innovation" while praising run-of-the-mill FPS sequels, and lack of online multiplayer while ignoring the shrinking single player campaigns and caustic online environments of some of the competition, I think that it's almost always a mistake to concentrate on what something "lacks" rather than what it provides.
