Best Description of Critics -- Ever

[mike_intellivision]

Desroko said:

mike_intellivision said:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

 

For those who do not recognized this, the above words are the beginning of the speech by Anton Ego (food critic) in the Pixar-Disney film Ratatouille.  

But I also thought it was a great statement in general on the self-importance and lack of real importance of critics. This seems to be especially relevant to game reviews this generation.  

Thoughts?

Personally, I feel it provides perspective to the philosophy that  reviewers define AAA games (where the term's generally-accepted origin was the emphasis the developer/studio placed on the game).

Mike from Morgantown

 

 

I think there's a difference between a critic who attempts to qualify a work, and a reviewer, who merely seeks to quantify it. The best critics can incisively analyze a work, pull apart its themes, pick apart its details, and put them back together in such a way that that the reader can follow and achieve a greater understanding, as if they'd had a window into the artist's mind at the time of creation

A reviewer watches or plays a movie or game and assigns a number based on whether it was "bad-ass," "awesome," "okay," "boring," or "gay."

The videogame industry, from what I've seen, has no critics. It has a ton of reviewers, who sustain on themsevles on blind loyalty/hostility to a given system, schwag, and a rather pathetic sort of pride that comes from the towering achevement of their lives - getting their games website listed on Metacritic.

I do not wish to get into an argument on semantics. However, I stand by the original point that those who provide reviews for video games think themselves self-important but are really not important.

(I also feel that critic as it is used with respect to restaurants is much more in line with reviewer than with traditional literary criticism).

 

Mike from Morgantown