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Khuutra on 27 October 2011
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Kantor said:
Khuutra said:


Reviewers and the publications for which they write are not single entities, and every review publication - including this one, to the best of my knowledge - has warnings to that effect. No two reviewers are obligated to sync up for reviews, and no publication is obligated to make sure that they do so. If that's the aim of a publication, that's a horse of a different color, but not aiming for that can hardly be considered a fault.

You do not write reviews for fans of the game you're reviewing. You write it for all gamers, but you primarily write it for yourself. If you cannot communicate what you see as problems with the game, you have no place as a reviewer in the publication for which you write.

More, quantifying pros and cons is problematic on its own. How does one qualify the railroading of Uncharted as inherently positive or negative? How does one say that it's inherently a good thing that the game's most bombastic scenarios will play out in basically the same way every time, and that the danger is largely illusory and scripted? How does one say that it's inherently negative that you know when a building is going to fall over with you in it? You can't. The aim to quantify design as good or bad is a fool's errand. All one can do is offer one's own take.

Here is what separates a good review on a website from a good review on, say, Amazon: nothing. Both will be erudite, well-written, and communicate what the writer sees as good or bad in the game. Over the course of the review, the value set of the reviewer will be revealed in what they see as good or bad. If that's not the case then they are not writing an honest review.

If a publication doesn't aim for some sort of collaboration on reviews, why have a publication at all? The whole point is that the site should speak with something resembling one single voice.

You don't write it for yourself, you write it as yourself. You don't need to actively shove your own views in, because they come out naturally. Those are the easiest things to describe. If there's a flaw which you don't think is important, however, you do still have to mention it. Similarly, if there's a part of the game which you didn't really like but which you can see that other people would clearly like, you should mention that it's possible to like it. The size of the latter category of comments can be minimised by choosing a reviewer who actually likes the genre and the game's style, like the majority of people who are considering buying it.

The railroading of Uncharted 3 isn't positive or negative by itself, and that's exactly my point. The reviewer clearly doesn't like it, but fails to account for the fact that other people do. This in particular is just absurd:

"Your freedom of choice risks ruining the shot. Indeed, throughout the game, if you jump into an area you are not supposed to visit, Drake will crumple on the floor dead, Naughty Dog switching role from movie director to vindictive god. That is not your predestined path: Game Over."

Your freedom of choice? Since when has Uncharted, or any remotely linear game, had anything resembling freedom of choice? You walk down a narrow corridor and shoot whoever they tell you to shoot, solve the puzzles they tell you to solve and scale the walls they tell you to scale. If any action adventure TPS has deviated from that formula, please tell me about it, because it could potentially be quite brilliant.

Absolutely, some people - RPG fans for instance - might hate being "railroaded" like that, and knowing this (because, sure, you should mention it) would know to stay far away from Uncharted 3. If indeed, the reviewer is one of those people, he really shouldn't be reviewing Uncharted 3, because the target audience, not being morons, know that they like linear games. Not only does he only give one side of this (other than briefly mentioning graphics) but he spends a whopping five paragraphs bashing an intentional, omnipresent and clearly well-liked design choice. His opinion is valid, because no player's opinion is invalid, but his review is invalid because it approaches the game from entirely the wrong perspective.

Nothing separates a good critic review from a good user review, except quite often length, but the majority of user reviews aren't good at all. The difference between a good critic review and your average user review is that the user will either rant about the game or shower it with love and give it somewhere between 0 and 2 or 9 and 10, and a critic review will look fairly at aspects of the game's presentation, execution and design and describe why each of these is a good or bad thing, or in the case where it is ambiguous, like here, why it could be good or bad, with a clear focus on the audience for whom you are reviewing.

And to commit the cardinal sin of looking at the score, deducting 20% because you have moral problems with linear games is a little harsh, especially when the game's predecessor is by your own description "flawless" or "masterful" if you prefer.


Publications exist because it is impossible for single reviewers to review every single major game that comes out. No one man has the time or the energy. You are placing an onus on publications that does not exist.

There is no wrong perspective from which to approach a game, just perspectives which some readers are free to ignore.

His review is perfectly in keeping with his value set. It's not his job to say "I didn't like this, but maybe you would", it's his job to say "I had a problem with this". That is Eurogamer's modus operandi.

These requirements you place on reviewers don't really exist.