| Veknoid_Outcast said: I see what you are saying. But I think both groups of reviewers can find a middle ground between elitism and populism. A movie critic who pans the popular and cherishes the off-beat regardless of quality is pretty useless. But so is a video game critic who panders to his or her audience. As far as the other point, the one about enjoyment, I think that all boils down to taste. Movie critics have seen hundreds more movies than the average filmgoer. They've seen movies from hundreds of countries throughout the entire 20th century. As a result their tastes tend to be different from those who have seen fewer movies. When they give a perfect score to a movie that is seen by the majority of the population as dense, boring, or otherwise unwatchable, I believe the critics truly believe it to be great (and enjoyable), and truly mean to recommend it to their audience. I happen to think movies like Citizen Kane, L'Atalante, and Ivan the Terrible are all-time great movies, but I imagine many of my peers would find them terribly mind-numbing. It's really all about taste. And tastes change as more media is consumed. |
I agree completely. Enjoyment is incredibly subjective. I'm the first to admit there are some poorly made games that I enjoy playing, and there are some poorly made movies I enjoy watching. One the other hand, there are some games that critics seem to consider well-made, quality titles that I just find boring (pretty much every shooter falls into this category for me-I probably wouldn't even finish them if they were more than 5-6 hours long).
Just for reference, I fall into the category of not trusting video-game reviews at all, not because there objectively bad, but because they don't reflect my taste in games at all. And yes, Citizen Kane is a great movie. I finally watched it over the summer : )
