Reviews/Criticism: Describing a Game vs. Analyzing it

[Ethan Gach]

Some pont not too long ago there was a conversation between people who I don't remember at the moment about reviews that are, what I'll call for lack of a better phrase, skin deep.

 

They present an interesting take on a game, but don't necessarily justify or go deeper into why they came to that conclusion, or what exactly happens in the game, or in their time with it, that (may) have resulted in their experience with it.

 

I actually find "product review" type reviews better in this regard. They might lack ambition or something interesting to say, but they are often more grounded in the text, in actual examples from the game and an analysis of the gameplay/mechanics (the content and its execution/what's playbale and how it's playable/blah blah--I know there's plenty of disagreement on concieving of it this way, but just to bracket that for the moment...)

 

On the otherhand, lots of reviews that attempt to do more--to discuss a player's interaction with the game or something more that it does beyond how "fun" it is (while being limited by the review form it sticks to), get so lost in asserting and describing the game as it was experienced by the player that they often fail to dig deep into considering why--why did it lead to that experience--would it lead to that way for many people or was there something in the game that uniquely engendered that response in me, etc.

 

One example, and I invite disagreement, is this review from KS by Jon Ivers of Fire Emblem. I take an abnoxiously long winded line of questioning in the comments. Now I personally had many problems with the game, despite being someone who's both a fan of the genere and the sub-genre it's working from. But I'm not knocking Ivers for coming to a different conclusion about the game, or having a different experience with it, so much as I'm frustrated with his (and many other reviews) that do such a poor job of explaining how they came to that conclusion, or why they experienced what they did with the game.

 

In trying to write something for somewhat popular consumption, I understand not writing a 5K dissection of game. But I think more non-blog reviews could stand to go two or three levels deeper in the "but why" territory than most do. Most seem to stop at one: This and this, because of that and that. This is (to me) unsatisfying and inadaquate though.

[John Brindle]

I think this is often true, but I would also note the film critic V.F. Perkins' claim that description is always a kind of analysis, and that description done well can be good analysis. That is, by choosing careful, potent and unusual words and phrases to describe things, you end up making claims about them which are analytically valid and deep. There's an excellent article where he just describes a scene in the Humphrey Bogart movie In A Lonely Place, blow by blow, but his description says a lot about those scenes and how they work.

[Alan Williamson]

That review for KS was particularly superficial! I see where John is coming from RE: description in itself being analysis, but then what's to separate an act of 'criticism' from a preview, or even the back of the box? There is - has always been - a bad habit of reviewers rattling off this:

- Introduction about how you 'are' the character (see Dishonored) or a really dry opener about the developer if they're particularly tactless
- Plot from the back of the box
- What does it look like?
- A list of features
- A penultimate paragraph of niggles
- 'Niggles aside', final hyperbolic paragraph plus score.

But I think the lack of in-depth criticism in a review is a byproduct of their rushed nature. If you're working to a deadline then there's barely enough time to finish the game, let alone play and replay, fleshing out the details. Basically, I think reviews are getting better where they've always been decent and no better where they've always been bad, but the only way to do real criticism of mechanics and themes is outside the context of a traditional buyers guide. There's a big difference in the way I write a review for Square Go and Split Screen.

[Maddy Myers]

I already linked Andrew Vanden Bossche's "review advice" post in a different thread, I think, but I'm going to leave it here again because it is 1. great and 2. applicable.

http://www.mammon-machine.com/post/42805935533/review-criticism-a-dead-space-3-review-reignites-the

It's a decent response to when Ethan said, "I actually find "product review" type reviews better in this regard. They might lack ambition or something interesting to say, but they are often more grounded in the text, in actual examples from the game and an analysis of the gameplay/mechanics (the content and its execution/what's playbale and how it's playable/blah blah--I know there's plenty of disagreement on concieving of it this way, but just to bracket that for the moment...)"

Vanden Bossche likes personal writing and all that it entails, but he still believes a game review should contain certain information. I think everybody can get on board with him on most of what he writes here, whether they're fans of Personal Games Writing or just want "product reviews" or what. In particular, his words that "there is no such thing as an objective review, remember? So the only way to write a good one is to be as detailed as possible, to punch down your reaction so specifically that someone can read it and decide whether they agree with your reasons or if they don’t, and even if they don’t, they’ll still understand better how the game works and probably even why they like it in the first place. I have instantly bought games because of bad reviews because the author was specific enough for me to be like, “you may hate that, but I know for a fact I would LOVE it.”"

When I write a review, I want to make sure the audience knows whether or not they will like it. For me, that requires describing as many different aspects of the game as I can, as clearly as I can. I don't think I always succeed, especially if I have a strict word count order, but that's my goal, at any rate. I ask: how do the mechanics work together and set a tone? Is that tone unified throughout the game? If not, why not, and do the artistic and mechanical decisions throughout make sense in relation to one another? Is anything broken, contradictory, or unintentionally/accidentally good? Is the purposefully-intended-to-blow-your-mind stuff actually that exciting or fun?

This discussion probably ties back to most game journos' love of distinguishing between "this is a game review" and "this is games criticism," which ... actually isn't a distinction I like to make, because I am a snob and I think everything I do is criticism. I'll still call a game review a game review, I just think my game reviews are criticism. I don't know.

I guess I think a good game review should have everything: the "review"-like discussion of mechanics, but also the "criticism"-like analysis of how all the moving pieces fit together, if they even do. I realize this requires the reviewer to sink a ton of time, thought, and energy into the game, though, which is probably why I'm so sleep-deprived every time I'm assigned to review a game.

[psepho]

I think Alan's point gets right to the heart of it. The critical conversation hangs on the tail of the journalistic conversation around launch which in turn hangs on the tail of the pre-launch PR story. The result is that critical reactions are often people giving their first impressions and writing for readers who are also in the process of forming their first impressions.

Case in point Bioshock Infinite has been out for less than a month but dozens of people have already written on it (which I will read when I finally finish the game). Criticism in the heat of the moment may be great. But I think there is also a place for more analytic criticism once the dish has cooled. For example, Robert Yang's design-oriented writing about Thief. Unfortunately, that kind of criticism which is served cold doesn't get the same degree of exposure for obvious reasons of (lack of) topicality.

Hopefully, spaces like Five out of Ten and other publications that are less hooked into to the launch cycle will encourage more writers to look at games with a bit more distance.

[10rdBen]

Bruno Latour basically is of the opinion that it should be "all description, all the time". Here's a couple quotes from a page of Reassembling the Social:

“…we worry that by sticking to description there may be something missing, since we have not ‘added to it’ something else that is often call[ed] an ‘explanation’. And yet the opposition between description and explanation is another of these false dichotomies that are to be put to rest – especially when it is ‘social explanations’ that are to be wheeled out of their retirement home.
...
Either the networks that make possible a state of affairs are fully deployed – and then adding an explanation will be superfluous – or we ‘add an explanation’ stating that some other actor or factor should be taken into account, so that it is the description that should be extended one stop further.
...
If a description remains in need of an explanation, it means that it is a bad description.” (Latour, Reassembling the Social, p.137)

[Sylvain L.]

I like Arthur Danto on that question of the description: "To seek a neutral description is to see the work as a thing and hence not as an artwork: it is analytical to the concept of an artwork that here has to be an interpretation." And our description will always be grounded is some theory, because "without theories of art, black paint is just black paint, and nothing more." (In Transfiguration of the Commonplace). When we describe a painting, we do not say "there's a batch of red paint here and some green there", we say "there's a red farm on a green pasture".

We can debate whether games are art or not, but Danto's point still stands for any kind of representation: without any theories of art, a pixel is just that, a pixel, and can never represent something else. So, yeah, a description, simple as it may be, is always an interpretation, because we always make claims on how the game work and mean as we describe it (and in that sense, previews and back-of-the-boxes are a form of low or basic criticism). 

In my mind, good criticism is a more complete description of the writer's experience with the game (or of one aspect of that experience).

[Alan Williamson]

(Edited for typos) I agree with a lot of this (and not just Maddy's response!). It is important to remember that reviews are a buyer's guide for many readers, whether that's your intention or not. The way I prefer to look at a game is: is this game worthy of your time, no matter what the cost? This means that for me, certain questions arise:

- Does this game piss me off more than it entertains me? To what extent do the inevitable flaws diminish the experience?
- Do I think about it when I'm finished? Do I want to play it again? Does it leave me confused or enlightened? Is it internally and externally consistent?
- How does it achieve the conclusions drawn from the previous two questions?
- Who, if anyone, should play this?

I don't think an informal separation of reviews and criticism does any harm besides journalism flame wars: someone interested in playing Spec Ops The Line might not learn whether it appeals to their interests from reading Killing is Harmless. It is functionally different from a review and it seems folly to pretend otherwise. Reviews and criticism should both be critical, though, and the problem with the review in the OP and the Arthur Gies Dead Space 3 review is that they just aren't critical. They're shallow and unenlightening.

Not ashamed to say that the Latour stuff went completely over my head (I studied social constructionism as part of my Psychology degree and I thought it was a load of bollocks) however with the Danto quote:

"When we describe a painting, we do not say "there's a batch of red paint here and some green there", we say "there's a red farm on a green pasture"."

I think that actually, game boxes, previews and some reviews do exactly that! How many weapons, how many maps, how many polygons on a character, the length of the game... what are these if not an experience described in terms of the abstract, devoid of their true meaning to the player? That's where the writing falls short: it is so bland and unopinionated that other art critics like Danto see such description as beyond the realm of possibility.