One thing I can’t stand about a lot of gamers is their
inability to ‘critique’ games within the context of their genre. In a medium
that has a large portion of its consumer base passionately indulging in
self-proclaimed truths, assumptions of game design rooted in farcical
dogma, and an overbearing sense of self-entitlement, you’d think that, at the
very least, these people would be able to differentiate a third-person-shooter,
a sandbox, and the conventions between them.
Truth be told I spend a lot some of my time browsing
user forums because I have no life for the sake of research. It’s always
good to touch base with gaming communities to understand the mindset of your
fellow consumers; they’re the ones that ultimately decide which franchises will
continue to thrive and those that will be left to wither and die, at least in
most cases. Remember kids; nothing speaks to a corporation more than your wallet
– so before you exert any misplaced rage on a company for releasing Gears of Halo Theft Auto V: stop, evaluate your library of games, and then reconsider your
spending habits accordingly.
But back to the nitty gritty – many a time you’ll notice
people complaining about aspects of a game that really shouldn’t hold much
weight in judging its overall merit. Let’s look at, say, modern Japanese action
games, or ‘hack and slashers’ if you will. Here’s a short list to give you an
idea of the titles I’m talking about:
There are minor differences between these five titles – some
are more linear, some are a bit more open-ended in terms of exploration (though
not by much, I assure you) – but they all share the same significant qualities:
ludicrous story, shallow protagonist, high-octane action, inhumane standards of
finesse and (optional) brutal difficulties. Once you take a step back and
notice that pretty much all of the
games in this respective genre share this list of attributes (go figures,
right?), nagging about any of them is not a constructive critique by any means,
it’s simply expressing your distaste for the things that are expected from them in the first place.
So no, a breakdown of MGR:R’s story and how it’s
unfathomable from start to finish isn’t a reasonable endeavor in showing its
faults, it’s a whine. Why? Because who cares about the fucking story? It
wasn’t a selling point from the get-go, what matters is how awesome it is to
effortlessly chop a dude to bits because you’re a FREAKING CYBORG NINJA. The same goes for the other games I’ve
mentioned as well; it’s not about the story, it’s about playing as a character
that’s a total badass, doing badass shit, like taking out a battalion of mutant
freaks with nothing but your machismo (or boobies if you’re a lady) and cheap
one-liners.
Am I saying that you’re not allowed to have your own
preferences in games? Of course not, this is an industry in which success is
based largely on subjective criteria, but we’ve reached a point where there are
solidified genres that hold certain characteristics – bitching about linearity
in DMC or the absurd girth of Jack Cayman’s neck is equivalent to fussing about
the family friendly appeal in Mario; it’s pointless. and makes you sound
like a whiny prick.
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