@MarcelRguez i do think were talking about different things, though a also apparently didn't correctly convey whay i was trying to. On mobile so i cant give the long reply i should.... so I'll have to offer a raincheck
The short is, you're talking about reviewing games as art..... there IS a place for that, but it's not in conventional reviews. That's a product review about a functional product..... not about cultural significance. Not all games have artistic significance but all are products to assess. And yes opinion enters into it..... that part is apparently harder to explain how it factors in which probably explains why so few critics get it right
But from there....ideology, cultural impact etc doesn't belong in a game review a.k.a. product review, more than in passing. I'm not against that kind of evaluation taking place, but it's just a different type of article, and can't apply to all games. ARMS reviews shouldn't soul search about how it exemplifies the struggle for success in a material world , it should discuss if it's a good balanced deep fighting game, or is good fir casual audiences, and if it's unique bullet points on the tin work out well or or detract from the gameplay. ) the last thing i want to see is more arthouse praise for mediocre games! Were definitely in strong disagreement on that one. A game review is more like a vacuum cleaner review than a film review in that it reviews a products function, value, and yes, opinion based evaluation of if what it does it does well, and contrast to other examples, and it's overall experience. It's a subjective look at objective views. Modern critics though would ding a vacuum if their bowling ball can't fit in the hose
The trouble though is how many games are really only about interactive story telling these days, so there's not much else about it to review, so must critics basically review production value and little else. Not so much in Nintendo space but elsewhere. That want the way of things back in my era
@jaxonh every game that isn't simply broken or bad in design, or an obvious cash in (all their own critiqe points) is fun. The trick is identifying WHO would find it fun, no matter how small the niche. If it doesn't fit the above problems is guaranteed to be fun to some niche. IMO a good review should be able to identify what individual tastes it appeals to. even if it's to small a group to be profitable to the devs, readers might like to know if it might be their niche
@NEStalgia
No, I don't agree with that at all. Fun is not some attribute characteristic, its variable. No two games are the same exact level of fun. It's all a sliding scale. What people care about is whether that slider is past the "worth buying" threshold.
Being fun is not something guaranteed. Some games are funner than others, and alot of times the whole is NOT equal to the sum of its parts.
Just look at half the modern western AAA games released like a machine spit them out. Good graphics. Check. Snazzy presentation. Check. Copy paste gameplay. Check.
And most of them are mediocre at best. Some games are simply not fun no matter how "well designed" they are. And that is an opinion, which means opinion matters. The best way to judge how fun a game is, is by the intensity of the hardcore fans.
It's why some games can have perfect performance and nobody cares much, yet other games can have serious flaws yet go down in history with a hardcore dedicated fanbase.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
@NEStalgia
There's a reason Tetris will never win GotY. It's just not as fun as other games. You could have an immaculate Tetris game, and it will still never be considered the best game a person has ever played. Even if people like it, the intensity of the fan excitement tells all. You'll never see someone raging about a Tetris game like someone who just played Zelda Breath of the Wild. You just won't.
@JaxonH tetris is a perfect 10. Tell a tetris enthusiast is not the best. Dozens of goty games may come and go and be long forgotten, yet tetris will still endure. It does whay it does better than anything in is class with a simplicity yet depth that addicts at all levels. If any game is a 10, tetris is that game.
That's why i still hate numeric scores. You'd rate tetris below botw. But that's scarcely right to tetris, the 30+ year old king of all puzzlers, and inventor of it's sub-genre. Both are 9-10s. You can't rate across genres like that. FIFA vs Zelda can't be compared "which is better". Or more fun.
I actually pretty much entirely agree with your first post. It's part of what i was trying to say actually. But every Gabe is still fun to some niche. Those western aaa games are the most fun games to the graphics snobs. A review should account for that audience.... not in score so much as in text.
BTW.... got my anker! Taking a white to charge though.... they say 4.5 hours. Seems more like 10-15% an hour to me....
It's just not as fun as other games. You could have an immaculate Tetris game, and it will still never be considered the best game a person has ever played.
Wrong on both points. First off, nothing is inherently fun in and of itself, apart from the preferences of people, and almost everything is fun to somebody. This is because "fun" is relational in nature: how you, with your history and personal preferences, relate to a piece of media.
I'm sure there are at least some people who will play Puyo Puyo Tetris, for example, and think it's the best game they've ever played.
Even if people like it, the intensity of the fan excitement tells all. You'll never see someone raging about a Tetris game like someone who just played Zelda Breath of the Wild. You just won't.
There are people who are far more excited for Puyo Puyo Tetris, to use the example again, than any other game released this year, including Zelda. Are they the norm? No. Tetris and Puyo Puyo are both relatively simple puzzle games, whereas Zelda games have complex themes, story arcs, and characters, making them more relatable to people. But BotW isn't inherently more fun as a game than any version of Tetris.
@NEStalgia
What Tetris enthusiast? Nobody would place Tetris as the best game. Unless they just never played other games.
Oh it's fun, but there's a ceiling cap on how fun it can be. I love the game, I got Puyo Puyo, I have no delusions that the game is the best ever made.
Anyone excited for that game more than any other game this year, I would love to meet them.
But the bottom line is just having good "components" of a game doesn't make a game automatically fun. That's ridiculous.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
What Tetris enthusiast? Find me one person who thinks Tetris is better than any other game. It's all fine and well theorize but try to actually find somebody who really actually thinks that and I think you'll see my point.
I swear to you, you will never find one person who is as enthused for Tetris as people were for Zelda.
You find one person who honestly thinks Tetris is that fun and I'll stand corrected. The Internet is a wide-open place- you should have no problem finding these so-called people.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
Look at Mario. Why is it universally regarded as the best platformer?
Mean to tell me in 30 years nobody has made a Platformer with great individual components? Why then aren't those games as popular or highly regarded as Mario? I'll tell you why. Because Mario is more fun. Simple as that.
Not all games are created equal and no two games offer the exact same amount of fun. You could get all the individual aspects of a game right and get the game could still be mediocre because the concept just isn't that entertaining.
And you might find some Joe blow off in the corners of the earth who found some mediocre game to be fantastic, but there's a point where you have to consider those people outliers.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
@Nicolaison
eh, fair enough I guess. I just think that despite personal opinions there are some control schemes that are objectively better for some games. Training yourself to be good at a control scheme that is worse doesn't make it better. I guess I'm just the sort of person who can learn new control schemes fairly quickly.
But I guess that's kinda the point. Some control schemes are objectively better for some games. I could be talking about how KB/Mouse is better for precision aiming while thinking about Doom and Overwatch. Other people might disagree but they're thinking about Geometry Wars and Tomb Raider. When I argue that motion controls can add something to a game I think about Splatoon and Zelda. The person disagreeing with me might be thinking about Wii Sports.
Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
An opinion is only respectable if it can be defended. Respect people, not opinions
@JaxonH I've definitely talked to people who were that passionate about Tetris before. They just don't tend to form vocal online communities because Tetris is relatively simple and there aren't a lot of characters, plots, symbols, etc. to form a meaningful connection with.
An easier game to find passionate supporters of is Puyo Puyo. I'd check on Puyo Nexus if you're curious.
Either way, even if there weren't people that passionate about Tetris, it would be beside the point. Different things are fun to different people. No game possesses a set amount of "fun." If you say "[x] is more fun than [y]," what you really mean is "[x] is more fun to me than [y]."
I definitely know a lot of people who are far more interested in Tetris than Zelda. The real question is how many people do I know that are more interested in Tetris than Mario Kart. Now that's the small group.
Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
An opinion is only respectable if it can be defended. Respect people, not opinions
@Ralizah
No, I get that. I said that in my original post that certain games are for certain people. And just about every type of game there is you can find people that like it.
But that doesn't mean all games are equally fun. Which is why you judge by the intensity of fun each game is capable of producing. There is a direct correlation to the intensity of fun a game brings and the intensity of excitement with which the Fanbase responds.
There are many many many games out there that had good graphics, had good sound, had good everything... and yet are less fun than other games. And it's not something that's easy to judge because there are so many complex factors that play into things such as what other games those people have played to compare to, such as playing too many games of a genre and burning out, just reducing excitement for a game that otherwise should have been received really well, such as an extremely entertaining concept that becomes repetitive quickly... are so many things playing into it.
But "fun factor" is very real indeed. It's why a lot of flawed, 6/10 games are beloved, while other "10/10" games (like Tetris, for example) i'll never in 1 million years have a forum filled with people saying "oh my gosh, did you see that part where the block rotated??? That was AMAZING!!! Best video game I've ever played in my life!!! I'll carry these memories of blocks rotating with me for years to come!!! Still be talking about this amazing experience for years to come !!!"
It just won't happen. Because the intensity of fun the game provide simply cannot compare to other games. Even among the most rabid of puzzle game fans you will never see somebody react like that. But I saw it for Zelda. I see it for Fire Emblem. I saw it for Xenoblade.
It's all opinion. Fun is interpreted. But you can still measure and compare those interpretations.
@skywake
I know people more interested in Tetris than Zelda as well.
But I've never met a soul on this planet who enjoyed Tetris so much they came running, tripping over themselves to tell the world how fun the latest Tetris release was like people do with Zelda.
Preference is to be expected. But the intensity of fun Tetris fans get versus the intensity of fun Zelda fans get is not the same. It's the only way to truly judge how good a game is... the level of excitement seen in the people who play the game is directly correlated to how much fun they had playing it. And that transcends game ratings, it transcends individual game components... it's one of those "it" factors.
@JaxonH
With this particular version of Zelda on this particular platform you're probably right. Breath of the Wild on a portable system is bigger than just a new Zelda game in the way we're used to playing Zelda games. It's the first game of that scale on a system you can put in your bag. It's exciting for more than just Zelda fans.
Tetris on Switch? It's not really doing anything new and it's core audience are a bunch of people who don't really vocalise their fandom on the internet. Not for games anyways. That doesn't mean there's "less fun" for a game of that style. Because people trip over themselves to tell the world about games like Tetris all the time.... just not Tetris itself anymore because everyone already knows about Tetris
Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
An opinion is only respectable if it can be defended. Respect people, not opinions
@skywake
I would prefer to compare to specific games, because I never rule out an entire genre of being capable of providing an amazing experience... even if history has shown otherwise.
But you could pick any other game. Job Simulator. Tales of Berseria. LEGO games. Doesn't matter really. Some games are better than others. Even if you account for the people who really like those particular games... some will be judged better/more entertaining/higher intensity of entertainment than others.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
@JaxonH I'm not sure if you noticed or not but we're not actually disagreeing on much of anything regarding reviews...you're kind of arguing some of my points for me I'm not sure where the Tetris focus came from though?
For Tetris, though, there are absolutely very dedicated, competitive Tetris players. Where those players would say it's their #1 game or not, I don't know, but it would be in the top of their list. There's absolutely an audience for that, and the long lived timelessness of that is an important part of that. Might not be your best. Might not be NL's best. But to Tetris lovers, it sure is. It's not as intricate as Pyuo Puyo, but does that make it less good or less fun?
We don't disagree much on reviews it seems but it seems like you're looking to measure quantifiable fun based on a standard metric....(honestly you're the last person I would think would do that, you're generally open minded on games others would laugh at.) That can't be done. Every game not broken will appeal to some niche. Be it BotW, Tetris, Monopoly Switch Edition, Graceful Explosion, FIFA 18, Mr. Shifty, or the boring broken mess that was Assassin's Creed: Unity. That thing has fans that will swear by it because they like the online collaborative mission structure and the fancy graphics even if the game is still a broken mess. You have to think through the eyes of what kind of thinking WOULD something be fun to? Master of Orion 3 is like playing an Excel Spreadsheet and calling it a game. It's got to be the least fun thing I could ever imagine spending time on. But oh boy it has such adamant fans. 3 was going to be right up their alley! There's always a niche!
"Anyone excited for that game more than any other game this year, I would love to meet them.Anyone excited for that game more than any other game this year, I would love to meet them."
I don't know, Anti-Matter was pretty stoked for that one!
"But the bottom line is just having good "components" of a game doesn't make a game automatically fun. That's ridiculous."
I never said it did. I only said that every game is fun to someone, and that a review should try to think of who might be that group so, if they're reading, they know it may interest them. After all, the point of a review, is to help readers determine if they'd like the game or not.
The other half of that is numeric scoring. That's a WHOLE other mess. I'm just talking about the text of reviews.
@Ralizah Absolutely! (Also absolutely on the description of the press earlier! 100% pin-point spot on. Glad to see at least some folks aren't asleep... You get a gold star! "The past can always be changed. The past has never been changed" )
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