{"id":787,"date":"2011-09-08T12:58:29","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T11:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhing.com\/?p=787"},"modified":"2011-09-08T12:58:29","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T11:58:29","slug":"legitimate-critic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhing.com\/chaotic-tortoise\/2011\/09\/legitimate-critic\/","title":{"rendered":"Legitimate Critic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have a problem whenever I review things.\u00a0 There is an inner monologue that I seem to maintain that repeats the phrase “Who am I to say this?” over and over again driving me into a guilt spiral if I’ve been asked to review something that I deem to be not-very-good.<\/p>\n

As far as I am concerned, the best critics have a deeper understanding of whatever it is they are critiquing.\u00a0 As my field at the moment is predominantly games, I have a wide range of peers to look to for inspiration or despair.\u00a0\u00a0 As an example of a good critic, Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation<\/a> is someone I appreciate not because of his oft hilarious turn of phrase but because I always feel he has a grounding of knowing what he’s talking about.\u00a0 He can be pedantically critical, but that’s the best way to help a medium improve and it is always very clear just how much he loves the games he reviews.\u00a0 Most importantly for me, his understanding has come from his contribution to the Indie games field and he has self published several titles and following his blog will reveal that he often works on several more that never see the light of day due to a mix of inertia, lack of time, or a realisation that the idea was better on paper.<\/p>\n

Other reviewers also tend to read better in my opinion when they have game design experience.\u00a0 The Rock Paper Shotgun<\/a> reviews are always solid because they are also written by people who not only have a passion for games, but also have some experience with designing games or mods.\u00a0 Likewise the Bit-Tech<\/a> reviews (and yes I am a little biased here) are generally good because the guys that write them have dabbled in game design as well.\u00a0 In this day and age, if you are interested enough in games to write about them, it would be crazy if you hadn’t dabbled in a little hobby-coding at some point, even if it’s playing around with a level editor or something.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The same is true outside of games. In the world of film reviews, those that extend beyond a simple star rating tend to be better when they’ve come from someone who has either made a feature film, short film or at least studied the medium in some way beyond going to the cinema a lot.\u00a0 Roger Ebert<\/a> for example always reads well because he has a deeper understanding of all aspects of cinematography as well as a deep passion, and I feel he’s a fantastic critic despite the fact that I actually rarely agree with his overall rating of the film.\u00a0 What he thinks of the film almost doesn’t matter:\u00a0 it’s his deeper understanding of the medium as a whole that comes across and highlights the flaws and successes so much better than most critics.<\/p>\n

On TV, Charlie Brooker<\/a>, reviewer of TV great and awful, is another fantastic critic because of his first hand experience with what he is talking about.\u00a0 As well as the infinitely rewatchable Screenwipe, Newswipe and How TV Ruined Your Life made for the BBC, he’s also had the larger production of Dead Set (an odd combination of Dawn of the Dead and Big Brother) which adds a certain degree of gravitas to his criticism and to everything he produces.\u00a0 Someone in my position would not be able to create the same quality of review because of the sheer inexperience in the field and the lack of prolonged study or investigation of the medium.<\/p>\n

In terms of my fledgling reviewing career, I always feel awful if I’m ever coming out the other side of something having not enjoyed it.\u00a0 I’ve even played a couple of indie titles that I just didn’t think were any good and wrestled with myself over the review which I know is not going to come out well, but with the knowledge that the developers have spent a large investment of time in the project not to mention money and hardship.\u00a0 I’ve been told my reviews aren’t too bad, tend to be well balanced, not sycophantic to the developers and not playing the populist trash talking angle, but I haven’t made games as such as programs that react when you press buttons so I still don’t consider myself a completely valid critic, despite my wealth of knowledge on my subject matter.\u00a0 With my knowledge of programming as flawed as it is with a huge gap between the “learn C++ in 21 days” books and getting something on the screen that’s even remotely useful, who am I to say I found Bioware’s latest sprawling epic RPG a little tiresome?\u00a0 With the spare time I have on my hands at the moment, it is my intention to dive into it a bit more but I have a long way to go before the guilt clears up.<\/p>\n

Obviously all of this is just what I feel about critics, but I think there is a dangerous trend developing at the moment facilitated by the ease of anybody publishing their opinion on the internet to hold up the opinions of the uninformed as completely valid.\u00a0 I’m of the unpopular notion that not everybody’s opinion is valid, due to the fact that some people have such abhorrent and evil ideas about what life should be that rivals any mad despot’s bid to create a master race or dominate all that lie within their remit of responsibility.<\/p>\n

People’s livelihoods and years of people’s creative careers can be trashed by some moron publicly trashing their project despite having no understanding of what went into it and why it is the way that it is.\u00a0 For the most part, these unprofessional reviews don’t gain any traction with right minded individuals, but I’ve started seeing more and more posts on high profile sites that are deliberately antagonistic in order to drive traffic (I’m not going to provide links because that would only fuel the problem, even though I’m sure all five of you reading this would ultimately be a drop in the ocean).<\/p>\n

We need more Eberts, Yahtzees, Brookers and people with understanding to match their passion in this increasingly consumerist world that we live in.\u00a0 We need people to analyse what makes things good and bad and share that with the public that can then decide what to financially support which can then drive better decision making higher up.<\/p>\n

If we get better criticism published, it will mean better projects will be given the go ahead and we might just get less sequels and safe bets that do little more than numb the brain and induce a half-asleep state.\u00a0 In order to have this better criticism, we need better critics and we need to stop listening to those who don’t know what they’re talking about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Additional Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Telling your readership to stop listening to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about I imagine is one of those things that more experienced bloggers might call a “risk”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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