Here are a few thoughts of my own, as someone who liked RDR2 (it’s on my list of last year’s best), on what this conversation is about. Let’s talk about Green Book. It’s a competently made film. The acting is excellent. If not examined closely, it seems to have good values.
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And obviously some (mostly older white people) bought into the notion that it has good values. But it doesn’t. As many film critics feel (and I agree with them), it’s a reprehensible film. A film can be well-made and still be very, very bad.
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But mainstream games criticism, with a few notable exceptions, still doesn’t allow for this. RDR2 is huge. It runs well technically. It has great voice acting, effective writing of its characters. Good “gameplay.” Therefore it’s great. Surely a game as centered on whiteness...
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...and as clumsy in handling some of its themes should have earned some mainstream reviews that dared to call it bad, that challenged the game, pushed back against its perceived greatness, not unlike so many film critics argued that Green Book, despite being well-acted,...
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...well-made and creating a shallow illusion of good politics, was actually terrible. But we don’t have this in games crit. Not in any real way. Why not? If we think about it, I think we all know the answers. They have to do with us being more fans than critics, for one thing.
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I liked RDR2 but I strongly dislike God of War, in spite of it being gorgeous, having satisfying combat, etc. I dislike its story. I hate Kratos. I think the game tries to cover up some very bad gender politics with a weak illusion of psychological and emotional complexity.
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And it’s fine that not everybody agrees with me. But what’s strange is that seemingly nobody in mainstream games criticism agrees with me. Can’t God of War, for all its technical prowess, still be a bad game?
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Replying to @carolynmichelle
call me spicy but I feel like the term "mainstream games criticism" is a misnomer. All the critics I know are struggling just to get by with an article on paste here, waypoint there. not being published on big sites like IGN.
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Replying to @MOOMANiBE
Yes, but there are still staffs at GameSpot, IGN, and other sites that Metacritic tracks, who, intentionally or not, maintain a model of what game reviews should be, how games should be evaluated. And freelancers (who understandably want more work) tend to comply with this model.
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Replying to @carolynmichelle
I guess I'm surprised you're surprised given games journalism has existed in a money vacuum and intense brain drain for basically ever. Like, it's no wonder thoughtful criticism is only done by a tiny subset of people who mostly do it out of passion - no one pays for that.
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I never said I was surprised. I’m dissatisfied and think things can and should be different.
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Replying to @carolynmichelle
I agree with you there. I just wonder what the path is. Ppl have been calling out poor critical standards in games for nearly as long as I've been on this website and it falls on deaf ears. Gamers don't care, EiCs don't care. Who carries that torch?
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